Review and Coordination of Interruptible/Demand Responsiveness Programs Offered by the Utilities, the ISO, and Others

The Commission intends to use this Rulemaking to coordinate the operation of all of the various programs being offered to ensure that duplication is minimized, ratepayers benefit, and reliability is increased. The Commission will also use this Rulemaking to determine the respective roles of the Commission and the ISO to operate and offer demand responsiveness and curtailable programs. To ensure coordination, the requests of Edison in Advice Letter 1457-E and of PG&E in Advice Letter 2008-E to allow interruptible customers to participate in the ISO's Ancillary Services Market are now consolidated into this proceeding. The Commission will address these Advice Letters either in this proceeding or through Commission Resolution. Edison and PG&E should also file in this proceeding all of the reports required of them in Resolution E-3650 regarding the operation of their respective demand responsiveness programs. This proceeding will serve as the forum for Edison and/or PG&E to if they seek to extend their demand responsiveness programs for the Summer of 2001.

As the Commission concluded in Resolution E-3689:

The ISO notes that its EDR and Ancillary Services Load programs are quite likely competing for the same load. Reopening of Edison's interruptible tariff to new customers is likely to take away some customers who otherwise would have participated in these programs. While a variety of programs might increase overall participation, it appears that many of these programs may just be signing up customers from other programs. The overall cost to ratepayers, and effect on system reliability, is unclear. As more programs develop, the ability of either the Commission or the ISO to prevent customers from receiving more than one payment for the same reduced load becomes more difficult.