State of Washington | 59th Legislature | 2006 Regular Session |
READ FIRST TIME 02/28/05.
AN ACT Relating to energy efficiency and renewable energy; and adding a new chapter to Title 19 RCW.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1 It is the intent of the legislature to
establish a goal of encouraging the construction and development of new
energy resources in the state of Washington to meet increasing demand
for affordable and reliable electricity. Since electricity supply may
lag behind electricity demand, the result may be a sharp increase in
electricity prices. The legislature finds that it is desirable to
shorten the time it takes to bring new electricity generation to
market. The legislature also recognizes the resulting infrastructure
to get new electricity generation to market may not be available, which
may also lead to more expensive electricity prices. The legislature
intends that information obtained from integrated resource planning
under this chapter will be used to assist in identifying and developing
new energy generation and related infrastructure to meet growing
electricity demand.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 2 The definitions in this section apply
throughout this chapter unless the context clearly requires otherwise.
(1) "Commission" means the Washington state utilities and
transportation commission.
(2) "Consumer-owned utility" includes a municipal electric utility
formed under Title 35 RCW, a public utility district formed under Title
54 RCW, an irrigation district formed under chapter 87.03 RCW, a
cooperative formed under chapter 23.86 RCW, or a mutual corporation or
association formed under chapter 24.06 RCW, that is engaged in the
business of distributing electricity to one or more retail electric
customers in the state.
(3) "Department" means the department of community, trade, and
economic development.
(4) "Electric utility" means a consumer-owned or investor-owned
utility.
(5) "Governing body" means the board of directors, city council,
commissioners, or board of any consumer-owned utility.
(6) "Integrated resource plan" means a plan describing the mix of
generating resources and improvements in the efficient generation,
transmission, distribution, and use of electricity that will meet
current and future needs at the lowest reasonable cost to the utility
and its ratepayers and that complies with the requirements specified in
section 3(1) of this act.
(7) "Resource plan" means a plan that estimates electricity loads
and resources over a defined period of time and complies with the
requirements in section 3(2) of this act.
(8) "Plan" means either an integrated resource plan or a resource
plan.
(9) "Investor-owned utility" means a corporation owned by investors
that meets the definition of electrical company in RCW 80.04.010 and is
engaged in distributing electricity to more than one retail electric
customer in the state.
(10)(a) "Renewable energy" means resources whose common
characteristic is that they are nondepletable or are naturally
replenishable existing or emerging nonfossil fuel energy sources or
technologies, and shall include but not be limited to the following:
(i) Solar photovoltaic or solar thermal electric energy;
(ii) Wind energy;
(iii) Ocean thermal, wave, or tidal energy;
(iv) Fuel cells;
(v) Landfill gas;
(vi) Incremental gains in energy production from capital and
operational improvements in hydroelectric generating facilities;
(vii) Run of river hydropower generation;
(viii) Hydroelectric generation that does not impede the flow in
naturally flowing water;
(ix) Advanced biomass power conversion technologies, such as
gasification using such biomass fuels as wood, agricultural, or food
wastes, energy crops, biogas, biodiesel, or organic refuse-derived
fuel;
(x) Biomass energy using animal waste, solid organic fuels from
wood, forest, or field residues, dedicated energy crops that do not
include wood pieces that have been treated with chemical preservatives
such as creosote, pentachlorophenol, or copper-chrome-arsenic; and
(xi) Lignin in spent pulping liquors.
(b) The following technologies or fuels shall not be considered
renewable energy supplies: Coal, oil, nuclear power, or fuel gases,
excluding fuel gases that are used in a combined heat and power plant
designed to produce both heat and electricity from a single heat
source.
(11) "Full requirements customer" means an electric utility that
relies on the Bonneville power administration for all power needed to
supply its total load requirement other than that served by
nondispatchable generating resources totaling no more than six
megawatts or renewable resources.
(12) "Lowest reasonable cost" means the lowest cost mix of
resources determined through a detailed and consistent analysis of a
wide range of commercially available sources. At a minimum, this
analysis must consider resource cost, market-volatility risks,
demand-side resource uncertainties, resource dispatchability, resource
effect on system operation, the risks imposed on ratepayers, public
policies regarding resource preference adopted by Washington state or
the federal government and the cost of risks associated with
environmental effects including emissions of carbon dioxide.
(13) "Conservation" means any reduction in electric power
consumption that results from increases in the efficiency of energy
use, production, or delivery.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 3 (1) Except as otherwise provided under this
section, utilities with more than twenty-five thousand customers that
are not full requirements customers must develop an integrated resource
plan consistent with the provisions of this section by July 31, 2007.
Such a plan, at a minimum, must include:
(a) A range of forecasts of future customer demand using methods
that examine the effect of economic forces on the consumption of
electricity and that address changes in the number, type, and
efficiency of electrical end-uses;
(b) An assessment of technically feasible and commercially
available efficiency improvements in the generation, delivery, and use
of electricity, including load management and fuel switching, as well
as currently employed and new policies and programs needed to obtain
the efficiency improvements;
(c) An assessment of technically feasible and commercially
available utility scale generating technologies including but not
limited to renewable resources, cogeneration, power purchases, and
thermal resources;
(d) An assessment of transmission system capability and
reliability, to the extent such information can be provided consistent
with applicable laws;
(e) An evaluation comparing the cost-effectiveness of generating
resources with the cost-effectiveness of efficiency improvements in the
delivery and use of electricity;
(f) The integration of the demand forecasts and resource
evaluations into a long-range integrated resource plan describing the
mix of resources and efficiency measures that will meet current and
future needs at the lowest reasonable cost to the utility and
ratepayers;
(g) A short-term plan outlining the specific actions to be taken by
the utility consistent with the long-range integrated resource plan;
and
(h) For all plans subsequent to the initial integrated resource
plan, a progress report that relates the new plan to the previous plan.
(2) All other utilities may elect to develop an integrated resource
plan as set forth in subsection (1) of this section or, at a minimum,
shall develop by July 31, 2007, a resource plan that:
(a) Estimates loads for the next five and ten years;
(b) Enumerates the resources that will be maintained and/or
acquired to serve those loads; and
(c) Explains why the resources in (b) of this subsection were
chosen and, if the resources chosen are not renewable resources or
conservation, why such a decision was made.
(3) In development of a resource plan under subsection (2) of this
section, a utility may use data submitted to federal power marketing
agencies that is equivalent to the data required in this subsection.
(4) Plans developed under this section must be updated on a regular
basis, at a minimum of intervals of three years.
(5) Plans shall not be a basis to bring legal action against
electric utilities.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 4 (1) Investor-owned utilities shall submit
integrated resource plans to the commission. The commission shall
establish by rule the requirements for preparation and submission of
integrated resource plans.
(2) The commission may adopt additional rules as necessary to
clarify the requirements of section 3 of this act as they apply to
investor-owned utilities.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 5 (1) Before conducting or contracting for
work under this chapter, the governing body of each utility shall
approve a work plan that includes public comment opportunities. Only
after complying with its adopted work plan may a governing body approve
a proposed plan. Upon approval of its governing board, each
consumer-owned utility required to develop a plan shall publish a final
plan either as part of an annual report or as a separate document
available to the public.
(2) Each consumer-owned utility required to develop a plan shall
transmit a copy of its plan to the department by December 31, 2007, and
transmit subsequent plans to the department at least every three years
thereafter. The department shall develop, in consultation with
utilities, a common cover sheet that summarizes the essential data in
their plans.
(3) Consumer-owned utilities may develop plans jointly with other
consumer-owned utilities. Data and assessments included in joint
reports must be identifiable to each individual utility.
(4) Consumer-owned utilities are encouraged to use resource
planning concepts, techniques, and information provided to and by other
state, regional, national, and binational entities in developing their
plans.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 6 The department shall review the plans of
consumer and investor-owned utilities and prepare an electronic report
to the legislature that aggregates the data submitted by all utilities,
summarizes at a statewide level the resource choices and dates
specified in the plans. The commission shall provide the department
with data summarizing the plans of investor-owned utilities for use in
the department's statewide summary. Individual utility plans will be
provided to the legislature. The report shall include a statewide
summary of utility load forecasts, load/resource balance, and utility
plans for the development of thermal generation, renewable resources,
and efficiency resources. The department shall submit the initial
report by June 30, 2008, and subsequent reports every three years
thereafter. Where appropriate, the department may include reports
required by this section within the biennial report required under RCW
43.21F.045.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 7 Sections 1 through 6 of this act constitute
a new chapter in Title