(1) The legislature finds that combined heat and power systems provide both energy and capacity resources. Failure to assess the electric output of combined heat and power systems as both an energy and a capacity resource may result in a failure to account for the total benefits of that output in its posted price.
(2) Electric utilities with over twenty-five thousand customers in the state of Washington must value, pursuant to RCW
19.280.030, combined heat and power as having both energy and capacity value by December 31, 2016, for the purposes of setting the value of power under the federal public utility regulatory policies act, establishing rates for power purchase agreements, and integrated resource planning only if an assessment of combined heat and power identifies opportunities for combined heat and power that are dispatchable and that may provide capacity value.