On Tuesday, June 18th, RCRC weighed in on a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Staff Proposal to improve the energy distribution planning and project execution processes for investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to accommodate the anticipated increase in load growth from Distributed Energy Resources (DER). RCRC has heard from numerous counties regarding unreasonable utility delays in connecting new residential, commercial, and industrial development to the grid, as well as years-long delays with improving distribution systems for additional energy capacity to support normal growth and facilitate economic development. The Staff Proposal integrates recent RCRC-supported legislation—AB 50 (Wood) and SB 410 (Becker) from 2023—to improve utility distribution planning processes.
Key objectives of the Staff Proposal include: proactive distribution planning; incorporating new “bottom-up” data and flexibility (such as allowing utilities to use known load data to determine growth in distribution planning reports); improve forecasting; and improved coordination as well as data sharing with a variety of stakeholders. RCRC supports a more responsive, forward-looking distribution planning and execution framework to balance timely energization needs and power sources with ratepayer affordability. RCRC’s comments can be viewed here.
For more information, contact RCRC Senior Policy Advocate John Kennedy, or RCRC Policy Advocate Leigh Kammerich.