SB0693 97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

LRB097 04950 ASK 44990 b

97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
State of Illinois
2011 and 2012
SB0693

Introduced 2/8/2011, by Sen. John J. Cullerton

SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:

220 ILCS 5/16-108

Amends the Public Utilities Act. Makes a technical change in a Section concerning recovery of costs associated with the provision of delivery services.

A BILL FOR

AN ACT concerning regulation.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:

Section 5. The Public Utilities Act is amended by changing Section 16-108 as follows:

(220 ILCS 5/16-108)

Sec. 16-108. Recovery of costs associated with the the provision of delivery services.

(a) An electric utility shall file a delivery services tariff with the Commission at least 210 days prior to the date that it is required to begin offering such services pursuant to this Act. An electric utility shall provide the components of delivery services that are subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the same prices, terms and conditions set forth in its applicable tariff as approved or allowed into effect by that Commission. The Commission shall otherwise have the authority pursuant to Article IX to review, approve, and modify the prices, terms and conditions of those components of delivery services not subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, including the authority to determine the extent to which such delivery services should be offered on an unbundled basis. In making any such determination the Commission shall consider, at a minimum, the effect of additional unbundling on (i) the objective of just and reasonable rates, (ii) electric utility employees, and (iii) the development of competitive markets for electric energy services in Illinois.

(b) The Commission shall enter an order approving, or approving as modified, the delivery services tariff no later than 30 days prior to the date on which the electric utility must commence offering such services. The Commission may subsequently modify such tariff pursuant to this Act.

(c) The electric utility's tariffs shall define the classes of its customers for purposes of delivery services charges. Delivery services shall be priced and made available to all retail customers electing delivery services in each such class on a nondiscriminatory basis regardless of whether the retail customer chooses the electric utility, an affiliate of the electric utility, or another entity as its supplier of electric power and energy. Charges for delivery services shall be cost based, and shall allow the electric utility to recover the costs of providing delivery services through its charges to its delivery service customers that use the facilities and services associated with such costs. Such costs shall include the costs of owning, operating and maintaining transmission and distribution facilities. The Commission shall also be authorized to consider whether, and if so to what extent, the following costs are appropriately included in the electric utility's delivery services rates: (i) the costs of that portion of generation facilities used for the production and absorption of reactive power in order that retail customers located in the electric utility's service area can receive electric power and energy from suppliers other than the electric utility, and (ii) the costs associated with the use and redispatch of generation facilities to mitigate constraints on the transmission or distribution system in order that retail customers located in the electric utility's service area can receive electric power and energy from suppliers other than the electric utility. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed as directing the Commission to allocate any of the costs described in (i) or (ii) that are found to be appropriately included in the electric utility's delivery services rates to any particular customer group or geographic area in setting delivery services rates.

(d) The Commission shall establish charges, terms and conditions for delivery services that are just and reasonable and shall take into account customer impacts when establishing such charges. In establishing charges, terms and conditions for delivery services, the Commission shall take into account voltage level differences. A retail customer shall have the option to request to purchase electric service at any delivery service voltage reasonably and technically feasible from the electric facilities serving that customer's premises provided that there are no significant adverse impacts upon system reliability or system efficiency. A retail customer shall also have the option to request to purchase electric service at any point of delivery that is reasonably and technically feasible provided that there are no significant adverse impacts on system reliability or efficiency. Such requests shall not be unreasonably denied.

(e) Electric utilities shall recover the costs of installing, operating or maintaining facilities for the particular benefit of one or more delivery services customers, including without limitation any costs incurred in complying with a customer's request to be served at a different voltage level, directly from the retail customer or customers for whose benefit the costs were incurred, to the extent such costs are not recovered through the charges referred to in subsections (c) and (d) of this Section.

(f) An electric utility shall be entitled but not required to implement transition charges in conjunction with the offering of delivery services pursuant to Section 16-104. If an electric utility implements transition charges, it shall implement such charges for all delivery services customers and for all customers described in subsection (h), but shall not implement transition charges for power and energy that a retail customer takes from cogeneration or self-generation facilities located on that retail customer's premises, if such facilities meet the following criteria:

(i) the cogeneration or self-generation facilities serve a single retail customer and are located on that retail customer's premises (for purposes of this subparagraph and subparagraph (ii), an industrial or manufacturing retail customer and a third party contractor that is served by such industrial or manufacturing customer through such retail customer's own electrical distribution facilities under the circumstances described in subsection (vi) of the definition of "alternative retail electric supplier" set forth in Section 16-102, shall be considered a single retail customer);

(ii) the cogeneration or self-generation facilities either (A) are sized pursuant to generally accepted engineering standards for the retail customer's electrical load at that premises (taking into account standby or other reliability considerations related to that retail customer's operations at that site) or (B) if the facility is a cogeneration facility located on the retail customer's premises, the retail customer is the thermal host for that facility and the facility has been designed to meet that retail customer's thermal energy requirements resulting in electrical output beyond that retail customer's electrical demand at that premises, comply with the operating and efficiency standards applicable to "qualifying facilities" specified in title 18 Code of Federal Regulations Section 292.205 as in effect on the effective date of this amendatory Act of 1999;

(iii) the retail customer on whose premises the facilities are located either has an exclusive right to receive, and corresponding obligation to pay for, all of the electrical capacity of the facility, or in the case of a cogeneration facility that has been designed to meet the retail customer's thermal energy requirements at that premises, an identified amount of the electrical capacity of the facility, over a minimum 5-year period; and

(iv) if the cogeneration facility is sized for the retail customer's thermal load at that premises but exceeds the electrical load, any sales of excess power or energy are made only at wholesale, are subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and are not for the purpose of circumventing the provisions of this subsection (f).

If a generation facility located at a retail customer's premises does not meet the above criteria, an electric utility implementing transition charges shall implement a transition charge until December 31, 2006 for any power and energy taken by such retail customer from such facility as if such power and energy had been delivered by the electric utility. Provided, however, that an industrial retail customer that is taking power from a generation facility that does not meet the above criteria but that is located on such customer's premises will not be subject to a transition charge for the power and energy taken by such retail customer from such generation facility if the facility does not serve any other retail customer and either was installed on behalf of the customer and for its own use prior to January 1, 1997, or is both predominantly fueled by byproducts of such customer's manufacturing process at such premises and sells or offers an average of 300 megawatts or more of electricity produced from such generation facility into the wholesale market. Such charges shall be calculated as provided in Section 16-102, and shall be collected on each kilowatt-hour delivered under a delivery services tariff to a retail customer from the date the customer first takes delivery services until December 31, 2006 except as provided in subsection (h) of this Section. Provided, however, that an electric utility, other than an electric utility providing service to at least 1,000,000 customers in this State on January 1, 1999, shall be entitled to petition for entry of an order by the Commission authorizing the electric utility to implement transition charges for an additional period ending no later than December 31, 2008. The electric utility shall file its petition with supporting evidence no earlier than 16 months, and no later than 12 months, prior to December 31, 2006. The Commission shall hold a hearing on the electric utility's petition and shall enter its order no later than 8 months after the petition is filed. The Commission shall determine whether and to what extent the electric utility shall be authorized to implement transition charges for an additional period. The Commission may authorize the electric utility to implement transition charges for some or all of the additional period, and shall determine the mitigation factors to be used in implementing such transition charges; provided, that the Commission shall not authorize mitigation factors less than 110% of those in effect during the 12 months ended December 31, 2006. In making its determination, the Commission shall consider the following factors: the necessity to implement transition charges for an additional period in order to maintain the financial integrity of the electric utility; the prudence of the electric utility's actions in reducing its costs since the effective date of this amendatory Act of 1997; the ability of the electric utility to provide safe, adequate and reliable service to retail customers in its service area; and the impact on competition of allowing the electric utility to implement transition charges for the additional period.

(g) The electric utility shall file tariffs that establish the transition charges to be paid by each class of customers to the electric utility in conjunction with the provision of delivery services. The electric utility's tariffs shall define the classes of its customers for purposes of calculating transition charges. The electric utility's tariffs shall provide for the calculation of transition charges on a customer-specific basis for any retail customer whose average monthly maximum electrical demand on the electric utility's system during the 6 months with the customer's highest monthly maximum electrical demands equals or exceeds 3.0 megawatts for electric utilities having more than 1,000,000 customers, and for other electric utilities for any customer that has an average monthly maximum electrical demand on the electric utility's system of one megawatt or more, and (A) for which there exists data on the customer's usage during the 3 years preceding the date that the customer became eligible to take delivery services, or (B) for which there does not exist data on the customer's usage during the 3 years preceding the date that the customer became eligible to take delivery services, if in the electric utility's reasonable judgment there exists comparable usage information or a sufficient basis to develop such information, and further provided that the electric utility can require customers for which an individual calculation is made to sign contracts that set forth the transition charges to be paid by the customer to the electric utility pursuant to the tariff.

(h) An electric utility shall also be entitled to file tariffs that allow it to collect transition charges from retail customers in the electric utility's service area that do not take delivery services but that take electric power or energy from an alternative retail electric supplier or from an electric utility other than the electric utility in whose service area the customer is located. Such charges shall be calculated, in accordance with the definition of transition charges in Section 16-102, for the period of time that the customer would be obligated to pay transition charges if it were taking delivery services, except that no deduction for delivery services revenues shall be made in such calculation, and usage data from the customer's class shall be used where historical usage data is not available for the individual customer. The customer shall be obligated to pay such charges on a lump sum basis on or before the date on which the customer commences to take service from the alternative retail electric supplier or other electric utility, provided, that the electric utility in whose service area the customer is located shall offer the customer the option of signing a contract pursuant to which the customer pays such charges ratably over the period in which the charges would otherwise have applied.

(i) An electric utility shall be entitled to add to the bills of delivery services customers charges pursuant to Sections 9-221, 9-222 (except as provided in Section 9-222.1), and Section 16-114 of this Act, Section 5-5 of the Electricity Infrastructure Maintenance Fee Law, Section 6-5 of the Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, and Coal Resources Development Law of 1997, and Section 13 of the Energy Assistance Act.

(j) If a retail customer that obtains electric power and energy from cogeneration or self-generation facilities installed for its own use on or before January 1, 1997, subsequently takes service from an alternative retail electric supplier or an electric utility other than the electric utility in whose service area the customer is located for any portion of the customer's electric power and energy requirements formerly obtained from those facilities (including that amount purchased from the utility in lieu of such generation and not as standby power purchases, under a cogeneration displacement tariff in effect as of the effective date of this amendatory Act of 1997), the transition charges otherwise applicable pursuant to subsections (f), (g), or (h) of this Section shall not be applicable in any year to that portion of the customer's electric power and energy requirements formerly obtained from those facilities, provided, that for purposes of this subsection (j), such portion shall not exceed the average number of kilowatt-hours per year obtained from the cogeneration or self-generation facilities during the 3 years prior to the date on which the customer became eligible for delivery services, except as provided in subsection (f) of Section 16-110.

(Source: P.A. 91-50, eff. 6-30-99; 92-690, eff. 7-18-02.)