Source: http://www.wvlegislature.gov/bill_status/bills_text.cfm?billdoc=SB297%20SUB2%20eng.htm&yr=2009&sesstype=RS&i=297
Timestamp: 2018-04-26 15:49:08
Document Index: 715037776

Matched Legal Cases: ['§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§35', '§35', '§35', '§24', '§24', '§24', '§24']

Engrossed Version Senate Bill 297 History
SB297 SUB2 eng
A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new article, designated §24-2F-1, §24-2F-2, §24-2F-3, §24-2F-4, §24-2F-5, §24-2F-6, §24-2F-7, §24-2F-8, §24-2F-9, §24-2F-10, §24-2F-11, §24-2F-12, §24-2F-13 and §24- 2F-14, all relating to an alternative and renewable energy portfolio standard; setting forth legislative findings; defining terms; establishing standards for the sale of electricity generated from alternative and renewable energy resources; providing for compliance assessments; creating a system of tradeable alternative and renewable energy resource credits; providing for the awarding of credits based upon electricity generated from alternative and renewable energy resource facilities; providing for the awarding of credits for certain greenhouse emissions reduction and offset projects; providing for the awarding of credits for certain energy efficiency and demand-side energy initiative projects; requiring application to the Public Service Commission for approval of alternative and renewable energy portfolio standard compliance plans; setting forth minimum requirements for compliance plan applications; requiring Public Service Commission approval of compliance plan applications; requiring annual progress reports; providing for incentive rate making for investments in new alternative and renewable energy resource facilities in West Virginia; requiring the Public Service Commission to adopt certain net metering and interconnection rules and standards; authorizing the Public Service Commission to enter into interagency agreements to meet its requirements under this article; requiring an ongoing assessment of alternative and renewable energy resources in West Virginia; authorizing Public Service Commission to adopt portfolio standards for certain electric cooperatives and other electric facilities or utilities; establishing the Alternative and Renewable Energy Resources Research Fund; providing for the awarding of matching grants for certain research projects; declaring severability; authorizing the Public Service Commission to promulgate rules; and providing sunset date.
That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new article, designated §24-2F-1, §24-2F-2, §24-2F-3, §24-2F-4, §24-2F-5, §24-2F-6, §24-2F-7, §24-2F-8, §24-2F-9, §24-2F-10, §24-2F-11, §24-2F-12, §24-2F-13 and §24-2F-14, all to read as follows:
(1) West Virginia has served the nation for many years as a reliable source of electrical power.
(2) The nation is on a rapid course of action to produce electrical power with an ever decreasing amount of emissions.
(3) To continue lowering the emissions associated with electrical production, and to expand the state's economic base, West Virginia should encourage the development of more efficient, lower-emitting and reasonably priced alternative and renewable energy resources.
(4) The development of a robust and diverse portfolio of electric-generating capacity is needed for West Virginia to continue its success in attracting new businesses and jobs. This portfolio must include the use of alternative and renewable energy resources at new and existing facilities.
(5) West Virginia has considerable natural resources that could support the development of alternative and renewable energy resource facilities at a reasonable price.
(6) Alternative and renewable energy resources can be utilized now to meet state and federal environmental standards, including those reasonably anticipated to be mandated in the future.
(a) "Advanced coal technology" means a technology that is used in a new or existing energy generating facility to reduce airborne carbon emissions associated with the combustion or use of coal and includes, without limitation, carbon dioxide capture and sequestration technology, ultra-supercritical technology and pressurized fluidized bed technology.
(b) "Alternative and renewable energy portfolio standard" or "portfolio standard" means a requirement in any given year that requires an electric utility to own credits in an amount equal to a certain percentage of electric energy sold in the preceding calendar year by the electric utility to retail customers in this state.
(c) "Alternative energy resources" means any of the following resources, methods or technologies for the production or generation of electricity:
(d) "Alternative and renewable energy resource credit" or "credit" means a tradable instrument that is used to establish, verify and monitor the generation of electricity from alternative and renewable energy resource facilities, energy efficiency or demand-side energy initiative projects or greenhouse gas emission reduction or offset projects.
(e) "Alternative energy resource facility" means a facility or equipment that generates electricity from alternative energy resources.
(f) "Commission" or "Public Service Commission" means the Public Service Commission of West Virginia as continued pursuant to section three, article one of this chapter.
(g) "Customer-generator" means an electric retail customer who owns and operates a customer-sited generation project utilizing alternative or renewable energy resource or a net metering system in this state.
(h) "Electric utility" means any electric distribution company or electric generation supplier that sells electricity to retail customers in this state. Unless specifically provided for otherwise, for the purposes of this article, the term "electric utility" shall not include rural electric cooperatives, municipally-owned electric facilities or utilities serving less than thirty thousand residential electric customers in West Virginia.
(i) "Energy efficiency or demand-side energy initiative project" means a project in this state that promotes customer energy efficiency or the management of customer consumption of electricity through the implementation of:
(1) Energy efficiency technologies, equipment, management practices or other strategies utilized by residential, commercial, industrial, institutional or government customers that reduce electricity consumption by those customers;
(2) Load management or demand response technologies, equipment, management practices, interruptible or curtailable tariffs, energy storage devices or other strategies in residential, commercial, industrial, institutional and government customers that shift electric load from periods of higher demand to periods of lower demand;
(3) Industrial by-product technologies consisting of the use of a by-product from an industrial process, including, but not limited to, the reuse of energy from exhaust gases or other manufacturing by-products that can be used in the direct production of electricity at the customer's facility;
(4) Customer-sited generation, demand-response, energy efficiency or peak demand reduction capabilities, whether new or existing, that the customer commits for integration into the electric utility's demand-response, energy efficiency or peak demand reduction programs; or
(5) Infrastructure and modernization projects that help promote energy efficiency, reduce energy losses or shift load from periods of higher demand to periods of lower demand, including the modernization of metering and communications (i.e., smart grid), distribution automation, energy storage, distributed energy resources and investments to promote the electrification of transportation.
(j) "Greenhouse gas emission reduction or offset project" means a project to reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions from sources in this state other than the electric utility's own generating and energy delivery operations. Greenhouse gas emission reduction or offset projects include, but are not limited to:
(1) Methane capture and destruction from landfills, coal mines or farms;
(2) Forestation, afforestation or reforestation; and
(3) Nitrous oxide or carbon dioxide sequestration through reduced fertilizer use or no-till farming.
(k) "Net metering" means measuring the difference between electricity supplied by an electric utility and electricity generated from an alternative or renewable energy resource facility owned or operated by an electric retail customer when any portion of the electricity generated from the alternative or renewable energy resource facility is used to offset part or all of the electric retail customer's requirements for electricity.
(l) "Reclaimed surface mine" means a surface mine, as that term is defined in section three, article three, chapter twenty-two of this code, that is reclaimed or is being reclaimed in accordance with state or federal law.
(m) "Renewable energy resource" means any of the following resources, methods, projects or technologies for the production or generation of electricity:
(1) Solar photovoltaic or other solar electric energy;
(2) Solar thermal energy;
(3) Wind power;
(4) Run of river hydropower;
(5) Geothermal energy, which means a technology by which electricity is produced by extracting hot water or steam from geothermal reserves in the earth's crust to power steam turbines that drive generators to produce electricity;
(6) Biomass energy, which means a technology by which electricity is produced from a nonhazardous organic material that is available on a renewable or recurring basis;
(7) Biologically derived fuel including methane gas, ethanol not produced from corn or biodiesel fuel;
(8) Fuel cell technology, which means any electrochemical device that converts chemical energy in a hydrogen-rich fuel directly into electricity, heat and water without combustion;
(9) Recycled energy, which means useful thermal, mechanical or electrical energy produced from: (A) exhaust heat from any commercial or industrial process; (B) waste gas, waste fuel or other forms of energy that would otherwise be flared, incinerated, disposed of or vented; and (C) electricity or equivalent mechanical energy extracted from a pressure drop in any gas (excluding any pressure drop to a condenser that subsequently vents the resulting heat).
(10) Any other resource, method, project or technology certified by the commission as a renewable energy resource.
(n) "Renewable energy resource facility" means a facility or equipment that generates electricity from renewable energy resources.
(o) "Waste coal" means a technology by which electricity is produced by the combustion of the by-product, waste or residue created from processing coal (e.g., gob).
(a) Credits established. -- The Public Service Commission shall establish a system of tradeable credits to establish, verify and monitor the generation and sale of electricity generated from alternative and renewable energy resource facilities. The credits may be traded, sold or used to meet the portfolio standards established in section five of this article.
(1) An electric utility shall be awarded one credit for each megawatt hour of electricity generated or purchased from an alternative energy resource facility located within the geographical boundaries of this state or located outside of the geographical boundaries of this state but within the service territory of a regional transmission organization, as that term is defined in 18 C. F. R. §35.34, that manages the transmission system in any part of this state;
(2) An electric utility shall be awarded two credits for each megawatt hour of electricity generated or purchased from a renewable energy resource facility located within the geographical boundaries of this state or located outside of the geographical boundaries of this state but within the service territory of a regional transmission organization, as that term is defined in 18 C. F. R. §35.34, that manages the transmission system in any part of this state;
(2) The commission shall consult and coordinate with the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection to verify and certify greenhouse gas emission reduction projects. The Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection shall provide assistance and information to the Public Service Commission and may enter into interagency agreements with the commission to effectuate the purposes of this subsection.
(a) General rule. -- Each electric utility doing business in this state shall be required to meet the alternative and renewable energy portfolio standards set forth in this section. In order to meet these standards, an electric utility shall each year own an amount of credits equal to a certain percentage of electricity, as set forth in subsections (c) and (d) of this section, sold by the electric utility in the preceding year to retail customers in West Virginia.
(A) $50 multiplied by the number of additional credits that would be needed to meet an alternative and renewable energy portfolio standard in a given year; or
(2) The commission may provide in rules for the imposition of compliance assessments that exceed the minimum amounts for compliance assessments in subdivision (1) of this subsection if the commission determines that the minimum amounts of the compliance assessments is insufficient to accomplish the purposes of this article.
(3) Compliance assessments collected by the commission pursuant to this subsection shall be deposited into the Alternative and Renewable Energy Resources Research Fund established in section eleven of this article.
(4) Commission modification of an electric utility's portfolio standard requirements shall apply only to the portfolio standard in the year or years modified by the commission. Commission modification shall not automatically reduce an electric utility's alternative and renewable energy portfolio standard requirements in future years.
(7) If an electric utility is subject to an alternative energy, advanced energy, renewable energy or similar energy portfolio standard in any other state, a list of any such requirements and a description of how the electric utility satisfied those requirements; and
(c) Upon the filing of an application for approval of a portfolio standard compliance plan, and after hearing and proper notice, the commission may, in its discretion, approve or disapprove, or approve in part or disapprove in part, such application: Provided, That the commission, after it gives proper notice and if no protest is received within thirty days after the notice is given, may waive formal hearing on the application. Notice shall be published as a Class I legal advertisement in compliance with the provisions of article three, chapter fifty-nine of this code, and shall be given in a manner and in such form as may be prescribed by the commission.
(k) The commission shall impose a special assessment on all electric utilities required to file a compliance plan. The special assessment shall not exceed $200,000 in the first year following the effective date of this article and shall not exceed $100,000 in successive years. The assessments shall be prorated among the covered electric utilities on the basis of kilowatt hours of retail sales in West Virginia and shall be due and payable on September 1 of each year. The funds generated from the special assessment shall be used to offset all reasonable direct and indirect costs incurred by the commission in administering the provisions of this article.
(a) The commission shall adopt a rule requiring all electric utilities to provide a rebate or discount at fair value, to be determined by the commission, to customer-generators for any electricity generation that is delivered to the utility under a net metering arrangement.
(c) The commission shall institute a general investigation for the purpose of adopting rules pertaining to net metering and the interconnection of eligible electric generating facilities intended to operate in parallel with an electric utility's system. As part of its investigation, the commission shall take into consideration rules of other states within the applicable region of the regional transmission organization, as that term is defined in 18 C. F. R. §35.34, that manages a utility's transmission system in any part of this state. Furthermore, the commission shall consider increasing the allowed kilowatt capacity for commercial customer-generators to an amount not to exceed five hundred kilowatts and for industrial customer-generators to an amount not to exceed two megawatts. The commission shall further consider interconnection standards for combined heat and power.
(d) The commission shall develop these rules within twelve months of the effective date of this article.
(b) Alternative and renewable energy resource planning assessment. -- The commission, in cooperation with the Department of Environmental Protection and the Division of Energy, shall conduct an ongoing alternative and renewable energy resource planning assessment for this state that shall, at a minimum: (i) Identify current and operating alternative and renewable energy resource facilities in this state; (ii) assess the potential to add future generating capacity in this state from alternative and renewable energy resource facilities; (iii) assess the conditions of the alternative and renewable energy resource marketplace, including costs associated with alternative and renewable energy; (iv) recommend methods to maintain or increase the relative competitiveness of the alternative and renewable energy resource market in this state; and (v) recommend to the Legislature additional compliance goals for alternative and renewable energy portfolio standards beyond 2025. The commission shall report the initial results of its assessment to the Governor, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Delegates within three years of the effective date of this article and shall report the ongoing results of the assessment on a yearly basis thereafter, except that on or before January 1, 2012, the commission, in collaboration with the Public Energy Authority, shall report the initial results of its assessment to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance.
§24-2F-10. Portfolio requirements for rural electric cooperatives, municipally owned electric facilities or utilities serving less than thirty thousand residential electric customers in West Virginia.
(b) As part of its investigation, the commission may consider, without limitation, adopting voluntary alternative and renewable portfolio standards and energy efficiency and demand-side energy initiative standards for rural electric cooperatives, municipally owned electric facilities or utilities serving less than thirty thousand residential electric customers in this state.
(a) There is hereby established in the State Treasury a special revolving fund to be jointly administered by the Public Service Commission and the Division of Energy which shall be designated the Alternative and Renewable Energy Resources Research Fund. Moneys in the fund shall be used to award matching grants for demonstration, commercialization, research and development projects relating to alternative and renewable energy resources and energy efficiency technologies.
(c) Within a year of the effective date of this article, the Public Service Commission shall cooperate with electric distribution companies and electric generation suppliers to establish a program to solicit voluntary contributions to the fund from private entities and electric customers. The program may provide for the collecting and accounting of contributions from electric customers including, but not limited to, the collection of donations in conjunction with the standard monthly billing of an electric distribution company or electric generation supplier.
(d) Any donations to the fund collected by an electric generation supplier or electric distribution company shall be forwarded to the Public Service Commission and the commission shall deposit such moneys in the fund.
(e) The Division of Energy shall provide for the distribution of moneys from the fund in the form of matching grants to state institutions of higher education for demonstration, commercialization, research and development projects relating to alternative and renewable energy resources and energy efficiency technologies. The Division of Energy shall consult with and receive recommendations from the Public Energy Authority, the Economic Development Authority and the Department of Environmental Protection to establish eligibility criteria for the awarding of grant moneys under this section. The Division of Energy may update said criteria as necessary to comply with the requirements of this section.
(f) Within two years of the effective date of this section, and each year thereafter, the Division of Energy shall file a report with the Governor, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Delegates containing, at a minimum: (i) A description of all actions taken by the Division of Energy pursuant to this section; (ii) an accounting of total deposits into and expenditures from the fund during the previous twelve months; and (iii) a description of any projects that received a distribution from the fund during the preceding twelve months, including the projects' objectives, current status and results, if any.
§24-2F-12. Severability.
If any provision of this article, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance, is found by a court of law to be unconstitutional or otherwise invalid, such unconstitutionality or invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications of this article and, to this end, the provisions of this article are declared to be severable.
§24-2F-13. Rule-making authority.
§24-2F-14. Termination date.
The commission shall terminate on June 30, 2012, pursuant to the provisions of article ten, chapter four of this code.