Source: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=19.280&full=true
Timestamp: 2020-05-24 23:02:07
Document Index: 7783432

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 14', '§ 9', '§ 3', '§ 305', '§ 3', '§ 4', '§ 10', '§ 4', '§ 6', '§ 6', '§ 11', '§ 1']

RCWs > Title 19 > Chapter 19.280
Chapter 19.280 RCW
ELECTRIC UTILITY RESOURCE PLANS
19.280.010 Intent—Finding.
19.280.020 Definitions.
19.280.030 Development of a resource plan—Requirements of a resource plan—Clean energy action plan.
19.280.040 Investor-owned utilities submit integrated resource plans to the commission—Rules.
19.280.050 Consumer-owned utilities.
19.280.060 Department's duties—Report to the legislature.
19.280.070 Combined heat and power systems—Valuation—Assessment.
19.280.080 Combined heat and power systems—Power purchase agreements.
19.280.090 Combined heat and power systems—Report to the legislature.
19.280.100 Distributed energy resources planning.
RCW 19.280.010
It is the intent of the legislature to encourage the development of new safe, clean, and reliable energy resources to meet demand in Washington for affordable and reliable electricity. To achieve this end, the legislature finds it essential that electric utilities in Washington develop comprehensive resource plans that explain the mix of generation and demand-side resources they plan to use to meet their customers' electricity needs in both the short term and the long term. The legislature intends that information obtained from integrated resource planning under this chapter will be used to assist in identifying and developing: (1) New energy generation; (2) conservation and efficiency resources; (3) methods, commercially available technologies, and facilities for integrating renewable resources, including addressing any overgeneration event; and (4) related infrastructure to meet the state's electricity needs.
[ 2013 c 149 § 1; 2006 c 195 § 1.]
RCW 19.280.030
Development of a resource plan—Requirements of a resource plan—Clean energy action plan.
(i) An identification of an appropriate resource adequacy requirement and measurement metric consistent with prudent utility practice in implementing RCW 19.405.030 through 19.405.050;
(j) The integration of the demand forecasts, resource evaluations, and resource adequacy requirement into a long-range assessment describing the mix of supply side generating resources and conservation and efficiency resources that will meet current and projected needs, including mitigating overgeneration events and implementing RCW 19.405.030 through 19.405.050, at the lowest reasonable cost and risk to the utility and its customers, while maintaining and protecting the safety, reliable operation, and balancing of its electric system;
(k) An assessment, informed by the cumulative impact analysis conducted under RCW 19.405.140, of: Energy and nonenergy benefits and reductions of burdens to vulnerable populations and highly impacted communities; long-term and short-term public health and environmental benefits, costs, and risks; and energy security and risk; and
(l) A ten-year clean energy action plan for implementing RCW 19.405.030 through 19.405.050 at the lowest reasonable cost, and at an acceptable resource adequacy standard, that identifies the specific actions to be taken by the utility consistent with the long-range integrated resource plan.
(2) For an investor-owned utility, the clean energy action plan must: (a) Identify and be informed by the utility's ten-year cost-effective conservation potential assessment as determined under RCW 19.285.040, if applicable; (b) establish a resource adequacy requirement; (c) identify the potential cost-effective demand response and load management programs that may be acquired; (d) identify renewable resources, nonemitting electric generation, and distributed energy resources that may be acquired and evaluate how each identified resource may be expected to contribute to meeting the utility's resource adequacy requirement; (e) identify any need to develop new, or expand or upgrade existing, bulk transmission and distribution facilities; and (f) identify the nature and possible extent to which the utility may need to rely on alternative compliance options under RCW 19.405.040(1)(b), if appropriate.
(3)(a) An electric utility shall consider the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions, as determined by the commission for investor-owned utilities pursuant to RCW 80.28.405 and the department for consumer-owned utilities, when developing integrated resource plans and clean energy action plans. An electric utility must incorporate the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions as a cost adder when:
(4) To facilitate broad, equitable, and efficient implementation of chapter 288, Laws of 2019, a consumer-owned energy utility may enter into an agreement with a joint operating agency organized under chapter 43.52 RCW or other nonprofit organization to develop and implement a joint clean energy action plan in collaboration with other utilities.
(b) Enumerates the resources that will be maintained and/or acquired to serve those loads;
(d) By December 31, 2020, and in every resource plan thereafter, identifies how the utility plans over a ten-year period to implement RCW 19.405.040 and 19.405.050.
(6) Assessments for demand side resources included in an integrated resource plan may include combined heat and power systems as one of the measures in a conservation supply curve. The value of recoverable waste heat resulting from combined heat and power must be reflected in analyses of cost-effectiveness under this subsection.
(7) An electric utility that is required to develop a resource plan under this section must complete its initial plan by September 1, 2008.
(8) Plans developed under this section must be updated on a regular basis, on intervals approved by the commission or the department, or at a minimum on intervals of two years.
(9) Plans shall not be a basis to bring legal action against electric utilities.
(10)(a) To maximize transparency, the commission, for investor-owned utilities, or the governing body, for consumer-owned utilities, may require an electric utility to make the utility's data input files available in a native format. Each electric utility shall publish its final plan either as part of an annual report or as a separate document available to the public. The report may be in an electronic form.
(11) By December 31, 2021, the department and the commission must adopt rules establishing the requirements for incorporating the cumulative impact analysis developed under RCW 19.405.140 into the criteria for developing clean energy action plans under this section.
[ 2019 c 288 § 14; 2015 3rd sp.s. c 19 § 9; 2013 c 149 § 3; 2011 c 180 § 305; 2006 c 195 § 3.]
RCW 19.280.040
Investor-owned utilities submit integrated resource plans to the commission—Rules.
(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 RCW 19.280.030 as they apply to investor-owned utilities.
[ 2006 c 195 § 4.]
RCW 19.280.060
Department's duties—Report to the legislature.
The department shall review the plans of consumer-owned utilities and investor-owned utilities, and data available from other state, regional, and national sources, and prepare an electronic report to the legislature aggregating the data and assessing the overall adequacy of Washington's electricity supply. 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, conservation and efficiency resources, and an examination of assessment methods used by utilities to address overgeneration events. The commission shall provide the department with data summarizing the plans of investor-owned utilities for use in the department's statewide summary. The department shall submit any reports it receives of existing and potential combined heat and power facilities as reported by utilities to the Washington State University extension energy program for analysis. The department may submit its report within the biennial report required under RCW 43.21F.045.
[ 2015 3rd sp.s. c 19 § 10; 2013 c 149 § 4; 2006 c 195 § 6.]
RCW 19.280.070
Combined heat and power systems—Valuation—Assessment.
(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.
[ 2015 3rd sp.s. c 19 § 6.]
RCW 19.280.090
Combined heat and power systems—Report to the legislature.
The Washington State University extension energy program may electronically submit an annual report to the appropriate legislative committees on the planned and completed combined heat and power facilities in the state, including but not limited to the following information: Number, size, and customer base of combined heat and power installations in the state; projects that have been publicly considered but have not been developed; and recommendations to further attain the goal of improving thermal energy efficiency.
[ 2015 3rd sp.s. c 19 § 11.]
RCW 19.280.100
(c) Identify potential programs that are cost-effective and tariffs to fairly compensate customers for the actual monetizable value of their distributed energy resources, including benefits and any related implementation and integration costs of distributed energy resources, and enable their optimal usage while also ensuring reliability of electricity service, such as programs benefiting low-income customers;
(e) Provide, at a minimum, a ten-year plan for distribution system investments and an analysis of nonwires alternatives for major transmission and distribution investments as deemed necessary by the governing body, in the case of a consumer-owned utility, or the commission, in the case of an investor-owned utility. This plan should include a process whereby near-term assumptions, any pilots or procurements initiated in accordance with subsection (3) of this section or data gathered via current market research into a similar type of utility or other cost/benefit studies, regularly inform and adjust the long-term projections of the plan. The goal of the plan should be to provide the most affordable investments for all customers and avoid reactive expenditures to accommodate unanticipated growth in distributed energy resources. An analysis that fairly considers wire-based and nonwires alternatives on equal terms is foundational to achieving this goal. The electric utility should be financially indifferent to the technology that is used to meet a particular resource need. The distribution system investment planning process should utilize a transparent approach that involves opportunities for stakeholder input and feedback. The electric utility must identify in the plan the sources of information it relied upon, including peer-reviewed science. Any cost-benefit analysis conducted as part of the plan must also include at least one pessimistic scenario constructed from reasonable assumptions and modeling choices that would produce comparatively high probable costs and comparatively low probable benefits, and at least one optimistic scenario constructed from reasonable assumptions and modeling choices that would produce comparatively low probable costs and comparatively high probable benefits;
(3) To ensure that procurement decisions are based on current cost and performance data for distributed energy resources, a utility may procure cost-effective distributed energy resource needs as identified in any distributed energy resources plan through a process that is price-based and technology neutral. Electric utilities should consider using competitive procurements tailored to meet a specific need, which may increase the utility's ability to identify the lowest cost and most efficient means of meeting distribution system needs. If the projected cost of a procurement is more than the calculated system net benefit of the identified distributed energy resources, the governing body, in the case of a consumer-owned utility, or the commission, in the case of an investor-owned utility, may approve a pilot process by which the electric utility will gain a better understanding of the costs and benefits of a distributed energy resource or resources.
[ 2019 c 205 § 1.]