Oregon Administrative Rules › Chapter 860 - PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSION › Division 29 - REGULATIONS RELATED TO AGREEMENTS BETWEEN ELECTRIC UTILITIES AND ELECTRIC COGENERATION AND SMALL POWER PRODUCTION FACILITIES › Section 860-029-0045 - Eligibility for Standard Avoided Cost Prices and Purchase Agreements

Current through Register Vol. 63, No. 7, July 1, 2024
(1) Solar
			 qualifying facilities with a Nameplate Capacity Rating of 3 MW and less, and
			 all other qualifying facilities with a Nameplate Capacity Rating of 10 MW and
			 less, are eligible for standard avoided cost prices.
(2) All qualifying facilities with a
			 Nameplate Capacity Rating of 10 MW and less are eligible to enter into a
			 standard power purchase agreement.
(3) Renewable qualifying facilities that
			 satisfy the criteria of section (1) are eligible to select the purchasing
			 public utility's standard renewable avoided cost prices. A renewable qualifying
			 facility choosing the standard renewable avoided cost prices must cede all
			 renewable energy certificates generated by the Facility to the purchasing
			 public utility while the qualifying facility is receiving deficiency-period
			 pricing from the purchasing public utility and during any other period of the
			 power purchase agreement ordered by the Commission.
(4) The determination of Nameplate Capacity
			 Rating for purposes of determining whether a qualifying facility meets the size
			 criteria in sections (1) and (2) is based on the cumulative Nameplate Capacity
			 Rating of the qualifying facility seeking the standard avoided cost prices or
			 power purchase agreement and that of any other Facilities owned by the same
			 person(s) or affiliate(s) located on the same site.
(a) Two qualifying facilities are located on
			 the same site if the generating facilities or equipment providing fuel or
			 motive force associated with the qualifying facilities are located within a
			 five-mile radius and the qualifying facilities use the same source of energy or
			 motive force to generate electricity;
(b) For purposes of this section:
(A) Person(s) are natural persons or any
			 legal entities.
(B) Affiliate(s)
			 are persons sharing common ownership or management, persons acting jointly or
			 in concert with, or exercising influence over, the policies of another person
			 or persons, or wholly owned subsidiaries.
(C) To the extent a person or affiliate is a
			 closely held entity, a "look through" rule applies so that project equity held
			 by limited liability companies, trusts, estates, corporations, partnerships,
			 and other similar entities is considered to be held by the owners of the look
			 through entity.
(c)
			 Notwithstanding subsections (4)(a) and (b), the qualifying facility seeking
			 standard prices or a standard power purchase agreement, and other Facilities
			 within the same five-mile radius, will not be considered owned or controlled by
			 the same person(s) or affiliate(s) if the person(s) or affiliate(s) in common
			 are passive investors whose ownership interest is primarily for obtaining value
			 related to production tax credits, green tag values, or modified accelerated
			 cost recovery system (MACRS) depreciation, and the qualifying facility and
			 other Facilities at issue are "family-owned" or "community-based" project(s):
(A) Family-owned. A project will be
			 considered "family owned" if, after excluding the ownership interest of those
			 who qualify as passive investor(s) under (4)(c), five or fewer individuals hold
			 at least 50 percent of the project entity, or 15 or fewer individual entities
			 hold at least 90 percent of the project entity. For purposes of counting the
			 number of individuals holding the remaining share (i.e., determining whether
			 there are 5 or fewer individuals or 15 or fewer individuals), an individual is
			 a natural person. Notwithstanding the foregoing, an individual, his or her
			 spouse, and his or her dependent children, will be aggregated and counted as a
			 single individual even if the spouse and/or dependent children also hold equity
			 in the project;
(B) Community
			 Based. A community-based (or community-sponsored) project must include
			 participation by an established organization that is located either in the
			 county in which the qualifying facility is located or within 50 miles of the
			 qualifying facility and that either:
(i) Has a
			 genuine role in developing, or helping to develop, the qualifying facility and
			 intends to have a significant continuing role with, or interest in, the
			 qualifying facility after it is completed and placed in service; or
(ii) Is a unit of local government that will
			 not have an equity ownership interest in or exercise any control over the
			 management of the qualifying facility and whose only interest is a share of the
			 cash flow from the qualifying facility, that may not exceed 20 percent without
			 prior approval of the Commission for good cause.
(d) Notwithstanding subsections
			 (4)(a) and (b), two or more qualifying facilities that otherwise are not owned
			 or operated by the same person(s) or affiliate(s) will not be determined to be
			 a single qualifying facility based on the fact that they have in place a shared
			 interest or agreement regarding interconnection facilities,
			 interconnection-related system upgrades, or any other infrastructure not
			 providing motive force or fuel. Two or more qualifying facilities will not be
			 held to be owned or controlled by the same person(s) or affiliate(s) solely
			 because they are developed by a single entity so long as they are not owned or
			 operated by the same person(s) or affiliate(s) of the same person(s) at the
			 time each qualifying facility seeks to enter into a power purchase agreement or
			 at any time thereafter.