Virginia Administrative Code › Title 20 - PUBLIC UTILITIES AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS › Agency 5 - STATE CORPORATION COMMISSION › Chapter 315 - REGULATIONS GOVERNING NET ENERGY METERING › Section 20VAC5-315-20 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 40, No. 24, July 15, 2024
The following words and terms when used in this chapter shall
				  have the following meanings unless the context clearly indicates
				  otherwise:
"Agricultural business" means any sole proprietorship,
				  corporation, partnership, electing small business (Subchapter S) corporation,
				  or limited liability company engaged primarily in the production and sale of
				  plants and animals, products collected from plants and animals, or plant and
				  animal services that are useful to the public.
"Agricultural net metering customer" means a customer that
				  operates an electrical generating facility consisting of one or more
				  agricultural renewable fuel generators having an aggregate generation capacity
				  of not more than 500 kilowatts as part of an agricultural business under a net
				  metering service arrangement. An agricultural net metering customer may be
				  served by multiple meters serving the agricultural net metering customer that
				  are located at the same or adjacent sites and that may be aggregated into one
				  account. This account shall be served under the appropriate tariff.
"Agricultural renewable fuel generator" or "agricultural
				  renewable fuel generating facility" means one or more electrical generators
				  that:
1. Use as their sole energy source solar power, wind power,
				  or aerobic or anaerobic digester gas;
2. The agricultural net metering customer owns and operates,
				  or has contracted with other persons to own or operate, or both;
3. Are located on land owned or controlled by the
				  agricultural business;
4. Are connected to the agricultural net metering customer's
				  wiring on the agricultural net metering customer's side of the agricultural net
				  metering customer's interconnection with the distributor;
5. Are interconnected and operated in parallel with an
				  electric company's distribution facilities; and
6. Are used primarily to provide energy to metered accounts
				  of the agricultural business.
"Billing period" means, as to a particular agricultural net
				  metering customer or a net metering customer, the time period between the two
				  meter readings upon which the electric distribution company and the energy
				  service provider calculate the agricultural net metering customer's or net
				  metering customer's bills.
"Billing period credit" means, for a nontime-of-use
				  agricultural net metering customer or a nontime-of-use net metering customer,
				  the quantity of electricity generated and fed back into the electric grid by
				  the agricultural net metering customer's agricultural renewable fuel generator
				  or by the net metering customer's renewable fuel generator in excess of the
				  electricity supplied to the customer over the billing period. For time-of-use
				  agricultural net metering customers or time-of-use net metering customers,
				  billing period credits are determined separately for each time-of-use
				  tier.
"Competitive service provider" means a person, licensed by
				  the State Corporation Commission, that sells or offers to sell a competitive
				  energy service within the Commonwealth. This term includes affiliated
				  competitive service providers but does not include a party that supplies
				  electricity or natural gas, or both, exclusively for its own consumption or the
				  consumption of one or more of its affiliates. For the purpose of this chapter,
				  competitive service providers include aggregators.
"Contiguous sites" means a group of land parcels in which
				  each parcel shares at least one boundary point with at least one other parcel
				  in the group. Property whose surface is divided only by public right-of-way is
				  considered contiguous.
"Customer" means a net metering customer or an agricultural
				  net metering customer.
"Demand charge-based time-of-use tariff" means a retail
				  tariff for electric supply service that has two or more time-of-use tiers for
				  energy-based charges and an electricity supply demand (kilowatt) charge.
"Electric cooperative" means an electric distribution company
				  organized pursuant to Chapter 9.1 (§ 56-231.15 et seq.) of Title 56 of the Code
				  of Virginia, owned by its members.
"Electric distribution company" means the entity that owns or
				  operates the distribution facilities delivering electricity to the premises of
				  an agricultural net metering customer or a net metering customer.
"Energy service provider (supplier)" means the entity
				  providing electricity supply service, either tariffed or competitive service,
				  to an agricultural net metering customer or a net metering customer.
"Excess generation" means the amount of electrical energy
				  generated in excess of the electrical energy consumed by the agricultural net
				  metering customer or net metering customer over the course of the net metering
				  period. For time-of-use agricultural net metering customers or net metering
				  customers, excess generation is determined separately for each time-of-use
				  tier.
"Generator" or "generating facility" means an electrical
				  generating facility consisting of one or more renewable fuel generators or one
				  or more agricultural renewable fuel generators that meet the criteria under the
				  definition of "net metering customer" and "agricultural net metering customer,"
				  respectively.
"Low-income utility customer" means the same as that term is
				  defined in § 56-576 of the Code of Virginia.
"Net metering customer" means for an electric cooperative, a
				  customer owning and operating, or contracting with other persons to own or
				  operate, or both, an electrical generating facility consisting of one or more
				  renewable fuel generators having an aggregate generation capacity of not more
				  than 20 kilowatts for residential customers and not more than one megawatt for
				  nonresidential customers. The generating facility shall be operated under a net
				  metering service arrangement. For an investor-owned electric distribution
				  company, "net metering customer" means a customer owning and operating, or
				  contracting with other persons to own or operate, or both, an electrical
				  generating facility consisting of one or more renewable fuel generators having
				  an aggregate generation capacity of not more than 25 kilowatts for residential
				  customers and not more than three megawatts for nonresidential customers. The
				  generating facility shall be operated under a net metering service
				  arrangement.
"Net metering period" means each successive 12-month period
				  beginning with the first meter reading date following the final interconnection
				  of an agricultural net metering customer or a net metering customer's
				  generating facility consisting of one or more agricultural renewable fuel
				  generators or one or more renewable fuel generators, respectively, with the
				  electric distribution company's distribution facilities.
"Net metering service" means providing retail electric
				  service to an agricultural net metering customer operating an agricultural
				  renewable fuel generating facility or a net metering customer operating a
				  renewable fuel generating facility and measuring the difference, over the net
				  metering period, between the electricity supplied to the customer from the
				  electric grid and the electricity generated and fed back to the electric grid
				  by the customer.
"Nonprofit customer" or "not-for-profit customer" means a
				  person that is exempt from federal income taxation, including (without
				  limitation) schools, hospitals, institutions of higher education, public
				  charities, and churches and other houses of religious worship, as determined by
				  the Internal Revenue Service.
"Person" means any individual, sole proprietorship,
				  corporation, limited liability company, partnership, association, company,
				  business, trust, joint venture, or other private legal entity, the
				  Commonwealth, or any city, county, town, authority, or other political
				  subdivision of the Commonwealth.
"Phase I Utility" shall be defined in accordance with
				  subdivision A 1 of § 56-585.1 of the Code of Virginia.
"Phase II Utility" shall be defined in accordance with
				  subdivision A 1 of § 56-585.1 of the Code of Virginia.
"Purchase power agreement provider" or "PPA provider" means,
				  in an electric cooperative service territory, a person registered with the
				  commission's Division of Public Utility Regulation pursuant to
				  20VAC5-315-77
				  to offer third-party partial requirements power purchase agreements to
				  customers.
"Registry" means, in reference to a PPA provider, the list of
				  those persons registered with the commission's Division of Public Utility
				  Regulation as PPA providers.
"Renewable Energy Certificate" or "REC" represents the
				  renewable energy attributes associated with the production of one megawatt-hour
				  (MWh) of electrical energy by a generator.
"Renewable fuel generator" or "renewable fuel generating
				  facility" means one or more electrical generators that:
1. Use renewable energy, as defined by § 56-576 of the Code
				  of Virginia, as their total fuel source;
2. The net metering customer owns and operates, or has
				  contracted with other persons to own or operate, or both;
3. Are located on land owned or leased by the net metering
				  customer and connected to the net metering customer's wiring on the net
				  metering customer's side of its interconnection with the distributor;
4. Are interconnected pursuant to a net metering arrangement
				  and operated in parallel with the electric distribution company's distribution
				  facilities; and
5. Are intended primarily to offset all or part of the net
				  metering customer's own electricity requirements. For an electric cooperative,
				  the capacity of any generating facility installed on or after July 1, 2015,
				  shall not exceed the expected annual energy consumption based on the previous
				  12 months of billing history or an annualized calculation of billing history if
				  12 months of billing history is not available. For an investor-owned electric
				  distribution company, the capacity of any generating facility installed between
				  July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2020, shall not exceed the expected annual energy
				  consumption based on the previous 12 months of billing history or an annualized
				  calculation of billing history if 12 months of billing history is not
				  available.
"Small agricultural generating facility" means an electrical
				  generating facility that:
1. Has a capacity of not more than 1.5 megawatts and does not
				  exceed 150% of the customer's expected annual energy consumption based on the
				  previous 12 months of billing history or an annualized calculation of billing
				  history if 12 months of billing history is not available;
2. Uses as its total source of fuel renewable energy;
3. Is located on the customer's premises and is
				  interconnected with the utility's distribution system through a separate
				  meter;
4. Is interconnected and operated in parallel with an
				  electric utility's distribution system but not transmission facilities;
5. Is designed so that the electricity generated is expected
				  to remain on the utility's distribution system; and
6. Is a qualifying small power production facility pursuant
				  to the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (P.L. 95-617).
"Small agricultural generator" means a customer that:
1. Is not an eligible agricultural customer-generator
				  pursuant to § 56-594 of the Code of Virginia;
2. Operates a small agricultural generating facility as part
				  of (i) an agricultural business or (ii) any business granted a manufacturer
				  license pursuant to subdivisions 1 through 6 of § 4.1-206.1 of the Code of
				  Virginia;
3. May be served by multiple meters that are located at
				  separate but contiguous sites;
4. May aggregate the electricity consumption measured by the
				  meters, solely for purposes of calculating 150% of the customer's expected
				  annual energy consumption but not for billing or retail service purposes,
				  provided that the same utility serves all of its meters;
5. Uses not more than 25% of the contiguous land owned or
				  controlled by the agricultural business for purposes of the renewable energy
				  generating facility; and
6. Provides the electric utility with a certification,
				  attested under oath, as to the amount of land being used for renewable
				  generation.
"System peak" for an electric cooperative, means the highest
				  peak, based on the noncoincident peak of the electric cooperative or the
				  coincident peak of all of the electric cooperative's customers of the past
				  three years listed in Part O, Line 20 of Form 7 (Financial And Operating Report
				  - Electric Distribution) filed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural
				  Utilities Service (RUS), or an equivalent form if a cooperative is not an RUS
				  borrower, less any portion of the cooperative's total load that is served by a
				  competitive service provider or by a market-based rate.
"Third-party partial requirements power purchase agreement"
				  or "third-party PPA" means, for an electric cooperative, an agreement entered
				  into pursuant to § 56-594.01 K of the Code of Virginia between a customer
				  engaging in net energy metering and a registered PPA provider pursuant to
				  20VAC5-315-77.
"Time-of-use customer" means an agricultural net metering
				  customer or net metering customer receiving retail electricity supply service
				  under a demand charge-based time-of-use tariff.
"Time-of-use period" means an interval of time over which the
				  energy (kilowatt-hour) rate charged to a time-of-use customer does not
				  change.
"Time-of-use tier" or "tier" means all time-of-use periods
				  given the same name (e.g., on-peak, off-peak, critical peak, etc.) for the
				  purpose of time-differentiating energy (kilowatt-hour)-based charges. The rates
				  associated with a particular tier may vary by day and by
				  season.
Statutory Authority: §§ 12.1-13 and 56-594 of the Code of
					 Virginia.