Washington Administrative Code › Title 480 - Utilities and Transportation Commission › Chapter 480-100 - Electric companies › Part VIII - PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION › Section 480-100-605 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 24-14, July 15, 2024
The definitions below apply to all of WAC 480-100-600 through
				  480-100-665.
"Allocation of electricity" means, for the purposes of
				  setting electricity rates, the costs and benefits associated with the resources
				  used to provide electricity to an electric utility's retail electricity
				  consumers that are located in this state.
"Alternative lowest reasonable cost and reasonably available
				  portfolio" means, for purposes of calculating the incremental cost of
				  compliance in
				  RCW
				  19.405.060(3), the portfolio
				  of investments the utility would have made and the expenses the utility would
				  have incurred if not for the requirement to comply with
				  RCW
				  19.405.040 and
				  19.405.050.
				  The alternative lowest reasonable cost and reasonably available portfolio must
				  include the social cost of greenhouse gases in the resource acquisition
				  decision in accordance with
				  RCW
				  19.280.030(3)(a).
"Biomass energy" includes: Organic by-products of pulping and
				  the wood manufacturing process; animal manure; solid organic fuels from wood;
				  forest or field residues; untreated wooden demolition or construction debris;
				  food waste and food processing residuals; liquors derived from algae; dedicated
				  energy crops; and yard waste.
Biomass energy does not include:
* Wood pieces that have been treated with chemical
				  preservatives such as creosote, pentachlorophenol, or
				  copper-chrome-arsenic;
* Wood from old growth forests; or
* Municipal solid waste.
"Carbon dioxide equivalent" or "CO2e"
				  means a metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse
				  gases based upon their global warming potential.
"CEAP" means the clean energy action plan.
"CEIP" means the clean energy implementation plan.
"Coal-fired resource" means a facility that uses coal-fired
				  generating units, or that uses units fired in whole or in part by coal as
				  feedstock, to generate electricity. Coal-fired resource does not
				  include:
* An electric generating facility that is included as part of
				  a limited duration wholesale power purchase, not to exceed one month, made by
				  an electric utility for delivery to retail electric customers that are located
				  in this state for which the source of the power is not known at the time of
				  entry into the transaction to procure the electricity; or
* An electric generating facility that is subject to an
				  obligation to meet the standards contained in
				  RCW
				  80.80.040(3)(c).
"Commission" means the Washington utilities and
				  transportation commission.
"Conservation and efficiency resources" means any reduction
				  in electric power consumption that results from increases in the efficiency of
				  energy use, production, transmission, or distribution.
"Cost-effective" means that a project or resource is
				  forecast:
(a) To be reliable and available within the time it is
				  needed; and
(b) to meet or reduce the electric power demand of the
				  intended consumers at an estimated incremental system cost no greater than that
				  of the least-cost similarly reliable and available alternative project or
				  resource, or any combination thereof.
"Customer benefit indicator" means an attribute, either
				  quantitative or qualitative, of resources or related distribution investments
				  associated with customer benefits described in
				  RCW
				  19.405.040(8).
"Demand response" means changes in electric usage by
				  demand-side resources from their normal consumption patterns in response to
				  changes in the price of electricity, or to incentive payments designed to
				  induce lower electricity use, at times of high wholesale market prices or when
				  system reliability is jeopardized. Demand response may include measures to
				  increase or decrease electricity production on the customer's side of the meter
				  in response to incentive payments.
"Distributed energy resource" means a nonemitting electric
				  generation or renewable resource or program that reduces electric demand,
				  manages the level or timing of electricity consumption, or provides storage,
				  electric energy, capacity, or ancillary services to an electric utility and
				  that is located on the distribution system, any subsystem of the distribution
				  system, or behind the customer meter, including conservation and energy
				  efficiency.
"Energy assistance" means a program undertaken by a utility
				  to reduce the household energy burden of its customers.
* Energy assistance includes, but is not limited to,
				  weatherization, conservation and efficiency services, and monetary assistance,
				  such as a grant program or discounts for lower income households, intended to
				  lower a household's energy burden.
* Energy assistance may include direct customer ownership in
				  distributed energy resources or other strategies if such strategies achieve a
				  reduction in energy burden for the customer above other available conservation
				  and demand-side measures.
"Energy assistance need" means the amount of assistance
				  necessary to achieve an energy burden equal to six percent for utility
				  customers.
"Energy burden" means the share of annual household income
				  used to pay annual home energy bills.
"Equitable distribution" means a fair and just, but not
				  necessarily equal, allocation of benefits and burdens from the utility's
				  transition to clean energy. Equitable distribution is based on disparities in
				  current conditions. Current conditions are informed by, among other things, the
				  assessment described in
				  RCW
				  19.280.030(1)(k) from the
				  most recent integrated resource plan.
"Fossil fuel" means natural gas, petroleum, coal, or any form
				  of solid, liquid, or gaseous fuel derived from such a material.
"Greenhouse gas" includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous
				  oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and any other
				  gas or gases designated by the department of ecology by rule under RCW
				  70A.45.010.
"Highly impacted community" means a community designated by
				  the department of health based on the cumulative impact analysis required by
				  RCW
				  19.405.140 or a community located in census
				  tracts that are fully or partially on "Indian country," as defined in
				  18 U.S.C. Sec.
				  1151.
"Implementation period" means the four years after the filing
				  of each clean energy implementation plan through 2045. The first implementation
				  period will begin January 1, 2022, and will end December 31, 2025, and the
				  second implementation period will begin on January 1, 2026, and will end on
				  December 31, 2029.
"Integrated resource plan" or "IRP" means an analysis
				  describing the mix of generating resources, conservation, methods,
				  technologies, and resources to integrate renewable resources and, where
				  applicable, address overgeneration events, and efficiency resources that will
				  meet current and projected needs at the lowest reasonable cost to the utility
				  and its ratepayers and that complies with the requirements specified in
				  RCW
				  19.280.030(1).
"Lowest reasonable cost" means the lowest cost mix of
				  generating resources and conservation and efficiency resources determined
				  through a detailed and consistent analysis of a wide range of commercially
				  available resources. At a minimum, this analysis must consider resource cost,
				  market-volatility risks, demand-side resource uncertainties, resource
				  dispatchability, resource effect on system operation, the risks imposed on the
				  utility and its customers, public policies regarding resource preference
				  adopted by Washington or the federal government, and the cost of risks
				  associated with environmental effects, including emissions of carbon dioxide.
				  The analysis of the lowest reasonable cost must describe the utility's
				  combination of planned resources and related delivery system infrastructure and
				  show consistency with chapters 19.280, 19.285, and 19.405 RCW.
"Natural gas" means naturally occurring mixtures of
				  hydrocarbon gases and vapors consisting principally of methane, whether in
				  gaseous or liquid form, including methane clathrate. Natural gas does not
				  include renewable natural gas or the portion of renewable natural gas when
				  blended into other fuels.
"Nonemitting electric generation" means electricity from a
				  generating facility or a resource that provides electric energy, capacity, or
				  ancillary services to an electric utility and that does not emit greenhouse
				  gases as a by-product of energy generation. Nonemitting electric generation
				  does not include renewable resources.
"Nonpower attributes" means all environmentally related
				  characteristics, exclusive of energy, capacity reliability, and other
				  electrical power service attributes, that are associated with the generation of
				  electricity including, but not limited to, the facility's fuel type, geographic
				  location, vintage, qualification as a renewable resource, and avoided emissions
				  of pollutants to the air, soil, or water, and avoided emissions of carbon
				  dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Nonpower attributes does not include any
				  aspects, claims, characteristics, and benefits associated with the on-site
				  capture and destruction of methane or other greenhouse gases at a facility
				  through a digester system, landfill gas collection system, or other mechanism,
				  which may be separately marketable as greenhouse gas emission reduction
				  credits, offsets, or similar tradable commodities. However, these separate
				  avoided emissions may not result in or otherwise have the effect of attributing
				  greenhouse gas emissions to the electricity.
"Renewable energy credit" or "REC" means a tradable
				  certificate of proof of one megawatt-hour of a renewable resource. The
				  certificate includes all of the nonpower attributes associated with that one
				  megawatt-hour of electricity and the certificate is verified by a renewable
				  energy credit tracking system selected by the department of commerce.
"Renewable resource" means water; wind; solar energy;
				  geothermal energy; renewable natural gas; renewable hydrogen; wave, ocean, or
				  tidal power; biodiesel fuel that is not derived from crops raised on land
				  cleared from old growth or first growth forests; or biomass energy.
"Resource" includes, but is not limited to, generation,
				  conservation, distributed generation, demand response, efficiency, and
				  storage.
"Resource need" means any current or projected deficit to
				  reliably meet electricity demands created by changes in demand, changes to
				  system resources, or their operation to comply with state or federal
				  requirements. Such demands or requirements may include, but are not limited to,
				  capacity and associated energy, capacity needed to meet peak demand in any
				  season, fossil-fuel generation retirements, equitable distribution of benefits
				  or reduction of burdens, cost-effective conservation and efficiency resources,
				  demand response, and renewable and nonemitting resources.
"Retail electric load" means the amount of megawatt-hours of
				  electricity delivered in a given calendar year by an electric utility to its
				  Washington retail electric customers. "Retail electric load" does not
				  include:
(a) Megawatt-hours delivered from qualifying facilities under
				  the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, P.L. 95-617, in
				  operation prior to May 7, 2019, provided that no entity other than the electric
				  utility can make a claim on delivery of the megawatt-hours from those
				  resources; or
(b) Megawatt-hours delivered to an electric utility's system
				  from a renewable resource through a voluntary renewable energy purchase by a
				  retail electric customer of the utility in which the renewable energy credits
				  associated with the megawatt-hours delivered are retired on behalf of the
				  retail electric customer.
"Social cost of greenhouse gas emissions" or "SCGHG" is the
				  inflation-adjusted costs of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the
				  generation of electricity, as required by
				  RCW
				  80.28.405, the updated calculation of which
				  is published on the commission's website.
"Unbundled renewable energy credit" or "unbundled REC" means
				  a renewable energy credit that is sold, delivered, or purchased separately from
				  the underlying electricity. All thermal renewable energy credits are considered
				  unbundled renewable energy credits.
"Unspecified electricity" means an electricity source for
				  which the fuel attribute is unknown or has been separated from the energy
				  delivered to retail electric customers.
"Vulnerable populations" means communities that experience a
				  disproportionate cumulative risk from environmental burdens due to:
(a) Adverse socioeconomic factors, including unemployment,
				  high housing and transportation costs relative to income, access to food and
				  health care, and linguistic isolation; and
(b) sensitivity factors, such as low birth weight and higher
				  rates of hospitalization.
Statutory Authority:
					 RCW
					 80.01.040,
					 80.04.160,
					 and chapters 80.28, 19.280, and 19.405 RCW. WSR 2102-022 (Dockets UE-191023 and
					 UE-190698, General Order 601), § 480-100-605, filed 12/28/20, effective
					 12/31/20.