Calif. Posts Draft on Rules Governing Utility Behavior Toward Community Choice Aggregation

A California PUC agenda (draft) resolution would institute a rulemaking to consider and adopt a code of conduct, rules, and enforcement procedures governing the conduct of electrical corporations relative to the consideration, formation, and implementation of community choice aggregation (CCA) programs, as directed by Senate Bill 790.

Among other things, the proposed rules would require that:

• No electrical corporation shall market or lobby against a community choice aggregation program, except through an independent marketing division that is funded exclusively by the electrical corporation's shareholders and that is functionally and physically separate from the electrical corporation's ratepayer funded-divisions

• The cost of an electrical corporation's independent marketing division's use of support services from the electrical corporation's ratepayer-funded divisions shall be allocated to the independent marketing division on a fully allocated embedded cost basis, supported by detailed public reports of such use

• An electrical corporation's independent marketing division shall not have access to competitively sensitive information

• No electrical corporation shall recover the costs of any direct or indirect expenditure by the electric utility for promotional or political advertising from any person other than the shareholders or other owners of the utility.

• An electric corporation shall provide access to utility information, rates and services to community choice aggregators on the same terms as it does for its independent marketing division

• An electric corporation shall not provide access to market analysis reports or any other types of proprietary or non-publicly available reports, including but not limited to market, forecast planning or strategic reports, to its independent marketing division

• An electric corporation shall not offer or provide customers advice or assistance with regard to the services of community choice aggregators, except through its independent marketing division

• An electric corporation shall not share office space equipment, services, and systems with its independent marketing division, nor shall an electric corporation access the computer or information systems of its independent marketing division or allow its independent marketing division to access its computer or information systems, except to the extent appropriate to perform shared corporate support functions. Physical separation required by this rule shall be accomplished by having office space in a separate building, or, in the alternative, through the use of separate elevator banks and/or security-controlled access

• An electric corporation shall not allow advertising for its electricity in utility billing envelopes or any other form of utility customer written communication unless it provides access to community choice aggregators on the same terms and conditions

The draft would also establish rules governing employee movement between the independent marketing division and other divisions of the electric corporation.

The draft would further codify prior PUC decisions regarding utility behavior with respect to CCAs, including a requirement that a utility may not offer to provide goods or services to a local government in exchange for foregoing a CCA, and a requirement that electric corporations shall not make available to their customers any mechanism for opting out of community choice aggregation service before the commencement of the statutorily mandated notification period.