California Lawmakers Advance Package of Affordability Bills as Others Fail Amid Effort to Reduce Rising Energy Costs

The Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees advanced legislation aimed at cutting costs and protecting ratepayers, but stalled novel utility reforms

SACRAMENTO, CA—As the California legislative session is reaching its mid-year point, lawmakers took an important step in advancing a package of energy affordability and accountability bills aimed at lowering energy costs and making the state’s energy grid more reliable.

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed Senator Josh Becker’s Senate Bill (SB) 913, which would allow customer-owned clean energy resources, such as home batteries, electric vehicles, and smart thermostats, to compete on a level playing field with traditional power sources to provide grid reliability at the lowest cost in the Resource Adequacy Market. This would save ratepayers money by enabling cleaner and cheaper energy solutions to compete in the market to provide reliable power.

“Californians are getting squeezed by rising energy bills, and SB 913 is about finally leveling the playing field so Californians who own their own distributed energy resources can help support a more reliable and modern electricity grid at lower cost,” said Brandon Garcia, California Director at Advanced Energy United.

The Assembly Appropriations Committee passed Assemblymember Nick Schultz’s AB 1787 and AB 2612, and Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris’s AB 2493.

• AB 1787 would require investor-owned utilities to offer dynamic, wholesale-based pricing and real-time data access during their next smart meter upgrade cycle.
• AB 2612, beginning with the next triennial edition of the California Building Standards Code, would require the California Building Standards Commission and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to develop and adopt mandatory building standards that enable qualified photovoltaic systems to safely function as an energy source within residential and nonresidential electrical circuits.
• AB 2493 would establish enforceable accountability mechanisms to eliminate large-scale energy generation interconnection backlogs before Californians lose out on billions of dollars of federal tax credits.

“We are encouraged that California is moving toward a better, smarter, more efficient electricity system by improving how we use existing infrastructure, increasing pricing transparency, speeding up interconnection, and ensuring buildings are ready to safely integrate advanced energy,” Garcia added.

At the same time, the Assembly Appropriations Committee failed to advance Assemblymember Nick Schultz’s Assembly Bill (AB) 1975. This bill would have established a grid utilization standard and authorized the CPUC to incentivize or disincentivize IOUs to meet that standard.

“AB 1975 would have enabled better grid optimization during a time when we seriously need to reconsider how utility investments are impacting customers’ bills. Failing to pass this legislation significantly slows our ability to modernize the grid, improve energy efficiency, and lower skyrocketing energy costs,” added Garcia.