PG&E Narrows Scope of the CPUC Proceeding to Shut Down the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant by Unilaterally Withdrawing Its Procurement and Cost Allocation Requests

On February 27, 2017, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (“PG&E”) announced it is withdrawing several portions of its plan to close its 2.3 gigawatt Diablo Canyon Power Plant near San Luis Obispo by 2025. Specifically, PG&E has withdrawn its requests that the California Public Utilities Commission (“CPUC”) authorize PG&E to replace Diablo’s generation capacity with additional procurement of clean energy resources and to pass some of the costs of that procurement on to non-PG&E customers.

PG&E gave up on its procurement and cost allocation proposals because these proposals were widely criticized in opening testimony filed by intervening parties on January 27. But PG&E will very likely continue to pursue the same procurement and cost allocation proposals in different forums, in particular as part of the CPUC’s ongoing Integrated Resource Planning (“IRP”) Proceeding (R.16-02-007).

Background

As we detailed in a previous post, in June 2016, PG&E and several other parties, including some environmental groups and labor unions, sought CPUC approval of a Joint Proposal regarding the shutdown of Diablo Canyon.  In the Joint Proposal, PG&E sought to offset the capacity lost from Diablo Canyon retirement through three replacement procurement steps, referred to as “tranches.”

Numerous parties opposed PG&E’s proposed three-tranche procurement approach. Among other things, the intervening parties argued that any replacement procurement necessary to replace Diablo Canyon (if any is needed at all) should be considered in connection with the ongoing IRP process.  Many parties — particularly Community Choice Aggregators and Direct Access providers — also opposed PG&E’s proposed method of allocating the cost of replacement procurement through a new non-bypassable charge, which PG&E referred to as the “Clean Energy Charge.” Based on widespread opposition, PG&E decided to withdraw its Tranche #2 proposal to procure a mix of energy efficiency and greenhouse gas (“GHG”)-free supply-side resources in 2025–2030 and its Tranche #3 proposal to procure GHG-free resources sufficient for PG&E to reach a 55% Renewables Portfolio Standard (“RPS”) target in 2031–2045. PG&E also withdrew its proposal to implement the Clean Energy Charge to recover the costs associated with Tranches #2 and #3.

As a result, the only procurement-related request that remains within the scope of the Diablo Canyon proceeding is PG&E’s Tranche #1 proposal to procure 2,000 GWh of energy efficiency resources by 2025 through a solicitation process beginning in June 2018.

Parties Will Continue to Address Procurement and Cost Allocation in the IRP and Other CPUC Proceedings

In 2015, in Senate Bill 350, the California legislature mandated that the CPUC adopt an IRP process by 2017. The IRP process is intended to help optimize electric utilities’ long-term planning and procurement to achieve a variety of public policy goals, including a 50% RPS and a doubling of energy efficiency by 2030.

In its notice withdrawing portions of the Diablo Canyon application, PG&E called for the CPUC to “adopt a policy directive” in the Diablo application proceeding “that the output of Diablo Canyon be replaced with [GHG-]free resources, and that the responsibility for, definition of, and cost of these resources be addressed as a part of the IRP proceeding.” While such a “policy directive” would have limited practical effect, PG&E’s request underscores the importance of the ongoing IRP proceeding to the future procurement of renewables in California.

PG&E is also likely to continue to look for ways to pass on some of its procurement costs to other load serving entities through the implementation of “exit fees” or other non-bypassable charges.   The importance of these non-bypassable charges (and the corresponding scrutiny of the methods used to develop such charges) only increases as more customers move from PG&E’s bundled service to alternatives such as community choice aggregation.