Public Utility Commission
Chapter 860
Division 38
DIRECT ACCESS REGULATION
860-038-0005
Definitions for Direct Access Regulation
As used in this Division:
(1) "Above-market costs of new renewable energy resources" means the portion of the net present value cost of producing power (including fixed and operating costs, delivery, overhead, and profit) from a new renewable energy resource that exceeds the market value of an equivalent quantity and distribution (across peak and off-peak periods and seasonality) of power from a nondifferentiated source, with the same term of contract.
(2) "Ancillary services" means those services necessary or incidental to the transmission and delivery of electricity from resources to retail electricity consumers, including but not limited to scheduling, frequency regulation, load shaping, load following, spinning reserves, supplemental reserves, reactive power, voltage control and energy balancing services.
(3) "Competitive operations" means any electric company's activities involving the sale or marketing of electricity services or directly related products in an Oregon retail market. Competitive operations include, but are not limited to, the following:
(a) Energy efficiency audits and programs;
(b) Sales, installation, management, and maintenance of electrical equipment that is used to provide generation, transmission, and distribution related services or enhances the reliability of such services; and
(c) Energy management services, including those services related to electricity metering and billing. Services or products provided by the electric company as part of its electric service to its non-direct access customers within its allocated service territory, or transmission and distribution services to its direct access customers are not competitive operations.
(4) "Default supplier" means an electric company that has a legal obligation to provide electricity services to a consumer, as determined by the Commission.
(5) "Direct access" means the ability of a retail electricity consumer to purchase electricity and certain ancillary services directly from an entity other than the distribution utility.
(6) "Direct service industrial consumer" means an end-user of electricity that obtains electricity directly from the transmission grid and not through a distribution utility.
(7) "Economic utility investment" means all Oregon allocated investments made by an electric company that offers direct access under ORS 757.600 to 757.667, including plants and equipment and contractual or other legal obligations, properly dedicated to generation or conservation, that were prudent at the time the obligations were assumed but the full benefits of which are no longer available to consumers as a direct result of ORS 757.600 to 757.667, absent transition credits. "Economic utility investment" does not include costs or expenses disallowed by the Commission in a prudence review or other proceeding, to the extent of such disallowance, and does not include fines or penalties authorized and imposed under state or federal law.
(8) "Electric company operational information" means information obtained by an electric company as part of its provision of services or products, as long as such products or services are not defined as "competitive operations." Such information includes, but is not limited to, data relating to the interconnection of customers to an electric company's transmission or distribution systems; trade secrets; competitive information relating to internal processes; market analysis reports; market forecasts; and information about an electric company's transmission or distribution system, processes, operations, or plans or strategies for expansion.
(9) "Electricity service supplier" or "ESS" means a person or entity that offers to sell electricity services available pursuant to direct access to more than one retail electricity consumer. "Electricity service supplier" does not include an electric utility selling electricity to retail electricity consumers in its own service territory. An ESS can also be an aggregator.
(10) "Emergency default service" means a service option provided by an electric company to a nonresidential consumer that requires less than five business days' notice by the consumer or its electricity service supplier.
(11) "Fully distributed cost" means the cost of an electric company good or service calculated in accordance with the procedures set forth in OAR 860-038-0200.
(12) "Functional separation" means separating the costs of the electric company's business functions and recording the results within its accounting records, including allocation of common costs.
(13) "Joint marketing" means the offering (including marketing, promotion, or advertising) of retail electric services by an electric company in conjunction with its competitive operation to consumers either through contact initiated by the electric company, its Oregon affiliate, or through contact initiated by the consumer.
(14) "Large nonresidential consumer" means a nonresidential consumer whose kW demand at any point of delivery is greater than 30 kW during any two months within a prior 13-month period.
(15) "Multi-state electric company" means an electric company that provided regulated retail electric service in a state in addition to Oregon prior to January 1, 2000.
(16) "New" as it refers to energy conservation, market transformation, and low-income weatherization means measures, projects or programs that are installed or implemented after the date direct access is offered by an electric company.
(17) "Non-energy attributes" means the environmental, economic, and social benefits of generation from renewable energy facilities. These attributes are normally transacted in the form of Tradable Renewable Certificates.
(18) "Ongoing valuation" means the process of determining transition costs or benefits for a generation asset by comparing the value of the asset output at projected market prices for a defined period to an estimate of the revenue requirement of the asset for the same time period.
(19) "One-time administrative valuation" means the process of determining the market value of a generation asset over the life of the asset, or a period as established by the Commission, using a process other than divestiture.
(20) "One average megawatt" means 8,760,000 kilowatt-hours (8,784,000 in a leap year) of electricity per twelve consecutive month period.
(21) "Oregon share" means, for a multi-state electric company, an interstate allocation based upon a fixed allocation or method of allocation established in a Resource Plan or, in the case of an electric company that is not a multi-state electric company, 100 percent.
(22) "Non-bypassable Charges" are costs that are directed by the legislature to be recovered by all customers or charges that retail consumers served by electricity service suppliers otherwise may avoid by obtaining electric power through direct access that are determined by the Commission to be appropriate for recovery from all customers.
(23) "Portfolio" means a set of product and pricing options for electricity.
(24) "Portfolio Options Committee" means a group appointed by the Commission, consisting of representatives from Commission Staff, the Oregon Department of Energy, and the following:
(a) Local governments;
(b) Electric companies;
(c) Residential consumers;
(d) Public or regional interest groups; and
(e) Small nonresidential consumers.
(25) "Preferential Curtailment" refers to the electric company's obligation to curtail eligible direct access consumers that return to the electric company service without providing the electric company with the full period of notice required by the electric company's direct access program tariff. The electric company must curtail such consumers as necessary to protect cost-of-service customers from the impacts of the returning consumer's unplanned load.
(26) "Proprietary consumer information" means any information compiled by an electric company on a consumer in the normal course of providing electric service that makes possible the identification of any individual consumer by matching such information with the consumer's name, address, account number, type or classification of service, historical electricity usage, expected patterns of use, types of facilities used in providing service, individual contract terms and conditions, price, current charges, billing records, or any other information that the consumer has expressly requested not be disclosed. Information that is redacted or organized in such a way as to make it impossible to identify the consumer to whom the information relates does not constitute proprietary consumer information.
(27) "Qualifying expenditures" means those expenditures for energy conservation measures that have a simple payback period of not less than one year and not more than 10 years and expenditures for the above-market costs of new renewable energy resources, provided that the Oregon Department of Energy may establish by rule a limit on the maximum above-market cost for renewable energy that is allowed as a credit.
(28) "Registered dispute" means an unresolved issue affecting a retail electricity consumer, an ESS, or an electric company that is under investigation by the Commission's Consumer Services Section but is not the subject of a formal complaint.
(29) "Renewable energy resources" means:
(a) Electricity-generation facilities fueled by wind, waste, solar or geothermal power, or by low-emission nontoxic biomass based on solid organic fuels from wood, forest, and field residues;
(b) Dedicated energy crops available on a renewable basis;
(c) Landfill gas and digester gas; and
(d) Hydroelectric facilities located outside protected areas as defined by federal law in effect on July 23, 1999.
(30) "Residential consumer" means a retail electricity consumer that resides at a dwelling primarily used for residential purposes. "Residential consumer" does not include retail electricity consumers in a dwelling typically used for residency periods of less than 30 days, including hotels, motels, camps, lodges, and clubs. As used in this section, "dwelling" includes but is not limited to single-family dwellings, separately metered apartments, adult foster homes, manufactured dwellings, recreational vehicles, and floating homes.
(31) "Retail electricity consumer" means the end user of electricity for specific purposes such as heating, lighting, or operating equipment and includes all end users of electricity served through the distribution system of an electric utility on or after July 23, 1999, whether or not each end user purchases the electricity from the electric utility. For purposes of this definition, a new retail electricity consumer means a retail electricity consumer that is unaffiliated with the retail electricity consumer previously served after March 1, 2002, at the site.
(32) "Self-directing consumer" means a retail electricity consumer that has used more than one average megawatt of electricity at any one site in the prior calendar year or an aluminum plant that averages more than 100 average megawatts of electricity use in the prior calendar year, that has received final certification from the Oregon Department of Energy for expenditures for new energy conservation or new renewable energy resources and that has notified the electric company that it will pay the public purpose charge, net of credits, directly to the electric company in accordance with the terms of the electric company's tariff regarding public purpose credits.
(33) "Site" means:
(a) Buildings and related structures that are interconnected by facilities owned by a single retail electricity consumer and that are served through a single electric meter; or
(b) A single contiguous area of land containing buildings or other structures that are separated by not more than 1,000 feet, such that:
(A) Each building or structure included in the site is no more than 1,000 feet from at least one other building or structure in the site;
(B) Buildings and structures in the site, and land containing and connecting buildings and structures in the site, are owned by a single retail electricity consumer who is billed for electricity use at the buildings and structures; and
(C) Land shall be considered to be contiguous even if there is an intervening public or railroad right of way, provided that rights of way land on which municipal infrastructure facilities exist (such as street lighting, sewerage transmission, and roadway controls) shall not be considered contiguous.
(34) "Structural separation" means separating the electric company's assets by transferring assets to an affiliated interest of the electric company.
(35) "Total transition amount" means the sum of an electric company's transition costs and transition benefits.
(36) "Traditional allocation methods" means, in respect to a multi-state electric company, inter-jurisdictional cost and revenue allocation methods relied upon in such electric company's last Oregon rate proceeding completed prior to December 31, 2000.
(37) "Transition benefits" means the value of the below-market costs of an economic utility investment.
(38) "Transition charge" means a charge or fee that recovers all or a portion of an uneconomic utility investment.
(39) "Transition costs" means the value of the above-market costs of an uneconomic utility investment.
(40) "Transition credit" means a credit that returns to consumers all or a portion of the benefits from an economic utility investment.
(41) "Unbundling" means the process of assigning and allocating a utility's costs into functional categories.
(42) "Uncommitted Supply" is generation reasonably available to the electric company in the market or through the electric company's own resources. Uncommitted Supply excludes any generation needed to meet the electric company's firm load service obligations, anticipated near-term load obligations, contractual obligations, and federal reliability standards.
(43) "Uneconomic Cost of Implementing a Public Policy Goal" means the difference between the cost of implementing the public policy goal and the regulated costs that are avoided as a result of implementing the public policy goal.
(44) "Uneconomic utility investment" means all Oregon allocated investments made by an electric company that offers direct access under ORS 757.600 to 757.667, including plants and equipment and contractual or other legal obligations, properly dedicated to generation, conservation and work-force commitments, that were prudent at the time the obligations were assumed but the full costs of which are no longer recoverable as a direct result of ORS 757.600 to 757.667, absent transition charges. "Uneconomic utility investment" does not include costs or expenses disallowed by the Commission in a prudence review or other proceeding, to the extent of such disallowance and does not include fines or penalties as authorized by state or federal law.
(45) “Unspecified Market Purchase Mix” means the mix of all power generation within the state or other region less all specific purchases from generation facilities in the state or region, as determined by the Oregon Department of Energy.
Statutory/Other Authority: ORS 183, ORS 756 & ORS 757
Statutes/Other Implemented: ORS 756.040 & ORS 757.600 - 757.667
History:
PUC 9-2023, amend filed 09/15/2023, effective 09/15/2023
PUC 3-2014, f. & cert. ef. 3-7-14
PUC 13-2007, f. & cert. ef. 12-31-07
PUC 6-2006, f. & cert. ef. 5-11-06
PUC 7-2005, f. & cert. ef. 11-30-05
PUC 13-2004, f. & cert. ef. 8-31-04
PUC 18-2002, f. & cert. ef. 10-17-02
PUC 11-2002, f. & cert. ef. 3-8-02
PUC 5-2002, f. & cert. ef. 2-8-02
PUC 23-2001, f. & cert. ef. 10-1-01
PUC 21-2001(Temp), f. & cert. ef. 9-11-01 thru 3-10-02
PUC 2-2001, f. & cert. ef. 1-5-01
PUC 17-2000, f. & cert. ef. 9-29-00