What it Does: Reviews and approves plans for the utilities to purchase energy. Establishes policies and utility cost recovery for energy purchases. Ensures that the utilities maintain a set amount of energy above what they estimate they will need to serve their customers (called a reserve margin), and implements a long-term energy planning process.
The Basics: Under Assembly Bill (AB) 57 (PU Code 454.5), passed in 2002 after the energy crisis, the investor-owned utilities (IOUs) resumed electricity procurement. Every two years, the PUC holds a Long Term Procurement Plan (LTPP) proceeding to review and adopt the IOUs' ten-year procurement plans. The LTPP proceeding evaluates the utilities’ need for new fossil-fired resources and establishes rules for rate recovery of procurement transactions. It also serves as the “umbrella” proceeding to consider, in an integrated fashion, all of the Commission’s EAP loading order resource policies and programs.