Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill the appropriates funds to set up microgrids to keep power running in municipalities.

Highlights:

• Requires the Public Utilities Commission to create a database of critical facilities, critical infrastructure, and related critical circuits that are located in tier 2 or 3 high fire-threat districts served by an electrical corporation, and identify whether it serves a community (Sec 3).

• Defines “critical facilities and critical infrastructure” as facilities and infrastructure that are essential to health and public safety that require assistance and advance planning to ensure their resiliency during a de-energization event (Sec 2).

• Defines “critical circuits” as electrical circuits that supply electricity to one or more critical facilities or to critical infrastructure (Sec 2).

• Defines “high fire-threat district” as a geographic area where there is an elevated or extreme risk of fires caused by electrical infrastructure igniting and spreading rapidly (Sec 2).

• Authorizes the Commission and the Office of Emergency Services to prioritize which critical facilities, critical infrastructure, and related critical circuits to include in the database (Sec 3).

• Requires an electrical corporation to collaborate with local governments within its service area to identify critical circuits and microgrid projects (Sec 3).

• Defines “microgrid” as an interconnected system of loads and energy resources, including, but not limited to, distributed energy resources, energy storage, demand response tools, and others (Sec 2).

• Authorizes an electrical corporation, electric service provider, or community choice aggregator to use capacity resulting from a microgrid project to satisfy resource adequacy requirements, and a local publicly owned electric utility to use that capacity to satisfy its resource adequacy requirements (Sec 3).

Full Bill Text