The FIT Coalition is a policy-driven advocacy organization whose members are dedicated to the deployment of renewable energy and its critical role in the nation’s low-carbon future. The Coalition fights for smart clean energy policies that foster growth within the industry while bringing massive levels of renewable energy online quickly and affordably.

Working on rooftop solar.
Solar Thermal Power in Bakerfield, CA
Windmills in WY

Renewable energy goals

California is a perfect example of RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard) failure: Seven years after adopting a 20%-by-2010 RPS mandate, California's deployed renewable energy percentage has not changed!

California Legislators have realized that we need something new and so now, AB1106 is working its way through the Legislature. AB1106 is the bill that implements the REESA FIT and is currently the FIT Coalition's first priority.

Feed-in Tariffs

Feed-in tariffs have proved to be the most successful policy for accelerated deployment of renewable energy.

Several governments in Europe and Canada have implemented feed-in tariffs to meet their RPS goals. Last year, Germany alone added ten time more solar-generation capacity than the state of California, despite California having a solar resource 50% better than Germany's.

California vs Germany.

Feed-in-Tariff FORUM, Aspen, Colorado. March 15th. www.communityinpower.com

Crossing the Cleantech Divide, Palo Alto, CA. April 8-9. Hosted by Silicon Valley Bank (invite only)

Assembly Bill 1106 - Renewable Energy Generation Facilities: Feed-in Tariffs

Introduced in to the California Legislature February 27, 2009

Sponsors: Assembly Members Fuentes and Ruskin

Current Status

  • Passed the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee on 07/07/09 by a 6-2 vote
  • Amended and sent to Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee 06/25/09. Full text available here(HTML).
  • Passed in Assembly on 06/01/2009. (Vote details)

For next action steps, go to the REESA Dashboard.

Bill Summary

(based on the current version, amended 06/25/09)

For full details on the bill go tohttp://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html and search for AB1106.

AB1106 amends the Public Utilities Code, Section 399.20, and adds a new section to the Code, Section 399.21

Main Provisions

  • Existing Feed-in-Tariff program as described in 399.20 remains in effect until July 1, 2011
  • All electrical corporations must publish a feed-in tariff for renewable electricity generation
    • Does not cover local publicly-owned utilities
    • Corporations under 100K customers are excepted from FIT at the discretion of the CPUC
  • Projects are separated in to two tiers by project size: Tier 1 is up to 5MW, Tier 2 is over 5MW up to 10MW
    • Tier 1 Projects priced based on cost of production plus reasonable rate of return
      • Pricing is differentiated by technology
    • Tier 1 contracts are 25 years
    • Tier 2 Projects priced based on value of kwh generated, including Time of Day and other renewable energy attributes
    • Tier 2 contracts can be 10, 15, or 20 years
  • Rates are revisited every 2 years
  • Electricity counts towards the corporations RPS requirements and resource adequacy standards
  • Facility may switch from net metering to feed-in tariff

 

Missing REESA Provisions

The following provisions are recommended additions/amendments to AB1106 in order to create a successful FIT policy for California

  • The policy should include an annual cap of new generation capacity eligible for the feed-in tariff. Recommended that this cap be 2% of each corporations total annual delivered energy.
  • The policy should apply to publicly-owned utilities, not just the IOUs
  • The FIT Program should be phased in beginning July 1, 2010. Phasing can be done by technology, with solar coming first
  • The policy should address interconnection barriers by requiring utilities to publish capacity information and upgrade plans for distribution circuits
  • The policy should require one standard must-take contract across all corporations, rather than having each corporation implement their own
  • The policy should provide a 20 year contract as an option for both tiers and should be the minimum contract length
  • The policy should set a 2-year time limit for project deployment from the date of approval

 

For a comparison of AB1106 and SB32 click here.