The California PUC’s Customer Choice Project Team has prepared a draft Gap Analysis following the issuance in August of the paper entitled “California Customer Choice: An Evaluation of Regulatory Framework Options for an Evolving Electricity Market.” This will be supplemented by an en banc hearing on October 29, 2018. Written comments on the draft Gap Analysis are due November 13, 2018. A draft Choice Action Plan is still under development. The Choice Action Plan will serve as a roadmap of actionable steps for the Commission and other government entities to address identified issues in the Gap Analysis.

The draft Gap Analysis identifies issues in three categories – consumer protection, duty to serve, and reliability and energy procurement – related to the current and expected shifts in the electric market related to significant increases in consumer participation in CCAs, direct access and solar. Each issue is identified, current status of review at the Commission explained, nature of the gap identified, and customer choice action recommendations given.

Within the category of consumer protection, the following issues are identified in the draft Gap Analysis:
*Access to customer-specific data by CCAs, ESPs, and third party DER providers while ensuring consumer protection and privacy is maintained;
*Disclosure of electricity content sold by LSEs, including unbundled RECs and imports;
*Should all LSEs be required to conform to the same protocols for disconnection of nonpaying residential customers (currently only utilities can disconnect for nonpayment);
*Should LSEs in addition to the utilities be responsible for emergency response requirements;
*Provider of Last Resort function and whether utilities should continue to serve in that role;
*Protecting consumers from slamming and cramming by ESPs and CTAs;
*Protecting consumers from predatory sales tactics in the sale of rooftop solar;
*Provision of a centralized online location for residential consumers to compare the rates of all LSEs;
*Impact of rate design on behind-the-meter and other resources;
*Should CCAs default customers to TOU rates;

Within the category of duty to serve, the following issues are identified in the draft Gap Analysis:
*Whether additional issues related to DER should be addressed in Commission proceedings;
*Whether reliability is being sufficiently addressed through resource adequacy requirements;
*Review of existing affiliate transaction rules in view of increasingly disaggregated market;

Within the category of reliability/resource procurement, the following issues are identified in the draft Gap Analysis:
*Contracting for reliability resource requirements;
*Electrification of transportation, buildings and appliances.

The full texts of the Draft Gap Analysis and En Banc Hearing Agenda are available on the NEM Website.

Earlier this year the Commission issued its PowerForward Roadmap. The Roadmap sets forth a policy to support grid strength and reliability as well as an open platform to facilitate innovation and consumer value. The Roadmap suggests that the utilities, "should work towards developing a cyber-physical platform consisting of uniform core components, so that the foundation for customer engagement and market participation in providing innovative products and services is set in the state. The goal of a uniform platform is to enable a variety of market opportunities, regardless of service territory, and to create efficiencies that can be passed along to customers either through the proliferation of a more diverse set of retail market offerings or through cost savings associated with the different types of products and services." The platform should provide standardized access to customer energy usage data (CEUD) for retail providers and other third parties as well as deployment of advanced customer metering.

The Commission has now established the PowerForward Collaborative and Distribution System Planning Workgroup (PWG) and Data and Modern Grid Workgroup (DWG) to address tasks identified in the Roadmap and engage in more detailed discussions of issues. The Collaborative is a group with a broader focus that will initially begin with a review of electric vehicles and non-wires alternatives project submissions to the Commission. The first meeting of the Collaborative will take place December 6th at the Commission.

The PWG will focus on issues arising in the integrated distribution planning process with the proliferation of distributed energy resources. The DWG will address: data privacy protection protocol; availability of real-time or near-real-time data; and a methodology for competitive retail electric providers and other third parties to obtain CEUD, including total hourly energy obligation, peak load contribution and network service peak load. Meetings dates for the PWG and DWG will be discussed during the Collaborative meeting. The full text of the Entry Establishing PowerForward Collaborative and Workgroups is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission issued a Tentative Order proposing an additional three year extension of the current waiver of certain regulations in order to continue the five day waiting period when a customer chooses a competitive gas supplier or returns to gas utility service. The extension would maintain the five day waiting period through the end of October 2021. The Tentative Order is additionally significant because the Commission noted it was proposing the additional extension in anticipation of a soon to be released proposal on accelerated switching. The extension will give the Commission time to complete that rulemaking. The full text of the Tentative Order is available on the NEM Website.