In a final meeting this week before the summer recess, the "CleanEnergy DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2018", B22-0904, was introduced in the DC Council. The bill was referred to the Committee on Transportation and the Environment and the Committee on Business and Economic Development, with hearings likely to be scheduled on the bill this fall.

Important provisions of the "CleanEnergy DC" bill include:
1. Increases the District's renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 100% by 2032 with a minimum of 5% from solar.
2. Beginning in 2020, electricity suppliers (including SOS suppliers) must obtain at least 26% of supply thru long-term (7 years+) power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Tier 1 renewable sources, increasing to 52% by 2021 and to 80% by 2022.
3. Beginning in 2022, electricity suppliers shall meet their RPS requirements by obtaining at least 70% of their RECs from long-term (7 years +) PPAs.
4. REC purchases would be limited to the PJM interconnection region.

The full text of the Clean Energy DC Bill is available on the NEM Website.

The Office of Retail Market Development provided its annual report on retail electric market competition to the legislature. The report finds that the number of alternative retail electric suppliers (ARES) and agents, brokers and consultants (ABCs) certified by the ICC to serve retail customers has been increasing. There are 103 certified ARES and 399 certified ABCs. Although the number of customers choosing to receive competitive supply has declined, the total usage supplied by ARES has increased since last year. There are 1.77 million residential customers and 228,241 nonresidential customers taking service from an ARES.

With respect to consumer savings, the report finds that:

"On average, residential ARES customers in the ComEd territory paid around $10.2 million more per month during the last twelve months when compared to the ComEd Price-to-Compare (PTC)3 and $11.5 million more per month during the last twelve months when compared to the ComEd PTC including the Purchased Electricity Adjustment (PEA).4 In terms of cents per kWh, residential ARES customers in the ComEd territory paid about 1.289 cents/kWh more when compared to the ComEd PTC only, and about 1.445 cents/kWh more when including the PEA.

In the Ameren Illinois territory, residential ARES customers paid around $6 million more per month during the last twelve months when compared to the Ameren Illinois PTC and $7.4 million more per month during the last twelve months when compared to the Ameren Illinois PTC including the PEA. In terms of cents per kWh, residential ARES customers in the Ameren Illinois territory paid about 1.073 cents/kWh more when compared to the Ameren Illinois PTC only, and about 1.330 cents/kWh more when including the PEA."

The report included important caveats to the savings calculations including: 1) the computations are total, or aggregate, savings and the savings for individual customers differ from these averages; 2) the computations are ex-post calculations that do not account for how utility default rates would differ under different customer migration amounts; 3) Most of the ARES with residential customers have at least one offer, usually at a higher price, that features a renewable energy content higher than what is required under the RPS Illinois Renewable Portfolio Standard; 4) the computations do not capture rewards and incentives that are not part of the ARES electric supply rates.

For future action by the legislature and Commission, the Report proposes that electric utilities be required to include the Price-to-Compare (PTC) on all bills for residential and small commercial retail customers and that all ARES be required to include the PTC on solicitations or materials marketing electric power or energy services to a residential or small retail commercial electric customer that contains a price per kilowatt-hour. In the coming year, ORMD Staff also plans to explore methodologies for reporting of value-added incentives offered through the retail choice market as well as the collection of data on customer participation in the market.

The full text of the ORMD Report is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission adopted an off shore wind standard and associated LSE procurement obligations. In brief, "the Commission determines that a series of actions related to offshore wind are necessary to help achieve the CES goal, as part of a strategy to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 in a fair and cost-effective manner. The Commission therefore adopts a supplementary goal, to contribute toward the overall objective of the CES, whereby the quantity of electricity supplied by renewable resources and consumed in New York State should include the output of 2.4 GW of new offshore wind generation facilities by 2030. The supplementary goal is based on contributions towards achievement by each New York Load Serving Entity (LSE) serving retail customers, including the non-jurisdictional Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) and New York Power Authority (NYPA).

In furtherance of this supplementary goal, the Commission adopts an Offshore Wind (OSW) Standard to maximize the value potential of new offshore wind resources by jump-starting the industry to serve New York State. The primary components of the OSW Standard include: (a) initial procurement solicitations, to be held by NYSERDA, NYPA and/or LIPA in 2018 and 2019, for ORECs associated with approximately 800 MW of offshore wind (i.e., Phase 1); and (b) an obligation on LSEs to obtain, on behalf of their retail customers, the ORECs procured in Phase 1 in an amount proportional to their load."

With respect to LSE compliance obligations, including ESCOs, the Commission decided that,

"For purposes of the Phase 1 procurement, all LSEs serving retail load within a regulated distribution utility territory will be required to satisfy the compliance obligation and thereby be responsible for supplying a defined percentage of retail load with supply derived from eligible offshore wind resources. This will include investor-owned utilities serving in their role as electric commodity supplier of last resort, jurisdictional municipal utilities, competitive ESCOs serving electric commodity to retail customers, and community choice aggregators not otherwise served by an ESCO.34 Other non-jurisdictional utilities, such as LIPA and NYPA, are also expected to adopt offshore wind energy targets that are proportional to their load and reflect the Statewide goal. . . . .

As under the CES program, each LSE will be responsible for supplying a defined percentage of retail load with supply derived from eligible offshore wind resources. This will place compliance costs primarily on generation supply charges, where they are most appropriately applied. ESCOs that are concerned about their ability to flow through these additional costs to their supply customers will have ample time to build in these new compliance obligations into new contracts since the time difference between the procurement and obligation (i.e., the average time it takes to build an offshore wind development) will likely be at least five years, which is more than sufficient time to negotiate new supply contracts that generally have average tenures of only one to two years in duration."

The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.