Section 363 Of Article 6. Requirements For The Public Utilities Commission From California Public Utilities Code >> Division 1. >> Part 1. >> Chapter 2.3. >> Article 6.
363
. (a) In order to ensure the continued safe and reliable
operation of public utility electric generating facilities, the
commission shall require in any proceeding under Section 851
involving the sale, but not spinoff, of a public utility electric
generating facility, for transactions initiated prior to December 31,
2001, and approved by the commission by December 31, 2002, that the
selling utility contract with the purchaser of the facility for the
selling utility, an affiliate, or a successor corporation to operate
and maintain the facility for at least two years. The commission may
require these conditions to be met for transactions initiated on or
after January 1, 2002. The commission shall require the contracts to
be reasonable for both the seller and the buyer.
(b) Subdivision (a) shall apply only if the facility is actually
operated during the two-year period following the sale. Subdivision
(a) shall not require the purchaser to operate a facility, nor shall
it preclude a purchaser from temporarily closing the facility to make
capital improvements.
(c) For those bayside fossil fueled electric generation and
associated transmission facilities that an electrical corporation has
proposed to divest in a public auction and for which the Legislature
has appropriated state funds in the Budget Act of 1998 to assist
local governmental entities in acquiring the facilities or to
mitigate environmental and community issues, and where the local
governmental entity proposes that the closure of the power plant
would serve the public interest by mitigating air, water and other
environmental, health and safety, and community impacts associated
with the facilities, and where the local governmental entity and
electrical corporation have engaged in significant negotiations with
the purpose of shutting down the power plant, and where there is an
agreement between the electrical corporation and the local
governmental entity for closure of the facilities or for the local
governmental entity to acquire the facilities, the commission shall
approve the closure of these facilities or the transfer of these
electric generation and associated transmission facilities to the
local governmental entity and shall consider the utility transactions
with the community to be just and reasonable for its ratepayers. For
purposes of calculating the Competition Transition Charge, the
commission shall not use any inferred market value for the facilities
predicated on the continued use of the plant, the construction of
successor facilities or alternative use of the site and shall net the
costs of the depreciated book value of the power plant and the
unrecovered costs of decommissioning, environmental remediation and
site restoration against the net proceeds received from the local
governmental entity for the acquisition or closure of the facilities.
Thereafter, any net proceeds received from the ultimate disposition,
by the electrical corporation, of the site shall be credited to
recovery of Competition Transition Charges.