Net energy metering: construction of renewable electrical generation facilities: public works project requirements.

As proposed by Assembly Member Pellerin, the measure ties the construction of renewable electrical generation facilities and their associated battery storage that receive service under net energy metering to public works wage and oversight rules, initiating prevailing-wage payments, payroll records, and related reporting for these projects. It designates such construction as a public works activity and requires large electrical utilities to incorporate these requirements into their standard contracts or tariffs, while clarifying the entity that engages the contractor is not itself an awarding body for public works purposes.

The bill adds a sequence of concrete requirements for contractors on eligible projects. After the 2023 threshold, the construction of these facilities falls under the Labor Code’s public works framework, necessitating payment of general prevailing wages (with apprentice-rate exceptions), maintenance and verification of payroll records (limited in what may be copied to the DIR and the Labor Commission), and biannual submission of digital certified payroll data to the Labor Commission, with records retained as public for five years. Enforcement pathways include civil wage-and-penalty actions by the Labor Commissioner within 18 months of project completion, administrative complaints or civil actions by workers or apprentices, and civil actions by joint labor-management committees.

In addition, the proposal provides a restitution-based path to continued eligibility for net energy metering service if a contractor’s willful violation has been addressed and all restitution and penalties are paid. It requires large utilities to embed the new requirements into their contracted arrangements under the existing net metering framework, while establishing exemptions for certain residential and modular-housing scenarios and clarifying the roles of the contracting entity and the contractor. The act also designates the new public-works provisions as a state-mandated local program, with a specific no-reimbursement clause for local agencies.

Broader context and implementation implications flow from these changes. The provisions interact with existing net metering and net billing structures and rely on Labor Code mechanisms for wage enforcement and payroll recordkeeping, as harmonized through the Public Utilities Code amendments and cross-referenced Labor Code sections. The bill allocates regulatory responsibilities to the Labor Commissioner, the Department of Industrial Relations, and the public utilities framework, and imposes data-collection and transparency requirements that bear on contractors, utilities, and the regulators. Questions that may arise concern the interpretation of “awarding body” status in multi-party project arrangements, the scope of exemptions in edge cases, and how the biannual payroll submissions will be standardized and processed within existing administrative workflows.