Electricity: load shifting.

Senator Becker, with coauthor Senator Stern, seeks to embed a rigorous, data-driven framework for load flexibility into California’s planning process by expanding the Energy Commission’s biennial Integrated Energy Policy Report to include cost-effectiveness analyses of load-shifting interventions and to quantify how much each intervention could contribute toward the state’s 2030 target, while coordinating with the Public Utilities Commission and the Independent System Operator. At the same time, the bill requires the Commission to estimate each retail supplier’s load-shifting potential in every IEPR and to publish the actual amount of load shifting achieved by each retailer starting in 2028.

The measure directs a sequence of analytic and reporting requirements. By the IEPR update after January 1, 2027, the Energy Commission must analyze the cost-effectiveness of specific load-flexibility programs and other load-shifting interventions and identify both the approximate amount of load shifting each intervention could contribute toward the 2030 goal and the corresponding cost-effectiveness. In every IEPR, the Commission must estimate each retail supplier’s load-shifting potential, considering factors such as statewide load share, service-territory limitations, program cost-effectiveness, and other Commission-determined factors, while excluding load shifting anticipated from emergency programs. Beginning by July 1, 2028 and biennially thereafter, the Commission must publish on its website the amount of load shifting each retail supplier achieved in the prior calendar year and establish standards for estimating load shifting by type of load-flexibility effort, with standards periodically updated.

The bill clarifies the framework as non-binding and preserves the authority of community choice aggregators and local publicly owned electric utilities to set rates, programs, and goals. It defines load shifting and its subtypes, ties key definitions to existing Public Utilities Code terminology, and excludes small entities from the retail-supplier designation (entities with 60,000 or fewer customer accounts or annual demand under 1,000 gigawatt-hours). Definitions also anchor terms such as California balancing authorities, CCAs, electric service providers, and local publicly owned utilities to ensure consistency with current regulatory language.

Contextual findings within the bill emphasize grid reliability and the opportunity to shift demand outside peak periods, citing off-peak capacity, potential growth in flexible loads, and the possibility of lower overall system costs through targeted load-shifting resources. The new analytic and reporting requirements aim to illuminate cost-effectiveness, quantify feasible shifts, and increase transparency without mandating procurement. Implementers will need methodologies for cost-effectiveness analyses and for estimating type-specific load shifting, along with data-sharing arrangements among the Energy Commission, the PUC, the ISO, and balancing authorities, all while maintaining the bill’s non-binding posture and respect for local governance structures.