Effective: October 22, 2019
Latest Legislation: House Bill 6 - 133rd General Assembly
(A) As used in this chapter:
(1) "Ancillary service" means any function necessary to the provision of electric transmission or distribution service to a retail customer and includes, but is not limited to, scheduling, system control, and dispatch services; reactive supply from generation resources and voltage control service; reactive supply from transmission resources service; regulation service; frequency response service; energy imbalance service; operating reserve-spinning reserve service; operating reserve-supplemental reserve service; load following; back-up supply service; real-power loss replacement service; dynamic scheduling; system black start capability; and network stability service.
(2) "Billing and collection agent" means a fully independent agent, not affiliated with or otherwise controlled by an electric utility, electric services company, electric cooperative, or governmental aggregator subject to certification under section 4928.08 of the Revised Code, to the extent that the agent is under contract with such utility, company, cooperative, or aggregator solely to provide billing and collection for retail electric service on behalf of the utility company, cooperative, or aggregator.
(3) "Certified territory" means the certified territory established for an electric supplier under sections 4933.81 to 4933.90 of the Revised Code.
(4) "Competitive retail electric service" means a component of retail electric service that is competitive as provided under division (B) of this section.
(5) "Electric cooperative" means a not-for-profit electric light company that both is or has been financed in whole or in part under the "Rural Electrification Act of 1936," 49 Stat. 1363, 7 U.S.C. 901, and owns or operates facilities in this state to generate, transmit, or distribute electricity, or a not-for-profit successor of such company.
(6) "Electric distribution utility" means an electric utility that supplies at least retail electric distribution service.
(7) "Electric light company" has the same meaning as in section 4905.03 of the Revised Code and includes an electric services company, but excludes any self-generator to the extent that it consumes electricity it so produces, sells that electricity for resale, or obtains electricity from a generating facility it hosts on its premises.
(8) "Electric load center" has the same meaning as in section 4933.81 of the Revised Code.
(9) "Electric services company" means an electric light company that is engaged on a for-profit or not-for-profit basis in the business of supplying or arranging for the supply of only a competitive retail electric service in this state. "Electric services company" includes a power marketer, power broker, aggregator, or independent power producer but excludes an electric cooperative, municipal electric utility, governmental aggregator, or billing and collection agent.
(10) "Electric supplier" has the same meaning as in section 4933.81 of the Revised Code.
(11) "Electric utility" means an electric light company that has a certified territory and is engaged on a for-profit basis either in the business of supplying a noncompetitive retail electric service in this state or in the businesses of supplying both a noncompetitive and a competitive retail electric service in this state. "Electric utility" excludes a municipal electric utility or a billing and collection agent.
(12) "Firm electric service" means electric service other than nonfirm electric service.
(13) "Governmental aggregator" means a legislative authority of a municipal corporation, a board of township trustees, or a board of county commissioners acting as an aggregator for the provision of a competitive retail electric service under authority conferred under section 4928.20 of the Revised Code.
(14) A person acts "knowingly," regardless of the person's purpose, when the person is aware that the person's conduct will probably cause a certain result or will probably be of a certain nature. A person has knowledge of circumstances when the person is aware that such circumstances probably exist.
(15) "Level of funding for low-income customer energy efficiency programs provided through electric utility rates" means the level of funds specifically included in an electric utility's rates on October 5, 1999, pursuant to an order of the public utilities commission issued under Chapter 4905. or 4909. of the Revised Code and in effect on October 4, 1999, for the purpose of improving the energy efficiency of housing for the utility's low-income customers. The term excludes the level of any such funds committed to a specific nonprofit organization or organizations pursuant to a stipulation or contract.
(16) "Low-income customer assistance programs" means the percentage of income payment plan program, the home energy assistance program, the home weatherization assistance program, and the targeted energy efficiency and weatherization program.
(17) "Market development period" for an electric utility means the period of time beginning on the starting date of competitive retail electric service and ending on the applicable date for that utility as specified in section 4928.40 of the Revised Code, irrespective of whether the utility applies to receive transition revenues under this chapter.
(18) "Market power" means the ability to impose on customers a sustained price for a product or service above the price that would prevail in a competitive market.
(19) "Mercantile customer" means a commercial or industrial customer if the electricity consumed is for nonresidential use and the customer consumes more than seven hundred thousand kilowatt hours per year or is part of a national account involving multiple facilities in one or more states.
(20) "Municipal electric utility" means a municipal corporation that owns or operates facilities to generate, transmit, or distribute electricity.
(21) "Noncompetitive retail electric service" means a component of retail electric service that is noncompetitive as provided under division (B) of this section.
(22) "Nonfirm electric service" means electric service provided pursuant to a schedule filed under section 4905.30 of the Revised Code or pursuant to an arrangement under section 4905.31 of the Revised Code, which schedule or arrangement includes conditions that may require the customer to curtail or interrupt electric usage during nonemergency circumstances upon notification by an electric utility.
(23) "Percentage of income payment plan arrears" means funds eligible for collection through the percentage of income payment plan rider, but uncollected as of July 1, 2000.
(24) "Person" has the same meaning as in section 1.59 of the Revised Code.
(25) "Advanced energy project" means any technologies, products, activities, or management practices or strategies that facilitate the generation or use of electricity or energy and that reduce or support the reduction of energy consumption or support the production of clean, renewable energy for industrial, distribution, commercial, institutional, governmental, research, not-for-profit, or residential energy users, including, but not limited to, advanced energy resources and renewable energy resources. "Advanced energy project" also includes any project described in division (A), (B), or (C) of section 4928.621 of the Revised Code.
(26) "Regulatory assets" means the unamortized net regulatory assets that are capitalized or deferred on the regulatory books of the electric utility, pursuant to an order or practice of the public utilities commission or pursuant to generally accepted accounting principles as a result of a prior commission rate-making decision, and that would otherwise have been charged to expense as incurred or would not have been capitalized or otherwise deferred for future regulatory consideration absent commission action. "Regulatory assets" includes, but is not limited to, all deferred demand-side management costs; all deferred percentage of income payment plan arrears; post-in-service capitalized charges and assets recognized in connection with statement of financial accounting standards no. 109 (receivables from customers for income taxes); future nuclear decommissioning costs and fuel disposal costs as those costs have been determined by the commission in the electric utility's most recent rate or accounting application proceeding addressing such costs; the undepreciated costs of safety and radiation control equipment on nuclear generating plants owned or leased by an electric utility; and fuel costs currently deferred pursuant to the terms of one or more settlement agreements approved by the commission.
(27) "Retail electric service" means any service involved in supplying or arranging for the supply of electricity to ultimate consumers in this state, from the point of generation to the point of consumption. For the purposes of this chapter, retail electric service includes one or more of the following "service components": generation service, aggregation service, power marketing service, power brokerage service, transmission service, distribution service, ancillary service, metering service, and billing and collection service.
(28) "Starting date of competitive retail electric service" means January 1, 2001.
(29) "Customer-generator" means a user of a net metering system.
(30) "Net metering" means measuring the difference in an applicable billing period between the electricity supplied by an electric service provider and the electricity generated by a customer-generator that is fed back to the electric service provider.
(31) "Net metering system" means a facility for the production of electrical energy that does all of the following:
(a) Uses as its fuel either solar, wind, biomass, landfill gas, or hydropower, or uses a microturbine or a fuel cell;
(b) Is located on a customer-generator's premises;
(c) Operates in parallel with the electric utility's transmission and distribution facilities;
(d) Is intended primarily to offset part or all of the customer-generator's requirements for electricity. For an industrial customer-generator with a net metering system that has a capacity of less than twenty megawatts and uses wind as energy, this means the net metering system was sized so as to not exceed one hundred per cent of the customer-generator's annual requirements for electric energy at the time of interconnection.
(32) "Self-generator" means an entity in this state that owns or hosts on its premises an electric generation facility that produces electricity primarily for the owner's consumption and that may provide any such excess electricity to another entity, whether the facility is installed or operated by the owner or by an agent under a contract.
(33) "Rate plan" means the standard service offer in effect on the effective date of the amendment of this section by S.B. 221 of the 127th general assembly, July 31, 2008.
(34) "Advanced energy resource" means any of the following:
(a) Any method or any modification or replacement of any property, process, device, structure, or equipment that increases the generation output of an electric generating facility to the extent such efficiency is achieved without additional carbon dioxide emissions by that facility;
(b) Any distributed generation system consisting of customer cogeneration technology;
(c) Clean coal technology that includes a carbon-based product that is chemically altered before combustion to demonstrate a reduction, as expressed as ash, in emissions of nitrous oxide, mercury, arsenic, chlorine, sulfur dioxide, or sulfur trioxide in accordance with the American society of testing and materials standard D1757A or a reduction of metal oxide emissions in accordance with standard D5142 of that society, or clean coal technology that includes the design capability to control or prevent the emission of carbon dioxide, which design capability the commission shall adopt by rule and shall be based on economically feasible best available technology or, in the absence of a determined best available technology, shall be of the highest level of economically feasible design capability for which there exists generally accepted scientific opinion;
(d) Advanced nuclear energy technology consisting of generation III technology as defined by the nuclear regulatory commission; other, later technology; or significant improvements to existing facilities;
(e) Any fuel cell used in the generation of electricity, including, but not limited to, a proton exchange membrane fuel cell, phosphoric acid fuel cell, molten carbonate fuel cell, or solid oxide fuel cell;
(f) Advanced solid waste or construction and demolition debris conversion technology, including, but not limited to, advanced stoker technology, and advanced fluidized bed gasification technology, that results in measurable greenhouse gas emissions reductions as calculated pursuant to the United States environmental protection agency's waste reduction model (WARM);
(g) Demand-side management and any energy efficiency improvement;
(h) Any new, retrofitted, refueled, or repowered generating facility located in Ohio, including a simple or combined-cycle natural gas generating facility or a generating facility that uses biomass, coal, modular nuclear, or any other fuel as its input;
(i) Any uprated capacity of an existing electric generating facility if the uprated capacity results from the deployment of advanced technology.
"Advanced energy resource" does not include a waste energy recovery system that is, or has been, included in an energy efficiency program of an electric distribution utility pursuant to requirements under section 4928.66 of the Revised Code.
(35) "Air contaminant source" has the same meaning as in section 3704.01 of the Revised Code.
(36) "Cogeneration technology" means technology that produces electricity and useful thermal output simultaneously.
(37)(a) "Renewable energy resource" means any of the following:
(i) Solar photovoltaic or solar thermal energy;
(ii) Wind energy;
(iii) Power produced by a hydroelectric facility;
(iv) Power produced by a small hydroelectric facility, which is a facility that operates, or is rated to operate, at an aggregate capacity of less than six megawatts;
(v) Power produced by a run-of-the-river hydroelectric facility placed in service on or after January 1, 1980, that is located within this state, relies upon the Ohio river, and operates, or is rated to operate, at an aggregate capacity of forty or more megawatts;
(vi) Geothermal energy;
(vii) Fuel derived from solid wastes, as defined in section 3734.01 of the Revised Code, through fractionation, biological decomposition, or other process that does not principally involve combustion;
(viii) Biomass energy;
(ix) Energy produced by cogeneration technology that is placed into service on or before December 31, 2015, and for which more than ninety per cent of the total annual energy input is from combustion of a waste or byproduct gas from an air contaminant source in this state, which source has been in operation since on or before January 1, 1985, provided that the cogeneration technology is a part of a facility located in a county having a population of more than three hundred sixty-five thousand but less than three hundred seventy thousand according to the most recent federal decennial census;
(x) Biologically derived methane gas;
(xi) Heat captured from a generator of electricity, boiler, or heat exchanger fueled by biologically derived methane gas;
(xii) Energy derived from nontreated by-products of the pulping process or wood manufacturing process, including bark, wood chips, sawdust, and lignin in spent pulping liquors.
"Renewable energy resource" includes, but is not limited to, any fuel cell used in the generation of electricity, including, but not limited to, a proton exchange membrane fuel cell, phosphoric acid fuel cell, molten carbonate fuel cell, or solid oxide fuel cell; wind turbine located in the state's territorial waters of Lake Erie; methane gas emitted from an abandoned coal mine; waste energy recovery system placed into service or retrofitted on or after the effective date of the amendment of this section by S.B. 315 of the 129th general assembly, September 10, 2012, except that a waste energy recovery system described in division (A)(38)(b) of this section may be included only if it was placed into service between January 1, 2002, and December 31, 2004; storage facility that will promote the better utilization of a renewable energy resource; or distributed generation system used by a customer to generate electricity from any such energy.
"Renewable energy resource" does not include a waste energy recovery system that is, or was, on or after January 1, 2012, included in an energy efficiency program of an electric distribution utility pursuant to requirements under section 4928.66 of the Revised Code.
(b) As used in division (A)(37) of this section, "hydroelectric facility" means a hydroelectric generating facility that is located at a dam on a river, or on any water discharged to a river, that is within or bordering this state or within or bordering an adjoining state and meets all of the following standards:
(i) The facility provides for river flows that are not detrimental for fish, wildlife, and water quality, including seasonal flow fluctuations as defined by the applicable licensing agency for the facility.
(ii) The facility demonstrates that it complies with the water quality standards of this state, which compliance may consist of certification under Section 401 of the "Clean Water Act of 1977," 91 Stat. 1598, 1599, 33 U.S.C. 1341, and demonstrates that it has not contributed to a finding by this state that the river has impaired water quality under Section 303(d) of the "Clean Water Act of 1977," 114 Stat. 870, 33 U.S.C. 1313.
(iii) The facility complies with mandatory prescriptions regarding fish passage as required by the federal energy regulatory commission license issued for the project, regarding fish protection for riverine, anadromous, and catadromous fish.
(iv) The facility complies with the recommendations of the Ohio environmental protection agency and with the terms of its federal energy regulatory commission license regarding watershed protection, mitigation, or enhancement, to the extent of each agency's respective jurisdiction over the facility.
(v) The facility complies with provisions of the "Endangered Species Act of 1973," 87 Stat. 884, 16 U.S.C. 1531 to 1544, as amended.
(vi) The facility does not harm cultural resources of the area. This can be shown through compliance with the terms of its federal energy regulatory commission license or, if the facility is not regulated by that commission, through development of a plan approved by the Ohio historic preservation office, to the extent it has jurisdiction over the facility.
(vii) The facility complies with the terms of its federal energy regulatory commission license or exemption that are related to recreational access, accommodation, and facilities or, if the facility is not regulated by that commission, the facility complies with similar requirements as are recommended by resource agencies, to the extent they have jurisdiction over the facility; and the facility provides access to water to the public without fee or charge.
(viii) The facility is not recommended for removal by any federal agency or agency of any state, to the extent the particular agency has jurisdiction over the facility.
(c) The standards in divisions (A)(37)(b)(i) to (viii) of this section do not apply to a small hydroelectric facility under division (A)(37)(a)(iv) of this section.
(38) "Waste energy recovery system" means either of the following:
(a) A facility that generates electricity through the conversion of energy from either of the following:
(i) Exhaust heat from engines or manufacturing, industrial, commercial, or institutional sites, except for exhaust heat from a facility whose primary purpose is the generation of electricity;
(ii) Reduction of pressure in gas pipelines before gas is distributed through the pipeline, provided that the conversion of energy to electricity is achieved without using additional fossil fuels.
(b) A facility at a state institution of higher education as defined in section 3345.011 of the Revised Code that recovers waste heat from electricity-producing engines or combustion turbines and that simultaneously uses the recovered heat to produce steam, provided that the facility was placed into service between January 1, 2002, and December 31, 2004.
(39) "Smart grid" means capital improvements to an electric distribution utility's distribution infrastructure that improve reliability, efficiency, resiliency, or reduce energy demand or use, including, but not limited to, advanced metering and automation of system functions.
(40) "Combined heat and power system" means the coproduction of electricity and useful thermal energy from the same fuel source designed to achieve thermal-efficiency levels of at least sixty per cent, with at least twenty per cent of the system's total useful energy in the form of thermal energy.
(41) "Legacy generation resource" means all generating facilities owned directly or indirectly by a corporation that was formed prior to 1960 by investor-owned utilities for the original purpose of providing power to the federal government for use in the nation's defense or in furtherance of national interests, including the Ohio valley electric corporation.
(42) "Prudently incurred costs related to a legacy generation resource" means costs, including deferred costs, allocated pursuant to a power agreement approved by the federal energy regulatory commission that relates to a legacy generation resource, less any revenues realized from offering the contractual commitment for the power agreement into the wholesale markets, provided that where the net revenues exceed net costs, those excess revenues shall be credited to customers. Such costs shall exclude any return on investment in common equity and, in the event of a premature retirement of a legacy generation resource, shall exclude any recovery of remaining debt. Such costs shall include any incremental costs resulting from the bankruptcy of a current or former sponsor under such power agreement or co-owner of the legacy generation resource if not otherwise recovered through a utility rate cost recovery mechanism.
(B) For the purposes of this chapter, a retail electric service component shall be deemed a competitive retail electric service if the service component is competitive pursuant to a declaration by a provision of the Revised Code or pursuant to an order of the public utilities commission authorized under division (A) of section 4928.04 of the Revised Code. Otherwise, the service component shall be deemed a noncompetitive retail electric service.