Sec. 10r.
(1) The commission shall establish minimum standards for the form and content of all disclosures, explanations, or sales information disseminated by a person selling electric service to ensure that the person provides adequate, accurate, and understandable information about the service that enables a customer to make an informed decision relating to the source and type of electric service purchased. The standards shall be developed to do all of the following:
(a) Not be unduly burdensome.
(b) Not unnecessarily delay or inhibit the initiation and development of competition for electric generation service in any market.
(c) Establish different requirements for disclosures, explanations, or sales information relating to different services or similar services to different classes of customers, whenever the different requirements are appropriate to carry out the purposes of this section.
(2) The commission shall require that, starting January 1, 2002, all electric suppliers disclose in standardized, uniform format on the customer's bill with a bill insert, on customer contracts, or, for cooperatives, in periodicals issued by an association of rural electric cooperatives, information about the environmental characteristics of electricity products purchased by the customer, including all of the following:
(a) The average fuel mix, including categories for oil, gas, coal, solar, hydroelectric, wind, biofuel, nuclear, solid waste incineration, biomass, and other fuel sources. If a source fits into the other category, the specific source must be disclosed. A regional average, determined by the commission, may be used only for that portion of the electricity purchased by the customer for which the fuel mix cannot be discerned. For the purposes of this subdivision, "biomass" means dedicated crops grown for energy production and organic waste.
(b) The average emissions, in pounds per megawatt hour, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen. An emissions default, determined by the commission, may be used if the regional average fuel mix is being disclosed.
(c) The average of the high-level nuclear waste generated in pounds per megawatt hour.
(d) The regional average fuel mix and emissions profile as referenced in subdivisions (a), (b), and (c).
(3) The information required by subsection (2) shall be provided no more than twice annually, and be based on a rolling annual average. Emissions factors will be based on annual publicly available data by generation source.
(4) All of the information required to be provided under subsection (1) shall also be provided to the commission to be included on the commission's internet site.
(5) The commission shall establish the Michigan renewables energy program. The program shall be designed to inform customers in this state of the availability and value of using renewable energy generation and the potential of reduced pollution. The program shall also be designed to promote the use of existing renewable energy sources and encourage the development of new facilities.
(6) Within 2 years of the effective date of the amendatory act that added this subsection, the commission shall conduct a study and report to the governor and the house and senate standing committees with oversight of public utilities issues on the advisability of separating electric distribution and generation within electric utilities, taking into account the costs, benefits, efficiencies to be gained or lost, effects on customers, effects on reliability or quality of service, and other factors which the commission determines are appropriate. The report shall include, but is not limited to, the advisability of locating within separate departments of the utility the personnel responsible for the day-to-day management of electric distribution and generation and maintaining separate books and records for electric distribution and generation.
(7) Two years after the effective date of the amendatory act that added this subsection, the commission shall conduct a study and report to the governor and the house and senate standing committees with oversight of public utilities issues on whether the state would benefit from the creation of a purchasing pool in which electric generation in this state is purchased and then resold. The report shall include, but is not limited to, whether the purchasing pool shall be a separate entity from electric utilities, the impact of such a pool on electric utilities' management of their electrical generating assets, and whether ratepayers would benefit from spreading the cost of new electric generation across all or a portion of this state.
(8) Within 270 days of the effective date of the amendatory act that added this subsection, each electric utility regulated by the commission shall file with the commission a plan for utilizing dispatchable customer-owned distributed generation within the context of its integrated resource planning process. Included in the utility's filing shall be proposals for enrolling and compensating customers for the utility's right to dispatch at-will the distributed generation assets owned by those customers and provisions requiring the customer to maintain these assets in a dispatchable condition. If an electric utility already has programs addressing the subject of the filing required under this subsection, the utility may refer to and take credit for those existing programs in its proposed plan.
History: Add. 2000, Act 141, Imd. Eff. June 5, 2000 ;-- Am. 2008, Act 286, Imd. Eff. Oct. 6, 2008
Popular Name: Customer Choice and Electricity Reliability Act
Last modified: October 10, 2016