Section 745.

(a) For purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings:

(1) "Bill protection" means that customers on mandatory or default time-variant pricing will be guaranteed that the total amount paid for electric service shall not exceed the amount that would have been due under the customer's previous rate schedule.

(2) "Time-variant pricing" includes time-of-use rates, critical peak pricing, and real-time pricing, but does not include programs that provide customers with discounts from standard tariff rates as an incentive to reduce consumption at certain times, including peak time rebates.

(b) The commission shall not require or permit an electrical corporation to do any of the following:

(1) Employ mandatory or default time-variant pricing, with or without bill protection, for any residential customer prior to January 1, 2013.

(2) Employ mandatory or default time-variant pricing, without bill protection, for residential customers prior to January 1, 2014.

(3) Employ mandatory or default real-time pricing, without bill protection, for residential customers prior to January 1, 2020.

(c) The commission may, at any time, authorize an electrical corporation to offer residential customers the option of receiving service pursuant to time-variant pricing and to participate in other demand response programs.

(d) On and after January 1, 2014, the commission shall only approve an electrical corporation's use of default time-variant pricing in a manner consistent with the other provisions of this part, if all of the following conditions have been met:

(1) Residential customers have the option to not receive service pursuant to time-variant pricing and incur no additional charges as a result of the exercise of that option. Prohibited charges include, but are not limited to, administrative fees for switching away from time-variant pricing, hedging premiums that exceed any actual costs of hedging, and more than a proportional share of any discounts or other incentives paid to customers to increase participation in time-variant pricing. This prohibition on additional charges is not intended to ensure that a customer will necessarily experience a lower total bill as a result of the exercise of the option to not receive service pursuant to a time-variant rate schedule.

(2) Residential customers receiving a medical baseline allowance pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 739 and customers requesting third-party notification pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 779.1, shall not be subject to mandatory or default time-variant pricing.

(3) A residential customer shall not be subject to a default time-variant rate schedule without bill protection unless that residential customer has been provided with not less than one year of interval usage data from an advanced meter and associated customer education and, following the passage of this period, is provided with not less than one year of bill protection during which the total amount paid by the residential customer for electric service shall not exceed the amount that would have been payable by the residential customer under that customer's previous rate schedule.

(Added by Stats. 2009, Ch. 337, Sec. 6. Effective October 11, 2009.)