This reference manual is intended to be used as an aid to state commissions and utilities as they consider the new federal standards that are part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (or EISA, sections 374, 531, 532, and 1307). This is an update of the 1979 “Reference Manual and Procedures for Implementing PURPA”1 that provided assistance to commissions and utilities when they were implementing the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) of 1978 and the 2006 “Reference Manual and Procedures for Implementation of the ‘PURPA Standards’ in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.”2 This manual is sponsored, as the 1979 and 2006 manuals were also, by the American Public Power Association (APPA), the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA).
The purpose of this manual is to provide state commissions and utilities with resources and a discussion that can be used when addressing the new standards. The manual covers the four new PURPA standards that the 2007 statute added and a fifth federal standard that is not a PURPA standard, but has some similarities. This is not intended to provide any recommendations on the adoption of the standards or to suggest a course of action, beyond what is required by PURPA and EISA.
The manual is organized into two main sections. The first section summarizes state commission and nonregulated utility requirements under the EISA and includes background on the original and subsequent standards. The first section also summarizes the implementation procedures and issues that need to be considered when implementing the standards. The second section defines each of the five new standards and provides a discussion of issues that may be considered when addressing the standards in commission and utility proceedings. This includes references and other resources that were used in the development of this manual and that may be useful in state commission and utility proceedings.