Sierra Club v. California Public Utilities Commission

The California Court of Appeal rejected Sierra Club’s challenge to a determination by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) allowing electric utilities to consider energy produced from nonrenewable sources in their proposed plans for the deployment of “distributed resources.” The court agreed with Sierra Club that the Public Utilities Code definition of “distributed resources” excluded energy produced from nonrenewable sources but found that the statute did not prohibit utilities’ plans from also discussing localized natural gas-fueled energy sources.

The Sierra Club commenced a proceeding in the California Court of Appeal to challenge the California Public Utilities Commission’s decision to include fossil fuel generation within the scope of distributed resources eligible to participate in a distributed resources procurement program. The Sierra Club contended that inclusion of fossil fuel generation violated the plain meaning of the authorizing statute (Cal. Pub. Util. Code § 769), which defines distributed resources as “renewable generation resources, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and demand response technologies.”