CPUC DECISIONS REQUIRING INDEPENDENT EVALUATOR PARTICIPATION. The CPUC first mandated a requirement for an independent, third-party evaluator to participate in competitive solicitations for utility power procurement in its Decision 04-12- 048 on December 16, 2004 (Findings of Fact 94-95, Ordering Paragraph 28). In that Decision, which addressed the approval of three utilities’ long-term procurement plans, the CPUC required the use of an IE when Participants in a competitive procurement solicitation include affiliates of investor-owned utilities (IOUs), IOU-built projects, or IOU-turnkey projects. The Decision envisaged that establishing a role for an IE would serve as a safeguard in the process of evaluating IOU-built or IOU-affiliated projects competing against Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with independent power developers, a safeguard to protect consumers from any anti-competitive conduct between utilities and their corporate affiliates or from anti-competitive conduct by utilities developing their own generation. Later, in approving the IOUs’ 2006 RPS procurement plans and solicitation protocols, the CPUC issued Decision 00-00-000 on May 25, 2006. In that Decision, the CPUC expanded its requirement, ordering that each IOU use an IE to evaluate and report on the entire solicitation, evaluation, and selection process, for the 2006 RPS RFO and all future competitive solicitations. This requirement to employ an IE now applies whether or not IOU-owned or IOU-affiliate generation participates in the solicitation (Finding of Fact 20, Conclusion of Law 3, and Ordering Paragraph 8). This requirement, among others, was intended by the CPUC to increase the fairness and transparency of the proposal selection process. Subsequently, as part of Rulemaking 00-00-000 to continue implementation of the RPS program, the CPUC issued Decision 00-00-000 on June 19, 2009. In that decision, the Commission concluded that short-term bilaterally negotiated contracts (e.g. those with term of less than ten years) should be governed by the same contract review processes and standards as contracts that arise through competitive solicitations, including review by an independent evaluator.
