The definitions in this section apply throughout this chapter unless the context clearly requires otherwise.

(1) "Annual retail revenue requirement" means the total revenue the commission authorizes a utility an opportunity to recover in Washington rates pursuant to a general rate proceeding or other general rate revision.

(2) "Biomass energy" means:

(a) The electrical energy produced by a generation facility powered by:

(i) Organic by-products of pulping and the wood manufacturing process;

(ii) Animal manure;

(iii) Solid organic fuels from wood;

(iv) Forest or field residues;

(v) Untreated wooden demolition or construction debris;

(vi) Food waste and food processing residuals;

(vii) Liquors derived from algae;

(viii) Dedicated energy crops; and

(ix) Yard waste.

(b) Biomass energy does not include:

(i) Wood pieces that have been treated with chemical preservatives such as creosote, pentachlorophenol, or copper-chrome arsenic;

(ii) Wood from old growth forests; or

(iii) Municipal solid waste.

(3) "Carbon dioxide equivalents" or "CO2e" has the same meaning as in RCW 70.235.010.

(4) "Certificate" means proof of ownership, registered in WREGIS, of the nonpower attributes associated with a megawatt-hour of generation from an eligible renewable resource.

(5) "Coal transition power" means the output of a coal-fired electric generation facility that is subject to an obligation to meet the standards contained in RCW 80.80.040 (3)(c).

(6) "Commission" means the Washington utilities and transportation commission.

(7) "Conservation" means any reduction in electric power consumption resulting from increases in the efficiency of energy use, production, or distribution.

(8) "Cost-effective" means, consistent with RCW 80.52.030, that a project or resource is forecast:

(a) To be reliable and available within the time it is needed; and

(b) To meet or reduce the electric power demand of the intended consumers at an estimated incremental system cost no greater than that of the least-cost similarly reliable and available alternative project or resource, or any combination thereof.

(9) "Customer" means a person or entity that purchases electricity for ultimate consumption and not for resale.

(10) "Department" means the department of commerce or its successor.

(11) "Distributed generation" means an eligible renewable resource where the generation facility or any integrated cluster of such facilities has a nameplate capacity of not more than five megawatts alternating current. An integrated cluster is a grouping of generating facilities located on the same or contiguous property having any of the following elements in common: Ownership, operational control, or point of common coupling.

(12) "Eligible renewable resource" means:

(a) Electricity from a generation facility powered by a renewable resource other than fresh water that commences operation after March 31, 1999, where:

(i) The facility is located in the Pacific Northwest; or

(ii) The electricity from the facility is delivered into Washington state on a real-time basis without shaping, storage, or integration services.

(b) Incremental electricity produced as a result of efficiency improvements completed after March 31, 1999, to hydroelectric generation projects owned by a qualifying utility and located in the Pacific Northwest, where the additional generation does not result in new water diversions or impoundments;

(c) Hydroelectric generation from a project completed after March 31, 1999, where the generation facility is located in irrigation pipes, irrigation canals, water pipes whose primary purpose is for conveyance of water for municipal use, and wastewater pipes located in Washington, where the generation does not result in new water diversion or impoundments;

(d) Qualified biomass energy;

(e) For a qualifying utility that serves customers in other states, electricity from a generation facility powered by a renewable resource other than freshwater that commenced operation after March 31, 1999, where:

(i) The facility is located within a state in which the qualifying utility serves retail electrical customers; and

(ii) The qualifying utility owns the facility in whole or in part or has a long-term contract with the facility of at least twelve months.

(f)(i) Incremental electricity produced as a result of a capital investment completed after January 1, 2010, that increases, relative to a baseline level of generation prior to the capital investment, the amount of electricity generated in a facility that generates qualified biomass energy as defined under subsection (29)(c)(ii) of this section and that commenced operation before March 31, 1999;

(ii) Beginning January 1, 2007, the facility must demonstrate its baseline level of generation over a three-year period prior to the capital investment in order to calculate the amount of incremental electricity produced;

(iii) The facility must demonstrate that the incremental electricity resulted from the capital investment, which does not include expenditures on operation and maintenance in the normal course of business, through direct or calculated measurement.

(g) That portion of incremental electricity produced as a result of efficiency improvements completed after March 31, 1999, attributable to a qualifying utility's share of the electricity output from hydroelectric generation projects whose energy output is marketed by the Bonneville Power Administration where the additional generation does not result in new water diversions or impoundments; or

(h) The environmental attributes, including renewable energy credits, from (g) of this subsection transferred to investor-owned utilities pursuant to the Bonneville Power Administration's residential exchange program.

(13) "Energy assistance" means a program undertaken by a utility to reduce the household energy burden of its customers.

(a) Energy assistance includes, but is not limited to, weatherization, conservation and efficiency services, and monetary assistance, such as a grant program or discounts for lower income households, intended to lower a household's energy burden.

(b) Energy assistance may include direct customer ownership in distributed energy resources or other strategies if such strategies achieve a reduction in energy burden for the customer above other available conservation and demand-side measures.

(14) "Energy assistance need" means the amount of assistance necessary to achieve an energy burden equal to six percent for utility customers.

(15) "Energy burden" means the share of annual household income used to pay annual home energy bills.

(16) "Greenhouse gas," "greenhouse gases," "GHG," and "GHGs" includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and any other gas or gases designated by the department of ecology in WAC 173-441-040 or its successor, should that provision be amended or recodified.

(17) "Greenhouse gas content calculation" means a calculation expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents made by the department of ecology for the purposes of determining the emissions from the complete combustion or oxidation of fossil fuels and the greenhouse gas emissions in electricity for use in calculating the greenhouse gas emissions content in electricity.

(18) "High-efficiency cogeneration" means the sequential production of electricity and useful thermal energy from a common fuel source resulting in a reduction in customer load where under normal operating conditions the useful thermal energy output is no less than thirty-three percent of the total energy output. The reduction in customer load is determined by multiplying the annual electricity output of the cogeneration facility by a fraction equal to one minus the ratio of:

(a) The heat rate (in British thermal units per megawatt hour) of the cogeneration facility based on the additional fuel requirements attributable to electricity production and excluding the fuel that would be required to produce all other useful energy outputs of the project without cogeneration, divided by the heat rate (in British thermal units per megawatt hour) of a combined cycle natural gas-fired combustion turbine. The heat rate of the combustion turbine must be based on a facility using best commercially available technology on a new and clean basis.

(b) Calculation of the reduction in customer load is made with the following formula:

(19) "Incremental cost" means the difference between the levelized delivered cost of an eligible renewable resource, regardless of ownership, compared to the levelized delivered cost of an equivalent amount of reasonably available substitute resources that do not qualify as eligible renewable resources, where the resources being compared have the same contract length or facility life.

(20) "Integrated resource plan" or "IRP" has the same meaning as in WAC 480-100-605.

(21) "Load" means the amount of kilowatt-hours of electricity delivered in the most recently completed year by a qualifying utility to its Washington retail customers. Load does not include off-system sales or electricity delivered to transmission-only customers.

(22) "Low-income" means household incomes that do not exceed the higher of eighty percent of area median income or two hundred percent of federal poverty level, adjusted for household size.

(23)(a) "Nonemitting electric generation" means electricity from a generating facility or a resource that provides electric energy, capacity, or ancillary services to an electric utility and that does not emit greenhouse gases as a by-product of energy generation.

(b) "Nonemitting electric generation" does not include renewable resources.

(24)(a) "Nonpower attributes" means all environmentally related characteristics, exclusive of energy, capacity reliability, and other electrical power service attributes, that are associated with the generation of electricity from a renewable resource including, but not limited to, the facility's fuel type, geographic location, vintage, qualification as an eligible renewable resource, and avoided emissions of pollutants to the air, soil, or water, and avoided emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

(b) "Nonpower attributes" does not include any aspects, claims, characteristics, and benefits associated with the on-site capture and destruction of methane or other greenhouse gases at a facility through a digester system, landfill gas collection system, or other mechanism, which may be separately marketable as greenhouse gas emission reduction credits, offsets, or similar tradable commodities. However, these separate avoided emissions may not result in or otherwise have the effect of attributing greenhouse gas emissions to the electricity.

(25) "Pacific Northwest" has the same meaning as defined for the Bonneville Power Administration in section 3 of the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act (94 Stat. 2698; 16 U.S.C. Sec. 839a).

(26) "Pro rata" means the calculation dividing the utility's projected ten-year conservation potential into five equal proportions to establish the minimum biennial conservation target.

(27) "Production efficiency" means investments and actions that save electric energy from power consuming equipment and fixtures at an electric generating facility. The installation of electric power production equipment that increases the amount of power generated for the same energy input is not production efficiency in this chapter or conservation under RCW 19.285.030(4) because no reduction in electric power consumption occurs.

(28) "Pursue all" means an ongoing process of researching and evaluating the range of possible conservation technologies and programs, and implementing all programs which are cost-effective, reliable and feasible.

(29) "Qualified biomass energy" means electricity produced from a biomass energy facility that:

(a) Commenced operation before March 31, 1999;

(b) Contributes to the qualifying utility's load; and

(c) Is owned either by:

(i) A qualifying utility; or

(ii) An industrial facility that is directly interconnected with electricity facilities that are owned by a qualifying utility and capable of carrying electricity at transmission voltage.

(30) "Regional technical forum" means the advisory committee established by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

(31) "Renewable energy credit" means a tradable certificate of proof of one megawatt-hour of an eligible renewable resource. The certificate includes all of the nonpower attributes associated with that one megawatt-hour of electricity and the certificate is verified by a renewable energy credit tracking system selected by the department.

(32) "Renewable resource" means:

(a) Water;

(b) Wind;

(c) Solar energy;

(d) Geothermal energy;

(e) Landfill gas;

(f) Wave, ocean, or tidal power;

(g) Gas from sewage treatment facilities;

(h) Biodiesel fuel that is not derived from crops raised on land cleared from old growth or first-growth forests where the clearing occurred after December 7, 2006;

(i) Generation facilities in which fossil and combustible renewable resources are cofired in one generating unit that is located in the Pacific Northwest and in which the cofiring commenced after March 31, 1999. These facilities produce eligible renewable resources in direct proportion to the percentage of the total heat value represented by the heat value of the renewable resources; or

(j) Biomass energy, where the eligible renewable energy produced by biomass facilities is based on the portion of the fuel supply that is made up of eligible biomass fuels.

(33) "Request for proposal" or "RFP" means the documents describing an electric utility's solicitation of bids for delivering electric capacity, energy, capacity and energy, or conservation.

(34) "River discharge" means the total volume of water passing through, over and around all structural components of a hydroelectric facility over a given time.

(35) "Single large facility conservation savings" means cost-effective conservation savings achieved in a single biennial period at the premises of a single customer of a utility whose recent annual electricity consumption prior to the conservation savings exceeded five average megawatts.

(36) "System cost" means, consistent with RCW 80.52.030, an estimate of all direct costs of a project or resource over its effective life including, if applicable, the costs of distribution to the consumer and among other factors, waste disposal costs, end-of-cycle costs, and fuel costs (including projected increases), and such quantifiable environmental costs and benefits as are directly attributable to the project or resource.

(37) "Target year" means the twelve-month period commencing January 1st and ending December 31st used for compliance with the renewable portfolio standard requirement in WAC 480-109-200(1).

(38) "Utility" means an "electrical company" as that term is defined in RCW 80.04.010 that is subject to the commission's jurisdiction under RCW 80.04.010 and chapter 80.28 RCW.

(39) "WREGIS" means the Western Renewable Energy Generation Information System. WREGIS is the renewable energy credit tracking system designated by the department according to RCW 19.285.030(20).

(40) "Year" means the twelve-month period commencing January 1st and ending December 31st.