83R5662 RWG-F
By: Huberty H.B. No. 2049
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to a qualifying cogeneration facility's ability to sell
electric energy to multiple purchasers.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Section 37.001(3), Utilities Code, is amended to
read as follows:
(3) "Retail electric utility" means a person,
political subdivision, electric cooperative, or agency that
operates, maintains, or controls in this state a facility to
provide retail electric utility service. The term does not include
a corporation described by Section 32.053 to the extent that the
corporation sells electricity exclusively at wholesale and not to
the ultimate consumer. A qualifying facility [cogenerator] that
sells electric energy at retail to any [the sole] purchaser of the
facility's [cogenerator's] thermal output under Section [Sections]
35.061 or [and] 36.007, or a supplier of fuel or waste heat derived
from the supplier's manufacturing process that supplies the fuel or
waste heat to the qualifying facility, is not for that reason
considered to be a retail electric utility. The owner or operator
of a qualifying cogeneration facility who was issued the necessary
environmental permits from the Texas Natural Resource Conservation
Commission after January 1, 1998, and who commenced construction of
such qualifying facility before July 1, 1998, may provide
electricity to the purchasers of the thermal output of that
qualifying facility and shall not for that reason be considered an
electric utility or a retail electric utility, provided that the
purchasers of the thermal output are owners of manufacturing or
process operation facilities that are located on a site entirely
owned before September, 1987, by one owner who retained ownership
after September, 1987, of some portion of the facilities and that
those facilities now share some integrated operations, such as the
provision of services and raw materials.
SECTION 2. This Act takes effect September 1, 2013.