PURPA

PURPA is a federal law enacted in 1978 in reaction to an energy crisis and implemented by state public service commissions for rate-regulated electric utilities. PURPA’s goals are to encourage competition, conservation, reliability and efficiency in generating and delivering electricity. One of the ways PURPA was set up to accomplish its goals was by establishing a new class of power generation facilities -known as qualifying facilities (QFs) -which would receive a special rate for selling their electricity back to the local electric utility and related regulatory treatment. PURPA imposed an obligation on local (“host”) utilities to purchase power from QFs in an effort to promote competition and achieve the other policy goals embodied in the federal law. Federal rules require state public service commissions and non-regulated utilities (primarily rural cooperatives and municipalities not regulated by state commissions) to set rates for the host utility to buy power from a QF. For an issue brief about PURPA, click here. 

The Commission issued its second Report on the Implementation of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) on April 20, 2020, as required by Section 6v of PA 341 of 2016. This report describes the status of qualifying facilities (QFs) in the state, the current status of power purchase agreements (PPAs) for each QF, and the Commission’s efforts to comply with the requirements of PURPA. 

Staff Leads

Merideth Hadala

The Commission established separately docketed cases for all rate-regulated utilities and directed them to make avoided cost calculation filings in June 2016.  The cases are proceeding and links to each docket are provided below.