2026 Legislative Roundup

2026 Legislative Roundup

California’s energy planning process and the rules that guide it were created for a grid characterized by one-way delivery and centralized infrastructure. Although the 20th-century system made sense when power primarily flowed from large, remote power plants to end users that primarily received, rather than generated or stored, electricity, California’s energy future requires a more dynamic grid—one that fully utilizes existing distributed resources, energy storage, flexible loads, and other distributed energy resources (DER) as active and bankable grid assets. 

Available clean energy technologies are not the constraint. State policy remains a primary binding constraint on whether these resources can connect to the grid, participate in markets, and be properly compensated for the value they provide. When rate designs ignore cost causation, market rules limit DER participation, procurement pathways for front-of-meter storage remain unclear, or large loads shift costs onto other customers, local clean energy delivers less value than it could.  

Each of the following DER-related bills targets these barriers directly by opening markets, establishing procurement pathways, or amending cost structures that currently undervalue local resources. 

• Senate Bill 943 (Becker) 
• Senate Bill 913 (Becker)
• Assembly Bill 710 (Irwin)
• Senate Bill 1295 (Stern)
• Assembly Bill 1813 (Ward)
• Senate Bill 868 (Wiener)
• Assembly Bill 2383 (Zbur)

California’s Demand Side Grid Support (DSGS) program is also covered as a near-term funding priority.

Senate Bill 943 (Becker): Reducing Rate Barriers to Industrial Electrification

Bill Status: Passed the Senate on 19 May 2026 and re-referred to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations on 15 June 2026. 

SB 943 improves the economic viability of industrial process-heat electrification and creates an opening for reform of Transmission Access Charges (TAC). The bill identifies nonbypassable charges (volumetric surcharges) and TAC as two large components of industrial electricity bills. Both are assessed on a per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) basis at the customer meter, regardless of time of use. Because flat per-kWh volumetric surcharges and TAC do not vary with the more dynamic aspects of customer electricity bills, they can undermine the economics of electric boilers, industrial heat pumps, and thermal energy storage. By remaining fixed on a per-kWh basis even as energy prices fluctuate under dynamic rate structures, these charges increase the effective marginal cost of electricity consumption during low-cost periods. According to the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee’s June 10, 2026 bill analysis of SB 943, volumetric surcharges on energy use are usually about 10–15% of most customers’ electricity costs, but under dynamic rates can equal more than 100% of the cost of off-peak electricity. This reality threatens the ability of industrial customers to electrify, a necessary step to achieve California’s energy goals. 

SB 943 would allow the California Public Utilities Commission CPUC to reduce the impact of $/kWh surcharges for new industrial process-heat electrification customers. The bill also requires the CPUC to develop recommendations for reforming high-voltage TAC consistent with actual grid usage, rather than flat averages, and to request that the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) reconsider existing TAC Structure Enhancement issues by January 1, 2028. For the Clean Coalition, the TAC component of SB 943 is especially important because it advances a core principle behind our long-standing work on Transmission Access Charges: transmission costs should reflect actual use of the transmission grid, rather than being collected as flat charges that distort price signals and disadvantage local clean energy.

Senate Bill 913 (Becker): Aggregated DERs for Resource Adequacy 

Bill Status: Passed the Senate on 27 May 2026, later amended by the author, passed the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy on 24 June 2026, and re-referred to the Committee on Appropriations. 

SB 913 expands pathways for aggregated DER, including behind-the-meter energy storage and electric vehicles, to qualify as Resource Adequacy (RA) capacity through existing market-integrated pathways. California’s RA requirements require utilities and other load-serving entities to procure enough available capacity to meet electricity demand during peak grid conditions. Aggregated DERs, often organized as Virtual Power Plants (VPPs), have demonstrated their ability to serve grid needs in a timely manner, but CPUC RA rules and CAISO market participation models still limit their ability to participate as durable reliability resources rather than temporary program-level resources.  

SB 913 would help remove this barrier by directing the CPUC, in coordination with the California Energy Commission (CEC) and CAISO, to improve pathways for aggregated DERs to receive RA value. This would enable load-serving entities to meet peak capacity needs with existing DERs, reducing reliance on traditional centralized generation and transmission infrastructure and putting downward pressure on RA procurement and ratepayer costs over time.  By recognizing both load reductions and exports from customer-owned batteries during peak grid stress, SB 913 would allow DER and VPPs to reduce onsite demand or export stored energy during these events. This approach better aligns RA procurement with the capabilities of existing DER during system peak conditions.

Assembly Bill 710 (Irwin): Microgrid Resiliency Planning and Data Access 

Bill Status: Passed Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities, and Communications on June 24, 2026 and amended on June 25. Referred to the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

Assembly Bill 710 (Irwin) would require large electrical corporations to collaborate with local governments, tribal governments, and community choice aggregators on resiliency planning, including identifying critical facilities vulnerable to repeated deenergization events and providing access to grid data needed to evaluate potential microgrid projects. AB 710 is valuable because communities cannot plan resilient local energy systems without usable information about the distribution grid, critical circuits, grid hardening plans, and infrastructure constraints. By improving access to this information, the bill would help local governments and communities move from conceptual resilience planning toward financeable microgrid projects that can keep critical facilities powered during outages. 

The June 25 amendments preserve AB 710’s basic value as a microgrid and resiliency planning bill, but they substantially narrow its force as a local-government data access measure. Earlier language would have required utilities, upon request, to collaborate with local governments, tribal governments, and CCAs to identify critical circuits and microgrid projects, provide requested grid information, and respond within 30 days. The amended bill instead makes data access subject to CPUC direction, allows information to be shared in aggregated and anonymized form, and limits the purpose more clearly to resiliency planning for potential microgrid projects serving critical facilities. AB 710 remains useful because it creates a statutory basis for local governments to seek grid information needed for resilience planning, but it no longer guarantees the timely, project-specific, circuit-level, and customer/load information that communities may need to move from conceptual planning to financeable microgrid development.

Senate Bill 1295 (Stern): Front-of-Meter Distributed Energy Storage for Local Reliability and Resilience

Bill Status: Passed the Senate on 27 May 2026, passed the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy on 24 June 2026, and referred to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.. 

SB 1295 creates a structure for utilities to procure, own, or contract for distribution-connected, front-of-meter (FOM) storage as a targeted grid solution to meet local reliability and resilience needs. The bill would establish a pathway for cost recovery while requiring utilities to consider whether distributed energy storage can meet identified reliability or capacity needs at lower cost than traditional infrastructure upgrades. 

Although there are existing statewide programs and market pathways for behind-the-meter storage and wholesale-level storage through CAISO, California still lacks a clear statewide program that compensates FOM distributed storage for the full value it provides. Clean Coalition’s article Energy Tetris Part 2 highlights the planning gap SB 1295 works to address: an existing grid-planning structure designed around a one-directional grid that has not yet been adapted to the reality of bi-directional power flows driven by DER.  

SB 1295 would unlock the targeted development of FOM distributed storage in transmission-vulnerable regions similar to the Goleta Load Pocket (GLP), where paired solar and storage is needed to accelerate community-scale resilience, reduce dependence on transmission infrastructure, and maximize local grid value. By creating procurement and cost-recovery pathways for these resources, SB 1295 would allow utilities to pursue targeted solutions that provide reliability, resilience, reduced infrastructure costs, and potential ratepayer value.  

Assembly Bill 1813 (Ward): Community Solar 

Bill Status: Passed the Assembly on 22 May 2026, amended in the Senate, and re-referred to the Senate Committee on Appropriations 18 June 2026. 

AB 1813 requires the CPUC to modify its customer renewable energy subscription program or adopt a new community solar program that compensates solar+storage projects at the avoided cost of DER and provides benefits to subscribers within the same local reliability area. Qualifying projects must be paired solar+storage, with up to 5 MW of solar and 5 MW of storage, and capable of providing value in the form of measurable load-reduction and grid-support. 

In 2022, the Legislature adopted AB 2316 to direct the CPUC to build a community renewable energy program (CREP). The resulting CPUC program was designed to be heavily dependent on outside state and federal funding, including state funding later reverted to the General Fund and federal Solar for All funding that was later rescinded. Without a durable funding source or sufficient compensation structure, the initially-approved program simply doesn’t have the ingredients to succeed. Regardless, the CPUC adopted a final program earlier this year, although it does include an offroad allowing a utility to close its program if two years go by without signing any new project PPAs. 

The key to a successful community solar program is fair compensation commensurate to the value created by a project. AB 1813 would create a more durable structure by recognizing the full value of community-scale solar+storage, enabling financeable projects capable of delivering real subscriber benefits. If deemed load modifiers by the CEC, these projects will provide much needed capacity to reduce strain on the grid, support local reliability and resilience, and offer a community renewables-driven pathway to Title 24 compliance.

Senate Bill 868 (Wiener): Plug-in Solar 

Bill Status: Passed the Senate on 19 May 2026, amended in the Assembly, and re-referred to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations on 15 June 2026.

SB 868 creates a streamlined pathway for small plug-in solar systems by establishing a category for “portable solar generation devices” capped at 1,200 watts AC per dwelling. Currently, small plug-in solar systems are often subject to the same requirements as traditional rooftop solar systems. The proposed classification system would exempt qualifying plug-in solar devices from interconnection agreements, fees, and utility pre-approval, relying instead on safety certification by Underwriters Laboratories or an equivalent nationally recognized testing laboratory. 

Clean Coalition’s article “Plug-In Solar Is Moving From Workaround to Mainstream” explains that plug-in solar is not meant to serve as a replacement for rooftop solar. Instead, its value lies in enabling small built-environment solar options close to load, offsetting partial building load and, when paired with a battery, shifting midday production to the evening grid peak. Small local resources like plug-in solar are exactly the pieces that fit into Clean Coalition’s Energy Tetris framework: serving nearby demand, reducing grid reliance, and expanding access to DERs for renters, apartment dwellers, and others whose control over their rooftop is limited. 

Assembly Bill 2383 (Zbur): Cost-Shift Accountability for Large Loads 

Bill Status: Passed the Assembly on 27 May 2026, amended in the Senate, and re-referred to the Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities, and Communications on 15 June 2026. 

As California continues to experience growth in large energy-use facilities, including data centers, EV charging depots, and other energy-intensive facilities, utilities may need to invest in costly transmission and distribution infrastructure to serve them. Without proper rate design, new infrastructure costs may shift unfairly onto other retail electricity customers.  

AB 2383 would require the CPUC to create a separate classification and rate schedule or tariff for customers considered large-scale energy-use facilities. The bill would require rates and contracts for these customers to reflect the true cost of serving and energizing them. Cost-causation-based rates would allocate transmission, distribution, and generation costs to the large new loads that caused them, helping prevent unfair additional costs from burdening other customer classes.  

Demand Side Grid Support (DSGS): Near-Term Funding Priority for VPP Development  

California’s Demand Side Grid Support program (DSGS) uses DERs, including home batteries and flexible load, to support the grid during periods of high demand and extreme stress. Instead of relying only on large centralized power plants, DSGS pays customers to reduce net load or export stored energy from their batteries when the grid needs it most. Since its launch, the program has demonstrated the reliability value of Virtual Power Plants. 

Clean Coalition supports continued funding for DSGS through the end of the year to preserve existing grid-supporting resources and avoid losing momentum in California’s VPP development. However, relying on temporary program funding is not a sustainable long-term structure. California must establish durable market and procurement pathways that allow DERs to serve ongoing reliability needs. 

SB 913 points toward a long-term market direction by translating demonstrated VPP value into a pathway for DERs to provide grid services in a lasting way. SB 1295 reflects a similar goal for front-of-meter distributed storage by creating procurement and cost-recovery pathways for resources that provide local reliability and resilience value. Reforms like these move California toward a grid-planning framework that treats local resources as core reliability assets capable of reducing peak demand, supporting resilience, and avoiding unnecessary centralized infrastructure buildout. 

Conclusion

Without the proper policies in place to support DER development in California, existing rules will continue to limit the deployment of technologies needed to meet the state’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2045. The Clean Coalition provides information on seven bills–SB 943, SB 913, AB 710, SB 1295, AB 1813, SB 868, and AB 2383—and one near-term funding priority that would help remove barriers to DER expansion created by existing policy. Advancing these reforms would move the rules governing California’s grid closer to a cleaner, more resilient, and more cost-effective future.