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To help you understand the key issues facing our industry, please use the following glossary of terms:
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- C.I.F.
- Cut in Flat.
- Cable
- A conductor composed of a number of wires twisted together.
- Cal-ISO Declares Power Supply Emergencies
- Stage 1: When real-time operating electric power reserves drop below 7%. Consumers are urged to voluntarily conserve energy.
Stage 2: When operating power reserves drop below 5%, Cal-ISO directs SCE and the state’s other investor-owned utilities to notify interruptible customers to curtail prescribed load within 10 minutes of the declaration.
Stage 3: When operating reserves drop below 1½%. Cal-ISO directs investor-owned utilities to shed a certain amount of load, which is achieved by controlled rotating outages. SCE will drop blocks of customers one hour at a time, except those circuits that include “essential” customers (e.g., hospitals, public safety and medical operations).
- Cal-ISO: California Independent System Operator
- The state agency responsible for operating most of the state's transmission grid. Its responsibilities include providing nondiscriminatory access to the grid, managing congestion, maintaining the reliability and security of the grid, and providing billing and settlement services.
- California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE)
- A state program that currently provides a 20% discount to residential customers who meet certain qualifications and income requirements.
- California Department of Water Resources (CDWR)
- The state agency assigned responsibility by the California Legislature in January 2001 with procuring power for the investor-owned utilities (PG&E, SCE and SDG&E) after these utilities lost their ability to purchase power for their customers during the energy crisis. The investor-owned utilities resumed this responsibility in January 2002.
- California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)
- The agency headquartered in San Francisco that regulates investor-owned telecommunications, electric, natural gas, water, railroad, rail transit and passenger transportation companies based in California. The CPUC does not regulate municipal (city-owned) utilities.
The CPUC is chartered by the State of California to ensure consumers have safe, reliable utility service at reasonable rates. It is also charged with protecting consumers from fraud and promoting the health of California's economy.
The governor appoints five commissioners, who must be confirmed by the State Senate, for six-year staggered terms. The governor appoints one of the five to serve as commission president.
- Capacitor
- A piece of equipment used to absorb surges or swells, or to alleviate voltage sag, occurring in a distribution system.
- Capacitor Bank
- A group of capacitors connected together for three-phase application to improve voltage.
- Capacity
- The amount of load a piece of equipment or line can generate or carry.
- Check Meter
- An instrument used to establish the amount of electricity used by a customer’s appliances.
- Circuit
- The path taken by electrical current flowing through a conductor from one terminal of the source of supply to the other.
- Circuit Breaker
- A safety device to sense overloading and interrupt a circuit.
- Clips
- Also known as JAWS. Point of contact between SCE meter and customer load. Customer responsibility.
- Closed Circuits
- A complete electric circuit through which current will flow when voltage is applied.
- Cogeneration
- A process that reuses thermal energy by coupling a thermal industrial process with thermal electric generation.
- Competition Transition Charge (CTC)
- CTC is a charge itemized on customer bills to recover costs associated with utility investments in generation-related assets and state-mandated contracts with nonutility generators that may now be uneconomic and unrecoverable in the restructured electric utility industry.
These costs had always been a part of SCE's rates, but were being recovered over a longer period of time and were not separately identified. AB1890 allows California's investor-owned utilities to recover these costs within an accelerated, four-year timeframe, which ends no later than March 31, 2002.
- Computer Engineering
- Conductor
- A wire or path through which a current of electricity flows.
- Contract Demand
- A minimum demand charge based on transformer capacity necessary to serve a customer’s measurable demand.
- Core/non-core Customers
- Core customers are served by a utility and do not have a choice of their energy supplier. Non-core customers are not served by a utility unless they make that choice (in some states, non-core customers do not have a choice to be served by the utility). Core/non-core is not currently in place for electric utility customers in California.
- CPUC
- California Public Utilities Commission, the governing body that regulates investor-owned utilities in the state.
- Crossarm
- A wooden beam fastened at the top of a pole to separate and support conductors and apparatus.
- Current
- The flow of electricity though a circuit measured in amperes (amps).
- Current Transformer (CT)
- A transformer that steps down the current in a circuit by a fixed percentage from a high value to a low value in order to provide a useable current for metering purposes.
- Customer Service Conductors
- Conductors between meter panel and SCE service drops.
- CVR
- Conservation Voltage Regulation – Reduces transmission/distribution line voltages to conserve energy.
- Cycle
- One complete period of the reversal of an alternating current from positive to negative and back again.
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