Dive Brief:

• Pacific Gas & Electric filed a motion in bankruptcy court Wednesday, requesting approval to amend power purchase agreements (PPA) with three developers of five clean energy projects. The changes were also submitted as an advice letter to the California Public Utilities Commission.
• PG&E filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 in January, facing billions in liabilities related to the state's recent wildfires. The utility said the developers separately negotiated the PPA changes, after its bankruptcy filing made it difficult for them to acquire project financing.
• PG&E said the adjustments, which include contract price reductions of about 10% per MWh, should create roughly $20 million in savings across the life of the contracts.

Dive Insight:

Along with the price reduction, changes to the PPAs include pushing back guaranteed commercial operations dates and adjusting other milestones. PG&E officials say developers approached the utility seeking ways to reduce risk and uncertainty.

"To that end, PG&E and the three counterparties reached mutually agreed upon terms and conditions for five renewable energy and energy storage agreements," the utility said in a statement. 

The utility told the bankruptcy court it "negotiated considerable discounts." 

The PPAs include three with Recurrent Energy, which were reached as part of PG&E’s 2016 Photovoltaic Program Solicitation. Two other amendments are to capacity agreements with energy storage providers, mNOC AERS and Hummingbird Energy Storage, arising from a request for offers for Local Sub-Area Energy Storage.

The extensions to complete the projects "necessarily arose from the utility’s commencement of the Chapter 11 cases and the resulting difficulty for the [Energy Procurement] Counterparties to obtain the requisite financing to complete the underlying projects," PG&E told the bankruptcy court in its filing.

PG&E officials told Utility Dive they have yet to make a decision regarding other energy procurement agreements. 

The utility holds almost 400 PPAs with more than 350 companies worth about $42 billion, according to court documents. Generators have expressed concern that PG&E will attempt to exit some of its older, more expensive renewable energy contracts to cut its liabilities in the bankruptcy proceeding.

A federal judge in March ruled the bankruptcy court, and not the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has jurisdiction over the PPAs and whether PG&E may exit them.