SCE Interim PBI Process

February 21, 2008,

Initial contact:

Upon approval of the Reservation Request, a summary letter and the SCE Performance Based Incentive Guidebook is sent to the customer/system owner and the installer. The customer/system owner is responsible for contracting with an approved Performance Data Provider. The PDP will provide actual production data from the customer-owned generation to the Program Administrator for determining the monthly PBI payment.

The Solar System Owner(Customer) Responsibility

This information may be provided as part of the Incentive Claim Form Package (ICF Section 5)) in accordance with the new 2008 CSI Handbook updates.

1. The System Owner must submit a signed letter to SCE that designates the party who will act as their Performance Data Provider (PDP) and PMRS provider. This letter must include: (REFERENCE CSI Handbook 2008 Section 4.7.3.2)

  • Company name, address and Contact information for the PDP
  • Statement that the PDP will provide the PMRS/PDP services for the term of five years.

NOTE: If, for any reason, the approved PDP cannot provide this monthly data as scheduled, it may impact the receipt of the monthly incentive rebate. Incentives will not be paid based on estimated data.

Performance Data Provider Requirements

The PDP must be aneligible PMRS provider listed with the Energy Commission. A list of qualifying meters and PMRS providers can be found on the California Energy Commission’s website at

The Performance Data Provider(PDP) must be approved with SCE. A list of approved PDP’s for SCE can be found on SCE website. Please see:

1. If the PDP is not previously approved, they must submit a one time application to SCE for providing PDP Services. This application requires company information as outlined in the SCE Performance Based Incentive Guidebook. The PDP applicant must receive SCE’s approval before PBI payments are distributed to Solar System Owners.

2. If the chosen PDP/PMRS is previously approved with SCE, the following requirements must be met:

The PDP must also submit a letter acknowledging that they have been contracted to provide the PMRS/PDP services for the period of five years for the specified applicant. This may be the same letter as the System Owner has signed or it may be separate.

The Letter Must Clearly Identify the:

  • Company and contact information
  • Product and/or service being purchased
  • Term of the agreement
  • Address of the associated solar system site
  • Name and contact information of the Solar System Owner that has contracted their services.

PDP Notification of Incentive Approval for PBI Reservations

When the Solar System owner (or applicant) has submitted the Incentive Claim Form and it has been reviewed and approved, SCE will arrange to inspect the meter supporting the PDP requirements. The incentive claim approval letter will then be sentto the System Owner and ‘Payee’, if different than the system owner, and contracted PDP, advising the schedule of the performance period start date for reporting PBI meter data. All performance periods are based on the calendar month.

Monthly PBI Data Submission

The data provider must provide monthly system performance data to SCE in the approved electronic format. Data should include 15 minute interval data as required by the CSI Handbook.

We will track the historical payments and maintain the data reports electronically.

Upon validation of the received monthly data, SCE will submit to accounts payablefor payment which will then be mailed to the System Owner or specified recipient.

PBI Data Report Description

Each month of production data submitted for payment must be provided on its own PBI Data Report. More than one month worth of data on a single report will not be accepted. In cases where a prior report needs revision, the PDP must resubmit the prior report with the updated fields and a short explanation as to why the report needed to be revised. The yellow fields in the CSI PBI Data Reporting Worksheet that require input by the PDP are described below:

  1. Project Info – this section identifies all the project details for the PA to confirm which project and month to which production data and payment will be assigned. It also includes the contact information of the PDP in the event the PA identifies a problem with the PBI data report.
  2. Data Report Number – this is the effective report number out of the scheduled 60 payments. This number must be updated by the PDP prior to submitting each report.
  3. Primary/Secondary Incentive Level – for projects that are approved to receive incentives from two incentive levels OR projects that are prorated due to size or project cost restrictions, the splits established by the PA and reported on the incentive claim approval letter will be entered here by the PA.
  4. Production Report – this section contains all the pertinent reporting information for the PBI reporting period.
  5. Meter Blocks – The blocks numbered from one to four represent the fields available for each potential meter of the specified project. Most projects will only fill out the first block corresponding to a single performance meter onsite. If the specified Project ID has more than one performance meter associated with it, use the additional blocks as needed. Please contact your PA if more than four blocks are needed. This section must be populated by the PDP.
  6. Utility Account Number (Provided by SCE)
  7. Meter Information –Input the meter’s serial number and preface the serial number with an “SN”. For example, SN013257. This section must be populated by the PDP.
  8. Start/End Read and Cumulative kWh – These numbers indicate the cumulative count of the total kWh production of the generation system. This is NOT the 15-min kWh production read. The End Read of each PBI data report should be the same as the Start Read of the following period.
  9. 15-minute Data Report – PDPs are to provide the full log of 15-min interval kWh production data to the PA if possible. The PA will require PDP’s to submit all historical 15-minute interval data that was not reported during the interim PBI payment process period using the EDI 867 protocol. Therefore, PDP’s are strongly encouraged to provide this data during the interim period.
  10. 15-minute kWh Read – this data must be actual production including any meter multipliers. Do not provide raw data that has been processed without applicable meter multipliers.

D.Timestamp – each 15-minute read must also be accompanied by a corresponding date and timestamp, each in separate columns adjacent to the data read. The date stamp should be in the DD/MM/YYYY format and the timestamp is to be in the 24 hour format HH:MM:SS