HB 24-1246

House Bill 24-1246, which has been signed into law in Colorado, focuses on improving the resilience of the state's electric grid against geomagnetic storms. The bill requires utilities to develop and implement plans that include monitoring space weather, isolating critical power components during severe events, and ensuring cybersecurity for electrical systems. Additionally, it extends carbon dioxide emission reduction goals to 2040 and 2060 but prioritizes the resilience of the electric grid over regulating carbon dioxide emissions as an air pollutant. This means that utilities will need to take steps to protect against space weather threats while being exempt from certain regulations related to carbon dioxide emissions.

Official Summary

The bill requires the public utilities commission (commission) to develop a contingency plan to create electrical generation and grid resilience against geomagnetic storms. Standards are set for the plan. The commission shall promulgate rules requiring an electrical utility to: Incorporate the resiliency plan; Monitor the space weather prediction center of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration in order to isolate large power transformers and power generation from the grid; Mechanically isolate critical components if or when the coronal mass ejection is likely to cause geomagnetically induced currents; Restrict or close fuel pipeline valves to mitigate damage in a sectional failure; Install automatic neutral ground blocking devices in large power transformers; Ensure computer equipment can be mechanically isolated from the grid and sheltered from geomagnetically induced surges; Require all networked systems that operate electrical generation and distribution to be electronically and physically separable from the outside networks; and Require cyber-certification of hardware and software that operate electrical generation and distribution. Current law sets carbon dioxide emission reduction goals for the years 2030 and 2050. The bill extends these goals to 2040 and 2060 and makes these goals a lower priority than the electrical generation and distribution resilience provisions of the bill. The bill prohibits the classification of carbon dioxide as an air pollutant and establishes, notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, that state statute, executive agency rules, and any regulations of political subdivisions of the state must not include the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions as a pollutant. Any portion of an executive agency rule that treats carbon dioxide emissions as a pollutant is void. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)