The commission shall establish an effective mechanism that ensures recovery of transition costs referred to in Sections 367, 368, 375, and 376, and subject to the conditions in Sections 371 to 374, inclusive, from all existing and future consumers in the service territory in which the utility provided electricity services as of December 20, 1995; provided, that the costs shall not be recoverable for new customer load or incremental load of an existing customer where the load is being met through a direct transaction and the transaction does not otherwise require the use of transmission or distribution facilities owned by the utility. However, the obligation to pay the competition transition charges cannot be avoided by the formation of a local publicly owned electrical corporation on or after December 20, 1995, or by annexation of any portion of an electrical corporation’s service area by an existing local publicly owned electric utility.

This section shall not apply to service taken under tariffs, contracts, or rate schedules that are on file, accepted, or approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, unless otherwise authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

(Added by Stats. 1996, Ch. 854, Sec. 10. Effective September 24, 1996.)