Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 56 > Chapter 23 - Virginia Electric Utility Regulation Act

• Acquittal:
  1. Judgement that a criminal defendant has not been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
  2. A verdict of "not guilty."
   
• Adult: means a person 18 years of age or more. See Virginia Code 1-203
• Affiliate: means any person that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with an electric utility. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Affirmed: In the practice of the appellate courts, the decree or order is declared valid and will stand as rendered in the lower court.
• Aggregator: means a person that, as an agent or intermediary, (i) offers to purchase, or purchases, electric energy or (ii) offers to arrange for, or arranges for, the purchase of electric energy, for sale to, or on behalf of, two or more retail customers not controlled by or under common control with such person. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Air brake: means any braking system operating fully or partially on the air brake principle. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Amortization: Paying off a loan by regular installments.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Bail: Security given for the release of a criminal defendant or witness from legal custody (usually in the form of money) to secure his/her appearance on the day and time appointed.
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Business park: means a land development containing a minimum of 100 contiguous acres classified as a Tier 4 site under the Virginia Economic Development Partnership's Business Ready Sites Program that is developed and constructed by a locality, an industrial development authority, or a similar political subdivision of the Commonwealth created pursuant to § 15. See Virginia Code 56-576
• City: means an independent incorporated community which became a city as provided by law before noon on July 1, 1971, or which has within defined boundaries a population of 5,000 or more and which has become a city as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-208
• Combined heat and power: means a method of using waste heat from electrical generation to offset traditional processes, space heating, air conditioning, or refrigeration. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Commercial motor vehicle: means , except for those vehicles specifically excluded in this definition, every motor vehicle, vehicle or combination of vehicles used to transport passengers or property which either: (i) has a gross vehicle weight rating of 26,001 or more pounds; (ii) has a gross combination weight rating of 26,001 or more pounds inclusive of a towed vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds; (iii) is designed to transport 16 or more passengers including the driver; or (iv) is of any size and is used in the transportation of hazardous materials as defined in this section. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act: means the federal Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986, Title XII of P. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Commission: means the State Corporation Commission. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Community in which a majority of the population are people of color: means a U. See Virginia Code 56-576
• company: includes all corporations created by acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, or under the general incorporation laws of this Commonwealth, or doing business therein, and shall exclude all municipal corporations, other political subdivisions, and public institutions owned or controlled by the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: means an unvacated adjudication of guilt, or a determination that a person has violated or failed to comply with the law in a court of original jurisdiction, an unvacated forfeiture of bond, bail, or collateral deposited to secure the person's appearance in court, a plea of guilty or nolo contendere accepted by the court, the payment of a fine or court costs in lieu of trial, a violation of a condition of release without bail, regardless of whether the penalty is rebated, suspended, or probated, or, for the purposes of alcohol or drug-related offenses involving the operation of a motor vehicle, a civil or an administrative determination of a violation. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Cooperative: means a utility formed under or subject to Chapter 9. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Covered entity: means a provider in the Commonwealth of an electric service not subject to competition but does not include default service providers. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Covered transaction: means an acquisition, merger, or consolidation of, or other transaction involving stock, securities, voting interests or assets by which one or more persons obtains control of a covered entity. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Curtailment: means inducing retail customers to reduce load during times of peak demand so as to ease the burden on the electrical grid. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Customer choice: means the opportunity for a retail customer in the Commonwealth to purchase electric energy from any supplier licensed and seeking to sell electric energy to that customer. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Demand response: means measures aimed at shifting time of use of electricity from peak-use periods to times of lower demand by inducing retail customers to curtail electricity usage during periods of congestion and higher prices in the electrical grid. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Dismissal: The dropping of a case by the judge without further consideration or hearing. ^Source:
• Disqualification: means a prohibition against driving, operating, or being in physical control of a commercial motor vehicle for a specified period of time, imposed by a court or a magistrate, or by an authorized administrative or law-enforcement official or body. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Distributor: means a person owning, controlling, or operating a retail distribution system to provide electric energy directly to retail customers. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Domicile: means a person's true, fixed, and permanent home and principal residence, to which he intends to return whenever he is absent. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Electric utility: means any person that generates, transmits, or distributes electric energy for use by retail customers in the Commonwealth, including any investor-owned electric utility, cooperative electric utility, or electric utility owned or operated by a municipality. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Embezzlement: In most states, embezzlement is defined as theft/larceny of assets (money or property) by a person in a position of trust or responsibility over those assets. Embezzlement typically occurs in the employment and corporate settings. ^{Source: OCC}
• Employee: means a payroll employee or person employed under lease or contract, or a person who has applied for employment and whose employment is contingent upon obtaining a commercial driver's license. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Employer: means a person who owns or leases commercial motor vehicles and assigns employees to drive such vehicles. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Endorsement: means an authorization to an individual's commercial driver's license or commercial learner's permit required to permit the individual to operate certain types of commercial motor vehicles. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Energy efficiency program: means a program that reduces the total amount of electricity that is required for the same process or activity implemented after the expiration of capped rates. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• Entry-level driver: means an individual who (i) must complete the commercial driver's license skills test requirements under FMCSA regulations prior to receiving a commercial driver's license for the first time, (ii) is upgrading to a Class A or Class B commercial driver's license for the first time, or (iii) is obtaining a hazardous materials, passenger, or school bus endorsement for the first time. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Entry-level driver training: means training an entry-level driver receives from an entity listed on the FMCSA's Training Provider Registry, as provided for in 49 C. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• farm: means any person that obtains at least 51 percent of its annual gross income from agricultural operations and produces the agricultural waste used as feedstock for the waste-to-energy technology, (ii) "agricultural waste" means biomass waste materials capable of decomposition that are produced from the raising of plants and animals during agricultural operations, including animal manures, bedding, plant stalks, hulls, and vegetable matter, and (iii) "waste-to-energy technology" means any technology, including but not limited to a methane digester, that converts agricultural waste into gas, steam, or heat that is used to generate electricity on-site. See Virginia Code 1-222.1
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• FMCSA: means the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration of the U. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Full air brake: means any braking system operating fully on the air brake principle. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Generator: means a person owning, controlling, or operating a facility that produces electric energy for sale. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Germane: On the subject of the pending bill or other business; a strict standard of relevance.
• Gross combination weight rating: means the value specified by the manufacturers of an articulated vehicle or combination of vehicles as the maximum loaded weight of such vehicles. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Gross vehicle weight rating: means the value specified by the manufacturer of the vehicle as the maximum loaded weight of a single vehicle. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• Hazardous materials: means materials designated to be hazardous in accordance with § 103 of the federal Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, 49 U. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• in writing: include any representation of words, letters, symbols, numbers, or figures, whether (i) printed or inscribed on a tangible medium or (ii) stored in an electronic or other medium and retrievable in a perceivable form and whether an electronic signature authorized by Chapter 42. See Virginia Code 1-257
• Includes: means includes, but not limited to. See Virginia Code 1-218
• Incumbent electric utility: means each electric utility in the Commonwealth that, prior to July 1, 1999, supplied electric energy to retail customers located in an exclusive service territory established by the Commission. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Independent system operator: means a person that may receive or has received, by transfer pursuant to this chapter, any ownership or control of, or any responsibility to operate, all or part of the transmission systems in the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Instructor: means any person, whether acting for himself as operator of a driver training clinic or for such clinic for compensation, who is licensed by the Department as prescribed by this chapter and who teaches, conducts classes, gives demonstrations, or supervises persons undergoing mandatory or voluntary driver improvement training. See Virginia Code 46.2-490.3
• Interest rate: The amount paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender's money for a certain period of time. Interest is paid on loans or on debt instruments, such as notes or bonds, either at regular intervals or as part of a lump sum payment when the issue matures. ^{Source: OCC}
• Joint resolution: A legislative measure which requires the approval of both chambers.
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• lane: means that portion of a roadway designed or designated to accommodate the forward movement of a single line of vehicles. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Locality: means a county, city, or town as the context may require. See Virginia Code 1-221
• Low-income geographic area: means any locality, or community within a locality, that has a median household income that is not greater than 80 percent of the local median household income, or any area in the Commonwealth designated as a qualified opportunity zone by the U. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Low-income utility customer: means any person or household whose income is no more than 80 percent of the median income of the locality in which the customer resides. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Measured and verified: means a process determined pursuant to methods accepted for use by utilities and industries to measure, verify, and validate energy savings and peak demand savings. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Month: means a calendar month and "year" means a calendar year. See Virginia Code 1-223
• Municipality: means a city, county, town, authority, or other political subdivision of the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 56-576
• New underground facilities: includes underground cables with voltages of 69 kilovolts or less, pad-mounted devices, connections at customer meters, and transition terminations from existing overhead distribution sources. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Nolo contendere: No contest-has the same effect as a plea of guilty, as far as the criminal sentence is concerned, but may not be considered as an admission of guilt for any other purpose.
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• out-of-service declaration: means an order by a judicial officer pursuant to § 46. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Peak-shaving: means measures aimed solely at shifting time of use of electricity from peak-use periods to times of lower demand by inducing retail customers to curtail electricity usage during periods of congestion and higher prices in the electrical grid. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Person: means a natural person, firm, partnership, association, corporation, or a governmental entity including a school board. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Person: means any individual, corporation, partnership, association, company, business, trust, joint venture, or other private legal entity, and the Commonwealth or any municipality. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Previously developed project site: includes a brownfield as defined in § 10. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• Process: includes subpoenas, the summons and complaint in a civil action, and process in statutory actions. See Virginia Code 1-237
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Public facilities: means (i) airports, landing fields, and air navigation facilities; (ii) educational facilities; (iii) flood control, bank and shore protection, watershed protection, and dams; (iv) hospital facilities; (v) judicial and court facilities; (vi) correctional facilities, including jails and penitentiaries; (vii) library facilities; (viii) military installations; (ix) parks so designated by the Commonwealth or by the locality in its comprehensive plan; (x) properties of historical significance so designated by the Commonwealth; (xi) law enforcement, fire, emergency medical, and rescue facilities; (xii) sanitary sewer, water or stormwater facilities; (xiii) transportation facilities including highways, roads, streets, and bridges, traffic signals, related easements and rights-of-way, mass transit, ports, and any components of federal, state, or local transportation facilities; (xiv) waste management facilities for hazardous, radioactive, or other waste; (xv) office facilities occupied by a public corporation; and (xvi) such other facilities that are necessary to the construction, maintenance, or operation of a public facility as listed in clauses (i) through (xv) and directly related thereto. See Virginia Code 1-219.1
• public service company: includes gas, pipeline, electric light, heat, power and water supply companies, sewer companies, telephone companies, and all persons authorized to transport passengers or property as a common carrier. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Qualified waste heat resource: means (i) exhaust heat or flared gas from an industrial process that does not have, as its primary purpose, the production of electricity and (ii) a pressure drop in any gas for an industrial or commercial process. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Rate: means rate charged for any service rendered or to be rendered. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Recourse: An arrangement in which a bank retains, in form or in substance, any credit risk directly or indirectly associated with an asset it has sold (in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles) that exceeds a pro rata share of the bank's claim on the asset. If a bank has no claim on an asset it has sold, then the retention of any credit risk is recourse. ^{Source: FDIC}
• regulation: include joint rates, joint charges and joint regulations, respectively. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Renewable energy: means energy derived from sunlight, wind, falling water, biomass, sustainable or otherwise, (the definitions of which shall be liberally construed), energy from waste, landfill gas, municipal solid waste, wave motion, tides, and geothermal power, and does not include energy derived from coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear power. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Renewable thermal energy: means the thermal energy output from (i) a renewable-fueled combined heat and power generation facility that is (a) constructed, or renovated and improved, after January 1, 2012, (b) located in the Commonwealth, and (c) utilized in industrial processes other than the combined heat and power generation facility or (ii) a solar energy system, certified to the OG-100 standard of the Solar Ratings and Certification Corporation or an equivalent certification body, that (a) is constructed, or renovated and improved, after January 1, 2013, (b) is located in the Commonwealth, and (c) heats water or air for residential, commercial, institutional, or industrial purposes. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Renewable thermal energy equivalent: means the electrical equivalent in megawatt hours of renewable thermal energy calculated by dividing (i) the heat content, measured in British thermal units (BTUs), of the renewable thermal energy at the point of transfer to a residential, commercial, institutional, or industrial process by (ii) the standard conversion factor of 3. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Restitution: The court-ordered payment of money by the defendant to the victim for damages caused by the criminal action.
• Restriction: means a prohibition on a commercial driver's license or commercial learner's permit that prohibits the holder from operating certain commercial motor vehicles. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Retail customer: means any person that purchases retail electric energy for its own consumption at one or more metering points or nonmetered points of delivery located in the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Retail electric energy: means electric energy sold for ultimate consumption to a retail customer. See Virginia Code 56-576
• revocation: means that the document or privilege revoked is not subject to renewal or restoration except through reapplication after the expiration of the period of revocation. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• School bus: means any motor vehicle, other than a station wagon, automobile, truck, or commercial bus, which is: (i) designed and used primarily for the transportation of pupils to and from public, private or religious schools, or used for the transportation of individuals with mental or physical disabilities to and from a sheltered workshop; (ii) painted yellow and bears the words "School Bus" in black letters of a specified size on front and rear; and (iii) is equipped with warning devices prescribed in § 46. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Solar energy system: means a system of components that produces heat or electricity, or both, from sunlight. See Virginia Code 56-576
• State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
• State: means one of the 50 states of the United States or the District of Columbia. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• state agency: means the same as that term is defined in § 2. See Virginia Code 1-206
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Supplier: means any generator, distributor, aggregator, broker, marketer, or other person who offers to sell or sells electric energy to retail customers and is licensed by the Commission to do so, but it does not mean a generator that produces electric energy exclusively for its own consumption or the consumption of an affiliate. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Supreme Court: means the Supreme Court of Virginia. See Virginia Code 1-249
• suspension: means that the document or privilege suspended has been temporarily withdrawn, but may be reinstated following the period of suspension unless it has expired prior to the end of the period of suspension. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• sworn: means "affirm" or "affirmed. See Virginia Code 1-250
• Tank vehicle: means any commercial motor vehicle that is designed to transport any liquid or gaseous materials within a tank or tanks having an individual rated capacity of more than 119 gallons and an aggregate rated capacity of 1,000 gallons or more that is either permanently or temporarily attached to the vehicle or the chassis. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Third party examiner: means an individual who is an employee of a third party tester and who is certified by the Department to administer tests required for a commercial driver's license. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Third party tester: means a person (including another state, a motor carrier, a private institution, the military, a government entity, including each comprehensive community college in the Virginia Community College System established by the State Board for Community Colleges pursuant to Chapter 29 of Title 23. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Total annual energy savings: means (i) the total combined kilowatt-hour savings achieved by electric utility energy efficiency and demand response programs and measures installed in that program year, as well as savings still being achieved by measures and programs implemented in prior years, or (ii) savings attributable to newly installed combined heat and power facilities, including waste heat-to-power facilities, and any associated reduction in transmission line losses, provided that biomass is not a fuel and the total efficiency, including the use of thermal energy, for eligible combined heat and power facilitates must meet or exceed 65 percent and have a nameplate capacity rating of less than 25 megawatts. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July 1, 1971, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-254
• Traffic control device: means a sign, signal, marking, or other device used to regulate, warn, or guide traffic placed on, over, or adjacent to a street, highway, private road open to public travel, pedestrian facility, or shared-use path by authority of a public agency or official having jurisdiction, or in the case of a private road open to public travel, by authority of the private owner or private official having jurisdiction. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• Traffic infraction: means a violation of law punishable as provided in § 46. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• Trailer: means every vehicle without motive power designed for carrying property or passengers wholly on its own structure and for being drawn by a motor vehicle, including manufactured homes. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• Training provider: means a person that provides entry-level driver training and that is (i) a Virginia licensed Class A driver training school or a Virginia certified third party tester and is listed on the federal Training Provider Registry or (ii) an entity that is otherwise licensed, certified, registered, or authorized to provide training in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth or the applicable laws of another state and is listed on the federal Training Provider Registry. See Virginia Code 46.2-341.4
• Transmission system: means those facilities and equipment that are required to provide for the transmission of electric energy. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• United States: includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-255
• Vehicle: means every device in, on or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn on a highway, except personal delivery devices and devices moved by human power or used exclusively on stationary rails or tracks. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.