Electrification is a top priority for just about every state and province in North America and for many countries around the globe. The urgency comes from the need to mitigate climate change.[1] The biggest barrier facing electrification is the high […]

This article is written in response to an article by Professor Meredith Fowlie in the Energy Regulation Quarterly.[1] She is one of the original proponents of a new rate design proposal that embodies an income-graduated fixed charge (IGFC). Fowlie’s article […]

Under net energy metering (NEM), the buying and selling of electricity occurs at the same price. NEM is a pricing arrangement that applies to consumers of energy that have installed rooftop solar panels on their premise, allowing them to both buy power from the grid and to sell power to the grid[…]

Time-of-Use (TOU) rates, sometimes also called Time-Varying Rates (TVR), include simple time-of-use rates, critical-peak pricing rates, peak time rebates (PTR), variable-peak pricing rates (VPP) and real-time pricing rates (RTP). Today, they are deployed in small numbers in many parts of the globe[…]

I. Introduction For the better part of the past century, residential customers in the U.S. and many other countries have paid for electricity through a two-part tariff that has collected most of the revenue through a flat volumetric charge.  In […]

I. Introduction Any time a manufacturing firm faces rising electric rates, it will evaluate the benefits of relocating to lower cost regions. However, since electricity costs for most firms are a small share of their total costs of doing business, […]