Buying Into Solar

Deck: 

Rewards, challenges and options for rate-based investments.

Fortnightly Magazine - December 2009
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The debate in Washington on climate change is heating up, and a national renewable energy standard is part of it. Although far from being law, proposed federal climate legislation is already impacting the business decisions being made by U.S. utilities.

Many investor-owned utilities have been operating under state-mandated renewable energy standards for some time. Many of these standards include solar or customer-sited generation mandates, and investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are acting aggressively to comply. But other than a few notable exceptions, compliance with solar and customer-sited mandates generally is being accomplished through independent customer investment and power-purchase agreements with independent power producers (IPPs), rather than regulated utility investment in renewable generation.

Investments in solar generation offer a variety of potential rewards, challenges, and options for utilities. Solar generation, and particularly customer-sited photovoltaic (PV) solar, might play an interesting and influential role in future IOU resource portfolios and business models.

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