Pricing

Here Comes the Sun

Growing Impacts of Residential Solar on Utility Customer Service

What does PV mean for utilities’ residential customer service operations? From helping customers with supplier selection, through installation and maintenance issues? And with billing? To begin to address this question, we conducted two sets of surveys of residential electricity customers in the second quarter of 2016.

Byline:

Daniel Gabaldon, Matt Guarini and Jamie Wimberly

Read Entire Article

Ratemaking and the Campaign Against Rooftop Solar

Rate design should balance consumer and investor interests.

Regulators should ensure that changes to rate design seek to balance consumer and utility interests. Rates that are intended to insulate utilities from economic and technological change while providing no benefits to consumers ought to be considered unjust, unreasonable, and unduly discriminatory.

Byline:

Ari Peskoe

Read Entire Article

Line Dividing Regulation and Management

Utility performance, investment versus dividends, rate of return incentives

Generally speaking, regulatory commissions and courts are not anxious to substitute their judgement for that of utility management. A recent example where state regulators found it prudent to gingerly cross the line can be seen in a recent case involving Indianapolis Power and Light Company.

Byline:

Phil Cross

Read Entire Article

Tax Implications of NEM Successor Policies

Federal income tax treatment has nothing to do with pricing sale of electricity to utility or customer.

Advocates for net metering argue that if the electricity delivered by the customer to the utility is credited at the full retail rate, the amount is not taxable, but if credited at less than the full retail rate, such as under a feed-in tariff or a value of solar tariff, the IRS might count the credited amount as taxable income. A tax expert fills us in on the other side of the story.

Byline:

Alex Zakupowsky

Read Entire Article

Illinois Approach to Regulating Distribution Utility of the Future

Annual formula rate is working to stabilize distribution ratemaking.

A lot has been said of alternative ratemaking approaches. The clearest, most direct path is what has been happening in Illinois, a success by any reasonable measure for a distribution utility.

Byline:

Ross Hemphill and Val Jensen

Read Entire Article

The British Electricity Model: 25 Years of Experience

Should We Follow U.K.’s Lead?

British price cap regulation quickly became the international gold standard for regulation. It looked so simple. But if the purpose was to provide a dramatically different and less expensive electricity experience, it failed.

Byline:

Leonard Hyman and William Tilles

Read Entire Article

Aggregation 2.0: Evolution of Customer Engagement with Retail Choice?

An innovative approach to targeted retail aggregation.

No state has had the same initial success with municipal aggregation as Illinois, where more than 650 local governments enrolled 70 percent of residential consumers into municipal aggregation contracts. The pathway forward in Illinois provides a model to help get programs off the ground in all retail choice states.

Byline:

Michael Strong and Mark Pruitt

Read Entire Article