Rate Cases

Jousting at Windmills

Maryland PSC Subsidizes Offshore Wind

Maryland’s residential and smaller business customers will bear the full cost of the subsidies.

New Jersey Eyes Microgrids to Augment Reliability

Excerpt from the December 9, 2016 issue of PUR's Utility Regulatory News

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities determined that microgrids, whether based on CHP, fuel cell, solar, or some other technology, offer the promise of increased system resiliency. Especially with CHP-based microgrids, energy efficiency is advanced as well.

Effective Rate Design

Two by Four, not a Nudge

Some might think that tweaking rates is all that is needed. This is false. Effective rate design must get customers’ attention. It is not a precise science that should be constrained by gradualism.

2016 Annual Rate Case Survey

It is often said that ratemaking is as much art as science.

It is the process of setting a return on equity that is fair to both shareholders and consumers that demonstrates the art and science practiced by regulators. One case reported here provides a good glimpse at the entire range of issues put before regulators: a decision by the Michigan Public Service Commission setting electric rates for Consumers Energy Company.

Refocusing Rate Design Debates

Public Interest before Special Interest

We must get back to pricing fundamentals. The goals of performance and or incentive-based regulation apply to consumers and not just producers. Here are three questions that every rate design investigation should consider.

Pay-As-Bid Revisited

Many see a higher cap as a windfall for nuclear and coal.

FERC’s new rulemaking proposal would allow generators to tender supply bids higher than $1,000 per megawatt-hour, if it really costs that much to buy fuel to generate power. Some opponents say that may be OK for gas-fired turbines, but it’s not needed for nuclear or coal-fired plants.

Topping the $1k Cap

Still Beyond the Pale?

Two decades into our grand experiment with wholesale power markets and we’re still debating the need for a cap on prices.

Good Ratemaking is Hard to Do

Especially in today’s politically charged environment

Trying to use ratemaking to address an increasing number of social issues intensifies the difficulty for regulators to reach a balanced outcome. Net metering stands out as economically inefficient, unfair and a regressive cross-subsidy, essentially an implicit tax on non-solar customers.