Knowledge Center
We believe that sharing our expertise and collaborations in clean energy policy is how real, effective change happens.
From reports and policy briefs, to webinars and podcasts—RAP advisors have built an extensive collection of resources providing in-depth analysis and practical solutions to today’s energy challenges.
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This report, the second of three volumes of Next-Generation Performance-Based Regulation: Emphasizing Utility Performance to Unleash Power Sector Innovation, focuses on best practices for design, development, and implementation of performance-based regulation mechanisms. It begins by laying the groundwork for understanding… View Summary +
This report, the final of three volumes of Next-Generation Performance-Based Regulation: Emphasizing Utility Performance to Unleash Power Sector Innovation, focuses on how performance-based regulation (PBR) can be used to navigate an era of rapid technological change in the power sector. View Summary +
Traditional “cost-of-service” regulation, where the rate of return is set on rate base, gives utilities incentives to invest in additional infrastructure to increase their own revenues, even when less expensive options are available to meet customers’ needs. The adoption of… View Summary +
Advanced technologies are unleashing the potential for change in power sectors around the globe, transforming the way electricity is generated, delivered, and consumed. These changes hold great promise for a better, cleaner, more reliable, and lower cost future. Whether the… View Summary +
Advanced technologies are unleashing the potential for change in power sectors around the globe, transforming the way electricity is generated, delivered, and consumed. These changes hold great promise for a better, cleaner, more reliable and lower-cost future. Whether the benefits… View Summary +
Performance-based regulation (PBR) enables regulators to reform 100-year-old regulatory structures to unleash innovations within 21st century power systems. Our current electric system is built upon an old regulatory paradigm that ensured safe and reliable electricity at reasonable prices from capital-intensive… View Summary +
Innovation in the electric energy system and the empowerment of customers means that there is a need to reform traditional cost-of-service regulation of utilities. Performance-based regulation (PBR), which recompenses utilities based upon their performance outputs, enables regulators to reform hundred-year-old… View Summary +
Ensuring a stronger grid that is capable of withstanding a catastrophic event, or alternatively a grid for which outage durations can be minimized in such an event, involves several steps. First is prevention: identifying the grid’s weaknesses and how to… View Summary +
As we head into 2017, the U.S. power sector is still in the midst of a steady, technology-driven transformation. In a RAP webinar held on January 17, 2017, RAP’s Ken Colburn, Dr. Carl Linvill, David Littell, and Richard Sedano held… View Summary +
Natural gas as a power plant fuel has already played an important role in a transition to a low-carbon economy. However, while a transition to gas-fueled electricity is a carbon reduction strategy for a coal-reliant power system, putting… View Summary +
As China moves through the process of testing approaches and implementing a national program for regulating carbon emissions, lessons from similar programs elsewhere in the world may prove useful. In particular, such a program requires a robust review… View Summary +
The original agreement to develop the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), following a 2005 memorandum of understanding, included a provision for a “comprehensive review” of all aspects of the program. The successful experience of this program review illustrates… View Summary +
The burning of biomass for electricity generation could play a role in states’ Clean Power Plan (CPP) compliance, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s guidance on what constitutes “qualifying biomass” is still pending at its Scientific Advisory Board. Discussions… View Summary +
In a May 19 webinar, RAP’s David Littell and David Farnsworth examined important lessons learned by environmental and energy regulators on how to set up and oversee carbon markets. Drawing from RAP’s primer, “Carbon Markets 101: “How-to” Considerations for Regulatory… View Summary +
While utilities may own their own generating stations and power lines for distributing electricity to their customers, much of the operation of these assets occurs through their participation in a regional transmission organization (RTO), sometimes called an independent system operator… View Summary +