the United States

RAP provides technical and policy support at the federal, state and regional levels, advising utility and air regulators and their staffs, legislators, governors, other officials and national organizations.

We help states achieve ambitious energy efficiency and renewable energy targets and we provide tailored analysis and recommendations on topics such as ratemaking, smart grid, decoupling and clean energy resources. RAP publishes papers on emerging regulatory issues and we conduct state-by-state research that tracks policy implementation.

Featured Work

Helping States Meet Efficiency Targets

RAP recently helped Arizona regulators put their state on a long-term course to grow energy efficiency savings to levels as high as anywhere in the US, working with the Arizona Corporation Commission to achieve a 22% reduction in electricity demand by the year 2020 (based on 2010 numbers).

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RAP Compiles State Energy Efficiency Policy Inventory

RAP's research staff has compiled a state-by-state inventory of energy efficiency policies throughout the US, tracking recommendations contained in the National Action Plan for Energy...

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Webinars Offer Technical Training on Efficiency Design

RAP is offering ongoing technical assistance to Energy Foundation grantees on energy efficiency (EE) program design and implementation. The training sessions are designed to help participants successfully engage in regulatory proceedings and other forums where energy efficiency program proposals are being presented and evaluated.

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Renewable Resources: Exploring the Best of the West

RAP works with the Western Governors’ Association on the Western Renewable Energy Zones (WREZ) project, funded by the US Department of Energy. The overall goal of the project is to develop areas in the Western US with vast high-quality renewable resources and create a critical mass of transmission needs in the same timeframe for an efficient build-out of inter-state lines to deliver the energy where it is needed.

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Unlocking the Smart Grid's Potential

The smart grid holds great potential but smart grid investments will be cost-effective only if their benefits outweigh the substantial costs. Regulators and consumers need to know how the smart grid will deliver these benefits and make electric bills more manageable. Policies must support clean distributed resources and at the highest policy level, regulators should recognize that energy and environmental goals are interlocked.

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SEEing Action on Efficiency by 2020

RAP's Richard Sedano is staffing "Utility Motivation for Energy Efficiency," one of SEE Action's eight working groups. Under the supervision of US DOE and US EPA, SEE Action works...

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Clean First: Aligning Regulation with Environmental Goals

Power sector regulators will play a vital role in efforts to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the years ahead. Neither carbon taxes nor cap-and-trade policies alone will achieve the sizeable reductions of GHG emissions that are needed. RAP proposes that in regulatory decisions, clean resources should get every reasonable preference over resources that have greater environmental impact.

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Decoupling: Incentives for Energy Savings

Decoupling is a tool designed to break the link between how much energy a utility delivers and the revenues it collects, thereby eliminating the utility's incentive to increase profits by increasing sales. With minor periodic adjustments in rates to stabilize revenues, the utility is indifferent to sales volumes and less prone to risk.

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Tapping Efficiency in Homes

Roughly half of all efficiency and/or carbon emission reduction in North American and European buildings can be achieved through retrofit improvements to existing homes. Achieving the efficiency potential will require a new strategy to treat buildings collectively as a critical component of the energy infrastructure.

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