Retail / Distribution Regulation

Climate-friendly policies must make business sense in order to encourage investor participation. Service providers must be fairly compensated or at least neutral to the costs imposed by clean energy policies. Rates must be designed to achieve these policy goals as well. Integrated resource planning remains an important and effective tool to achieve longer term policy goals. RAP works with decision-makers to help design regulatory systems that will achieve business, customer and environmental goals.

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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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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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