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RAP experts keep their finger on the pulse of the energy sector and provide timely analysis of topics impacting stakeholders TODAY.
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April 24, 2017
Getting More Mileage from State VW Settlement Funds
In 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice reached an unprecedented settlement in Volkswagen’s enforcement case, in which the automaker was found to have cheated on vehicle emissions tests. Under the $14.7 billion settlement, VW is required to: Create… View Summary +
February 1, 2017
Beneficial Electrification: A Growth Opportunity
- Ken Colburn
In the first blog post in this series, we observed that rapid power sector transformation presents challenges but also opportunities for utilities. As older, inflexible resources are retired, cleaner, more distributed resources are being deployed by companies and customers… View Summary +
December 15, 2016
How Europe can Deliver on Energy Efficiency
- Jan Rosenow ,
- Edith Bayer
The European Commission’s recently released Clean Energy Package, has a 2030 target of 30 percent energy savings. An important policy instrument to deliver these are Energy Efficiency Obligation (EEO) schemes. According to new RAP research, not only are EEOs a… View Summary +
October 5, 2016
Delivering the Benefits of Customer Participation in the Energy Market
- Philip Baker
Europe’s new energy project promises to put a focus on consumer interests, yet what this new market would look like in practice is often poorly understood. As the European Commission ponders the design of a new and interconnected energy market… View Summary +
October 5, 2016
Wholesale Electricity Markets and Pricing in China: How is Reform Going?
Implementation of wholesale electricity markets is a major theme of China’s power sector reform effort, launched in early 2015. The central government has issued guidance documents on market design, and various Chinese provinces and regions have announced pilots for wholesale… View Summary +
September 19, 2016
Energy Prices, Not Capacity Mechanisms, are Key to Ensuring Reliability at the Lowest Cost
Electricity generators often claim that prices cannot fully reflect the value of the reliability they offer the market. Hence they insist they need separate capacity payments to justify investments. But according to Mike Hogan, the current energy market design is… View Summary +
July 27, 2016
The Case for Market Monitoring—A Key to Successful Electricity Markets
- Sarah Keay-Bright
The European Commission wants households and business consumers “to be at the heart of” the EU’s upcoming European energy market reforms. This priority, which the European Council and European Parliament seem to support, makes sense as the potential gains for… View Summary +
July 20, 2016
We Need a Lorry-Load of Energy Savings; in the new ECO, the Government Delivers a Hatchback
The United Kingdom was once a world leader in energy savings. We proved that investing in buildings, insulating lofts, and switching to efficient boilers, motors, and lighting created jobs, saved money, and lowered the environmental costs of energy systems. But… View Summary +
March 30, 2016
Deja Vu All Over Again
Yogi Berra famously had a quote for every occasion. If asked to describe the effect of the U.S. Supreme Court’s February 9 stay of the U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), I’d bet he’d say, “… View Summary +
November 10, 2015
Bring Your Economy into the 21st Century: Tackling CO2 with Cap-and-Invest
As they consider how to comply with EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), many states are reaching a growing consensus that mass-based programs with regional trading—“cap-and-trade”—could drive compliance costs down. A related mass-based approach—one with… View Summary +