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Incisive commentary from RAP experts
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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June 11, 2018
Fuel-Switching: We Just Did This in 1990, So Why Are We Doing It Again?
RAP senior advisor Jim Lazar tells a story about doing a cost and environmental analysis on behalf of the Association of Northwest Gas Utilities in 1990, in which he compared space and water heating run on natural-gas-generated electricity to… View Summary +
April 16, 2018
Keys to integrating electric vehicles already in hand
- Christos Kolokathis ,
- Michael Hogan
Electricity distribution networks in Europe run at well below their full potential, finds a new study from the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP). The findings show that the unused network capacity could be utilised for charging electric vehicles with little or… View Summary +
March 29, 2018
Renewable Portfolio Standards: Options from US Experience
- Ryan Wiser ,
- Rachael Terada
China is in the midst of creating a quota system for renewable energy. The policy may resemble that used in many U.S. states known as a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), but China’s electricity market and regulatory structures are unique, as… View Summary +
February 12, 2018
As Reliable as Your Morning Coffee: Why Do We Go Overboard on Generation Resource Adequacy?
On a recent Tuesday morning, we had a blackout here in Key West. Five Brothers Grocery, the best Cuban coffee shop in town, is just around the corner, and owner Heriberto “Pepe” Paez was out of the café con leche… View Summary +
December 22, 2017
Reflections on 2017: Key Trends Shaping the Power Sector
- Jessica Shipley
Reflection comes naturally during the holiday season. As I come to the end of my first year at RAP, I am reflecting on many interesting power sector developments from 2017. I will focus on a handful here—trends that stood out… 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 +
March 18, 2016
Capacity, Competition, and Consumers Top RAP’s List of Missing Market Priorities
The European Commission’s Market Design Initiative (MDI) rightly identifies investment and security of supply, demand-side participation in markets, and market governance as three central pillars of a successful market reform. In framing the initiative’s priorities, however, the Commission has neglected… View Summary +
June 25, 2015
Reliability Standard: I Do Not Think it Means What you Think it Means
Much like the character Inigo Montoya who, in the movie The Princess Bride questions Vizzini’s relentless repetition of the word “inconceivable,” I find myself wondering whether many of those who insist over and over again that the EPA’s… View Summary +
April 18, 2015
Do Pay-for-Performance Capacity Markets Deliver the Grid Resiliency Outcomes We Need?
- Michael Hogan ,
- Michael O’Boyle ,
- Sonia Aggarwal
Competitive wholesale power markets are designed to sustain needed investment through market participants hedging risks in response to transparent pricing in the energy and ancillary services markets. But in practice, it’s been a challenge to realize market prices fully reflective… View Summary +