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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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Effective Leadership During Times of Change: Start by Talking to Stakeholders
For years, most utilities have operated quietly, keeping the grid humming along while providing reliable and affordable electricity. That system has served us well. Today, transformational change is sweeping through the power sector, challenging utilities to not only provide energy,… View Summary +
Reflections on 2017: Key Trends Shaping the Power Sector
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 +
A Hearty Bowl of Texas Soup: How ERCOT Keeps the Lights On
ERCOT (or the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas, the independent system operator of that state’s stand-alone wholesale market) has confounded the doomsayers once again. Despite dire predictions that ERCOT lacked sufficient generation capacity, it came through the peak summer season… View Summary +
Revisiting the Public Good, Part 1: A Better Understanding of “Public”
Ensuring the “public good” has been a central regulatory goal since the US Supreme Court decided Munn v. Illinois in 1876, a case in which the court determined that grain elevators — because of their key role in the… View Summary +
States will Decide Future of U.S. Energy
With the coming change of administration in the U.S., speculation on the future of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) is running high. During the campaign, the president-elect made his views on climate change—it’s a hoax perpetrated by China—perfectly clear; and,… View Summary +
With Sinking Storage Costs, Big-Box Solar Could Really Take Off
We know that Target, Wal-Mart, Costco, Ikea, Kohl’s, and other big-box retailers have installed a lot of rooftop solar. They’ve mostly been doing so under net metering rules, and paying the demand charges for their net load on utilities… View Summary +
Regulatory Reform is a Game of Hopscotch, Not a Flying Leap
The changes underway in the electricity industry are well documented: Demand is flat or declining; renewable energy and storage technology costs are plummeting; utilities and third parties are offering customers new technologies and services; and the need to cut emissions… View Summary +
Updating Embedded Cost of Service Studies for a New Era
In the first blog post in this series, we outlined how our new manual, Electric Cost Allocation for a New Era, looks comprehensively at the process of dividing utility costs among customer classes — and proposes several ways it… View Summary +
Modern Marginal Cost of Service Studies
The previous blog post in this series examined embedded cost of service studies — but some states choose to look ahead, considering marginal costs. This approach stems from the economic theory that today’s consumption drives tomorrow’s costs and customer classes… View Summary +
Making a Clean-Energy Future an Equitable Future
Our jobs, comforts, and ability to survive all depend on something most people take for granted until it goes missing: energy. It powers our lighting, our appliances, our cell phones – our entire daily lives. We need it to search… View Summary +
