In this report, produced with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Synapse Energy Economics, RAP and Community Action Partnership take an in-depth look at the disparate impacts electric and natural gas infrastructure have on economic, social, and health outcomes — and consider how to ensure that a clean-energy future is a more equitable future. Th...

A decarbonized energy sector’s many benefits include lower prices, grid resiliency and cleaner energy. However, in order to attain this goal, regulators will need to actively engage in regulatory reforms that align utilities’ actions with the public good. Tools that can advance this objective include rate design reforms, decoupling, performance-based ratemaki...

​This report, the first of three volumes of Next-Generation Performance-Based Regulation: Emphasizing Utility Performance to Unleash Power Sector Innovation, examines the concept of performance-based regulation (PBR) and how it can provide a framework to connect goals, targets, and measures to utility performance or executive compensation. It examines leading e...

​This report, the second of three volumes of Next-Generation Performance-Based Regulation: Emphasizing Utility Performance to Unleash Power Sector Innovation, focuses on best practices for design, development, and implementation of performance-based regulation mechanisms. It begins by laying the groundwork for understanding the incentives inherent in institutio...

​This report, the final of three volumes of Next-Generation Performance-Based Regulation: Emphasizing Utility Performance to Unleash Power Sector Innovation, focuses on how performance-based regulation (PBR) can be used to navigate an era of rapid technological change in the power sector. It examines the trends seen in this rapid change, including the penetrati...

This paper was written to assist the Public Service Commission of Arkansas as it seeks to remove barriers to entry for aggregators of distributed energy resources (DERs), encourage customer participation—the key to the success of DERs —and incentivize utility cooperation and support. Additionally, the Arkansas Commission was interested in the sale of aggregat...

Traditional “cost-of-service” regulation, where the rate of return is set on rate base, gives utilities incentives to invest in additional infrastructure to increase their own revenues, even when less expensive options are available to meet customers’ needs. The adoption of distributed generation can raise tensions within a traditional cost of service syste...

Performance-based regulation (PBR) enables regulators to reform 100-year-old regulatory structures to unleash innovations within 21st century power systems. Our current electric system is built upon an old regulatory paradigm that ensured safe and reliable electricity at reasonable prices from capital-intensive electricity monopolies. Today, disruptive technologi...

In this webinar, RAP explores the merits of decoupling and describes how states can tailor decoupling mechanisms to work best for them. Drawing from the report Decoupling Design: Customizing Revenue Regulation to Your State’s Priorities, Janine Migden-Ostrander and Richard Sedano delve into decisions regulators must make when determining exactly what is covered...