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Policy Brief October 20, 2020

Time-Varying Rates in New England: Opportunities for Reform

By David Littell, Joni Sliger

​Although some New England utilities offer modernized rates for special applications, like electric vehicles and battery storage, there is substantial room for improvement in time-varying residential pricing. This policy brief, the last in a series examining rate design issues across New England, looks more closely at time-varying rates offered by utilities in ...

Pricing and Rate Design Download View Summary
Report May 21, 2020

Cooperative Governance: Opportunities to Enhance Rural Livelihoods in India

By Mahesh Patankar, Frederick Weston, Joni Sliger, Robert Lieberman, Priyanka Shendage

Rural populations in India continually face great challenges when it comes to earning and maintaining a sustainable living. With up to 70% of rural Indians working in the agricultural sector, those challenges will only become more substantial as climate change creates greater impacts and economic uncertainty causes further distress. Solving these problems will re...

Energy and Water Resources, Energy Resource Planning, Governance Download View Summary
Report April 7, 2020

Taking First Steps: Insights for States Preparing for Electric Transportation

By David Farnsworth, Jessica Shipley, Joni Sliger, Mark LeBel, Megan Anderson

As the market for electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States continues to grow, states are beginning to pay more attention to the issues that arise. Although no one state agency has clear responsibility for it, utility commissions are taking their first steps toward determining how best to prepare for, accommodate and promote this transition. They are meetin...

Electric Vehicles, Regulation and Governance Download View Summary
Policy Brief February 26, 2020

Rate Designs That Work for a Modern, Customer-Oriented Grid

By David Littell, Joni Sliger

Technology has evolved faster than utility-offered rate designs have, and consumer choice will continue to grow as advanced energy technologies -- from electric vehicles to battery storage -- and smart grid optionality become available. These changes should likewise prompt advances in electricity pricing, in order to send price signals that are consistent with gr...

Distributed Generation, Electric Vehicles, Pricing and Rate Design, Storage Download View Summary
Policy Brief October 29, 2019

Making Basic Service More Affordable: Electricity Rates for Low- and Moderate-Income Ratepayers

By David Littell, Joni Sliger

​This policy brief dives deeper into rate design for low- and moderate-income (LMI) ratepayers in New England. As always, effective rate design is crucial to achieving regulatory and public policy goals, but achieving broad societal policy goals need not come at the cost of burdening economically vulnerable LMI ratepayers. To design rates at levels customers ...

Pricing and Rate Design, Regulation and Governance Download View Summary
Presentation October 10, 2019

Redefining Efficiency to Eliminate Climate Pollution

By Joni Sliger

​In a presentation at a Renewable Energy Vermont conference in Burlington, Joni Sliger discussed new considerations for efficiency in light of the all-fuels energy optimization needed to effectively reduce climate pollution....

Energy Efficiency and Demand Response, Greenhouse Gas Management, Integrated Energy and Environmental Policy Download View Summary
Journal Article August 1, 2019

Redefining Energy Efficiency: EE 2.0

By Joni Sliger, Ken Colburn

Energy efficiency is key to reducing the size of the energy challenge, to accelerating the achievement of its solution, and to enhancing energy productivity, but old ideas that ignore the potential benefits of electrification and narrowly equate energy efficiency with efforts to reduce consumption of a single energy source — like electricity — need to evolve....

Energy Efficiency and Demand Response Download View Summary
Policy Brief April 29, 2019

New England’s Rate Design Disconnect: Analyzing the Region’s Wide Variation in Electricity Bills

By David Littell, Joni Sliger

Maps showing the average monthly customer bill in each New England state (left) and rates per kilowatt-hour for large utilities throughout the region (right).   Household electricity bills vary significantly across the United States, but in no region do they vary as much as in New England. The average household in Massachusetts pays 34 percent more...

Pricing and Rate Design, Regulation and Governance Download View Summary
Report January 30, 2019

Beneficial Electrification of Transportation

By David Farnsworth, Jessica Shipley, Joni Sliger, Jim Lazar

​RAP’s definition of beneficial electrification asserts that an electrified end use must satisfy at least one of the following conditions, without adversely affecting the other two: Saves consumers money over the long run; Enables better grid management; and Reduces negative environmental impacts. The market for electric vehicles (EVs) is growin...

Climate and Public Health, Electric Vehicles, Integrating Renewable Energy, Pricing and Rate Design, Role of Regulatory Institutions, Role of Utilities Download View Summary