As a sponsor of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ 2020 Summer Policy Summit, RAP is pleased to bring virtual summit attendees the same useful resources that can usually be found on our NARUC table. Check out some of our latest and most popular publications below, or visit our Knowledge Center to search for more information on all the topics we cover. Contact Donna Brutkoski at [email protected] with any questions about RAP publications.

New in 2020

Get What You Need: Reclaiming Consumer-Centric Resource Adequacy. This policy brief tackles the debate spurred by FERC’s Minimum Offer Price Rule order to the PJM regional transmission organization, making a case to refocus resource adequacy on the needs of consumers, businesses and states.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/get-what-you-need-reclaiming-consumer-centric-resource-adequacy/

Taking First Steps: Insights for States Preparing for Electric Transportation. This paper explores steps that state utility commissions and other agencies are taking to pave the way for the EV transition and highlights lessons learned in various states.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/taking-first-steps-insights-for-state-utility-commissions-preparing-for-electric-transportation/

Electric Cost Allocation for a New Era. This comprehensive manual details a 21st-century rethinking of cost allocation approaches and cost of service studies.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/electric-cost-allocation-new-era/

Regulation

Electricity Regulation in the US: A Guide. RAP’s flagship manual covering all aspects of the utility regulatory landscape.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/electricity-regulation-in-the-us-a-guide-2/

Revenue Regulation and Decoupling: A Guide to Theory and Application. This guidebook describes in detail the mechanics of decoupling and the policy issues associated with its use, and also includes case studies from six states that have implemented decoupling regimes.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/revenue-regulation-and-decoupling-a-guide-to-theory-and-application-incl-case-studies/

Decoupling Design: Customizing Revenue Regulation to Your State’s Priorities. This companion piece to the decoupling guide looks in more detail at how states can adapt decoupling mechanisms to their specific needs and circumstances.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/decoupling-design-customizing-revenue-regulation-state-priorities/

Next-Generation Performance-Based Regulation (three-volume series): This series, produced in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as part of the 21st Century Power Partnership initiative, provides successful examples of PBR worldwide, as well as design considerations and options for crafting PBR or performance incentive mechanisms.

• Volume 1 (Introduction—Global Lessons for Success): https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/next-generation-performance-based-regulation-volume-1-introduction-global-lessons-for-success/
• Volume 2 (Primer—Essential Elements of Design and Implementation): https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/next-generation-performance-based-regulation-volume-2-primer-essential-elements-of-design-and-implementation/
• Volume 3 (Innovative Examples from Around the World): https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/next-generation-performance-based-regulation-volume-3-innovative-examples-from-around-the-world/

Beneficial Electrification

Electrification in the Public Interest (four-volume series). Electrification of energy uses currently powered by fossil fuels represents one of the greatest opportunities in the energy sector today to benefit consumers, the environment, and the grid. This series prepares decision-makers to maximize this potential.

• Beneficial Electrification: Ensuring Electrification in the Public Interest: https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/beneficial-electrification-ensuring-electrification-public-interest/
• Beneficial Electrification of Space Heating: https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/beneficial-electrification-of-space-heating/
• Beneficial Electrification of Water Heating: https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/beneficial-electrification-of-water-heating/
• Beneficial Electrification of Transportation: https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/beneficial-electrification-of-transportation/

Rate Design

Smart Rate Design for a Smart Future. In this paper, RAP reviews and updates the rate design principles laid out in James Bonbright’s 1961 “Principles of Public Utility Rates” and Garfield and Lovejoy’s 1964 “Public Utility Economics.”
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/smart-rate-design-for-a-smart-future/

Smart Non-Residential Rate Design. This paper, originally produced for the California Public Utilities Commission, extends the Smart Rate Design principles outlined in our earlier work to consider the needs of commercial customers.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/smart-non-residential-rate-design/

Markets

Hitting the Mark on Missing Money: How to Ensure Reliability at Least Cost to Consumers. Misallocation of money in wholesale electricity markets — overcompensating some resources while undercompensating others — poses a risk to low-carbon power system innovation. This paper offers a brief refresher on the basics and possible pitfalls of energy price formation.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/hitting-mark-missing-money-ensure-reliability-least-cost-consumers/

Carbon Markets 101: “How-to” Considerations for Regulatory Practitioners. This paper offers a primer for regulators, setting forth approaches and best practices for designing a carbon market that are drawn from lessons learned by more than 50 jurisdictions around the world, including the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/carbon-markets-101-how-to-considerations-for-regulatory-practitioners/

Energy Efficiency

The Next Quantum Leap in Efficiency: 30 Percent Electric Savings in Ten Years. This paper describes how states can use program funding, goals and incentives, new regulatory approaches, and improved codes and standards to vastly increase the share of forecasted electricity demand that is met by energy efficiency.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/the-next-quantum-leap-in-efficiency-30-percent-electric-savings-in-ten-years/

Recognizing the Full Value of Energy Efficiency. This paper uses the concept of the “layer cake” to demonstrate the multiple benefits of energy efficiency and how regulators can improve the process by which efficiency is valued.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/recognizing-the-full-value-of-energy-efficiency/

Distributed Energy Resources

Capturing More Value from Combinations of PV and Other Distributed Energy Resources. This paper considers the types of values (or “value streams”) that combinations of distributed energy resources can create, examines three “use cases,” and explores a path for capturing more of the full value of these combinations.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/capturing-more-value-from-combinations-of-pv-and-other-distributed-energy-resources/

Designing Distributed Generation Tariffs Well. This paper examines options for fairly compensating owners of distributed generation, including the importance of valuation methodologies and rate design and ratemaking options for regulators to consider.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/designing-distributed-generation-tariffs-well/

Integrating Renewable Energy

Teaching the “Duck” to Fly. This second edition of one of RAP’s most popular works considers various strategies for integrating increasing amounts of variable renewable energy into the power system, addressing the “duck curve” challenge seen in solar-heavy grids.
https://www.raponline.org/knowledge-center/teaching-the-duck-to-fly-second-edition/