Utility regulators and policymakers are concerned about potential increases in retail rates driven by energy efficiency (EE) programs and distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, which may adversely affect utility customers that do not invest in these technologies (i.e., non-participants) and more so than those that do (i.e., participants). We assess customer bill impacts of illustrative EE programs and net-metered PV systems for a prototypical northeast utility. We find that the timing of customer EE or PV investments matters and that modest energy savings may fail to yield financial benefits sufficient to offset concomitant increases in retail rates.
BT - Utilities Policy DA - 02/2018 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2017.12.003 LA - eng N1 -A longer LBNL Report on this work can be found here.
N2 -Utility regulators and policymakers are concerned about potential increases in retail rates driven by energy efficiency (EE) programs and distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, which may adversely affect utility customers that do not invest in these technologies (i.e., non-participants) and more so than those that do (i.e., participants). We assess customer bill impacts of illustrative EE programs and net-metered PV systems for a prototypical northeast utility. We find that the timing of customer EE or PV investments matters and that modest energy savings may fail to yield financial benefits sufficient to offset concomitant increases in retail rates.
PY - 2018 SP - 144 EP - 152 T2 - Utilities Policy TI - Customer bill impacts of energy efficiency and net-metered photovoltaic system investments UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0957178717302011?via%3Dihub VL - 50 ER -