Current Developments in Retail Rate Design: Implications for Solar and Other Distributed Energy Resources

This report describes current trends in retail rate design, and implications of those trends for distributed energy resources (DERs).

The study focuses specifically on these five trends:

• increased pursuit of residential time-based rates,
• development of rates and programs to promote midday load building,
• increased application of residential three-part rates (i.e., demand charges),
• development of new net-metering alternatives, and
• development of new electric vehicle-specific rates.

Based on a set of case studies, the report discusses key motivations, rate design variations, and implementation experience across each of these five trends. The report also discusses how each of these trends might impact the deployment of distributed solar and other DERs.