Category Archives: Distributed Generation

Load Growth Woes
 Likely Keeping Execs
 Up At Night

Distributed Generation, Utilities,

It is enough to make utility executives wake up in a cold sweat each and every night: Growth in electricity demand has essentially flatlined and it shows no signs of returning. EIA’s latest forecast (see chart below) showing growth at about 1 percent annually through 2040 is worrisome enough. But it may be about to get even worse.

EIAElectricForecastIn a little-noticed report released earlier this month, Navigant Research projected that residential utility customers will invest “more than $625 billion cumulatively, in DER [distributed energy resources] from 2014 through 2023.’’ Now, while that is a global total, it is still a lot of money in anybody’s book.

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 Likely Keeping Execs
 Up At Night →

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Time For Utilities
 To Rethink
 Ratemaking Process

Distributed Generation, Ratemaking, Utilities, ,

The utility industry has launched what amounts to an all-out attack on net energy metering, under which customers receive credit for power they generate on-site and feed back into their utility’s distribution system.

In a report issued earlier this month, the Edison Foundation’s Institute for Electric Innovation (offshoots of EEI, the industry trade association) took aim at the net energy metering program in California, where roughly 120,000 customers (both residential and non-residential) are enrolled in the state’s NEM tariff, and found it, shall we say, lacking.

“The legitimate purpose of a subsidy is to provide an incentive to pursue a desirable public policy. Subsidies should not be overly generous; the amount of the subsidy should be transparent; and the recipient of the subsidy should be clearly identified. As our analysis demonstrates, the current NEM regulatory approach in California fails all three tests,” IEI concluded. The report, Net Energy Metering: Subsidy Issues and Regulatory Solutions, can be found here.

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 To Rethink
 Ratemaking Process →

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