Concerns about global climate change have substantially increased the likelihood that future policy will seek to minimize carbon dioxide emissions. As such, even today, electric utilities are making resource planning and investment decisions that consider the possible implications of these...

This paper addresses the nexus between evaluation of energy-efficiency programs and incentive payments based on performance for program administrators in California. The paper describes the problems that arise when evaluators are asked to measure program performance by answering the...

Deployment of customer-sited photovoltaics (PV) in the United States has expanded rapidly in recent years, driven by falling PV system prices, the advent of customer financing options, and various forms of policy support at the federal, state, and local levels. With the success of these efforts,...

This article examines the impact of retail electricity rate design on the economic value of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems, focusing on commercial customers in California. Using 15-min interval building load and PV production data from a sample of 24 actual commercial PV installations,...

Net metering has become a widespread mechanism in the U.S. for supporting customer adoption of distributed photovoltaics (PV), but has faced challenges as PV installations grow to a larger share of generation in a number of states. This paper examines the value of the bill savings that customers...

We review long-term electric utility plans representing ~90% of generation within the Western U.S. and Canadian provinces. We address what utility planners assume about future growth of electricity demand and supply; what types of risk they consider in their long-term resource planning; and the...