Electric utilities face a variety of uncertainties that complicate their long-term resource planning and acquisition. Many utilities deal with these uncertainties by pursuing flexible strategies that allow changes to be made incrementally with little difficulty and at low cost. Thus, utilities...

Many electric utilities offer their residential customers substantial financial incentives (low-interest loans or rebates) to install energy-efficient equipment and building retrofit measures (Stern, Berry, and Hirst 1985). For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority gave zero-interest loans to...

The bottom line for any utility conservation program is its overall worth: whether program costs are justified by the value of the electricity savings. That is, are these programs worthwhile investments to utility customers that participate in the programs, customers that do not participate, the...

Most of the debates about the appropriate economic tests to use in assessing utility programs do not address the magnitude of the impacts. As a result, questions remain about the relationships among utility DSM programs and acquisition of supply resources and the effects of these choices on...

Energy use data are usually disaggregated by major end-use sector: residential, commercial, industrial, transportation. Generally speaking, data are weakest for the commercial sector, perhaps because this sector is often defined as a residual (i.e., that portion of the economy not included in...

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) requires electric utilities to offer six ancillary services. Most of the tariffs filed with FERC price these services on the basis of traditional cost-of-service (embedded) costs, Because most of these services are provided by generating...