Menu
Institute for Policy Integrity logo

Publications

Viewing all publications in Electricity
  • The Obligation to Serve in Massachusetts Cover

    The Obligation to Serve in Massachusetts

    Gas Service and the Energy Transition

    In Massachusetts, achieving the state’s decarbonization target in a cost-effective manner will likely require the refusal of new gas service in addition to the termination of existing gas service in certain buildings and its replacement with electric service. The scope of utilities’ legal obligation to serve their customers will be central to those efforts. This brief analyzes the contours of this obligation by examining the relevant Massachusetts statutes, regulations, Public Utility Commission decisions, and case law.

    Read more

  • Electricity Tariff Design via Lens of Energy Justice Cover

    Electricity Tariff Design via Lens of Energy Justice

    Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) can significantly affect the net social benefit in power systems, raising concerns pertaining to distributional justice and equity. Current tariff design approaches suffer from opaque efficiency-equity trade-offs and are also agnostic of the externalities that affect both economic efficiency and equity. Therefore, this paper develops a justice-cognizant tariff design framework that improves the operational savings in the system without sacrificing distributional equity, and encompasses economic welfare, social costs of environmental and public health impacts, and socio-economic and demographic characteristics of electricity consumers. We evaluate four different tariff structures using a Multi-Objective Problem with Equilibrium Constraints. We then compare the operational savings and equity of the proposed framework using the 11-zone New York ISO and 7-bus Manhattan power networks. The results demonstrate that justice-cognizant, and spatially- and temporally-granular tariffs ensure equity and increase the operational savings at a lower energy burden to consumers.

    Read more

  • Enacting the  “Polluter Pays” Principle Cover

    Enacting the “Polluter Pays” Principle

    New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act and Its Impact on Gasoline Prices

    This policy brief analyzes how New York State’s recently proposed Climate Change Superfund Act is most likely to affect consumer gasoline prices. The Act would require payments from fossil-fuel companies based on their historical contributions to current greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. The payments would be used to build green infrastructure to help the state adapt to climate change. The brief finds that the Act would likely have a negligible impact on current and near-term oil prices, while potentially lowering future energy prices in New York, including for transportation.

    Read more

  • Who Knows What: Information Barriers to Efficient DER Roll-Out Cover

    Who Knows What: Information Barriers to Efficient DER Roll-Out

    Published in International Association of Energy, Environment and Economy Journal

    While academic research on Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) has been mostly focused on first-best systems, we hypothesize that in reality multiple information barriers to efficient DER roll-out exist. We thus study the prevalence and importance of information issues arising in the context of deployment of DERs by reviewing the existing engineering and economic literature on distributed resources, analyzing DER-related regulatory proceedings, and surveying the relevant electricity sector stakeholders for their perception of information relevance and accessibility.

    Read more

  • The Role of Information in Distributed Energy Resource Deployment and Policy Cover

    The Role of Information in Distributed Energy Resource Deployment and Policy

    While appropriate compensation for DERs has received considerable attention in DER policy discussions, one important dimension has received less attention: informational gaps and asymmetries. In particular, key information about distribution networks, energy consumption, and marginal emission rates is often either entirely lacking or readily available only to some parties. Such information disparities can impede effective policymaking. To overcome the inefficiencies information asymmetry creates, regulators must carefully tailor disclosure mandates and incentives for utilities, as these actors often have little incentive to go beyond the letter of the law in data disclosure.

    Read more