Improving performance through graduated conditional ROE incentives.
Frank Cronin (fjcroninecon@verizon.net) an economic consultant residing in Acton, Mass., is an expert in restructuring, alternative regulation, efficiency and productivity. Judy Kwik (JKwik@ERA-INC.CA) an energy consultant in Toronto, Canada, has been involved in the implementation of PBR for electric utilities in Ontario for more than a decade. Stephen Motluk (smotluk@uniserve.com) an economic consultant in Toronto, Canada, is an expert in alternative regulation and productivity of regulated firms.
Unlike the majority of implemented performance-based rate (PBR) designs, alternative design paradigms are available that minimize data requirements by allowing firms to reveal performance potential. One approach relies on group performance and competition to inform the regulator. The second, while it can, and has been, applied within a peer setting, requires only that the regulator have some information on the range of potential productivity outcomes and the returns that would be associated with such results. The regulated firm is then offered a menu of options representing the productivity factor—return on equity (ROE) choices.
Due to the principal-agent problem between regulators and the monopolies they regulate, regulators don’t have the information necessary to correctly set parameters in exogenously determined PBR plans. In such an asymmetric environment, determining the appropriate inflation escalator and productivity offset can be complicated, confusing, time-consuming, expensive and divisive. Often, the necessary data is as difficult, or more difficult, to obtain than the process of determining the firm’s cost of service. Thus, exogenously determined PBR plans often suffer from the same shortcomings as cost-of-service rate-of-return plans, and in fact might result in worse outcomes, if plan parameters significantly are off the mark.