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residential

Here Comes the Sun

Growing Impacts of Residential Solar on Utility Customer Service

What does PV mean for utilities’ residential customer service operations? From helping customers with supplier selection, through installation and maintenance issues? And with billing? To begin to address this question, we conducted two sets of surveys of residential electricity customers in the second quarter of 2016.
Byline: 

Daniel Gabaldon, Matt Guarini and Jamie Wimberly

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Regulators Can Win the Trifecta with Residential Demand Charges

Advanced metering and demand charges give efficient and equitable price signals to customers.

The wide deployment of smart meters gives regulatory policy-makers a rare opportunity to change residential rate design. This can be done in a way that improves economic efficiency, and utility consumer and shareholder equity. Here we provide ten questions that should be asked by policy-makers, as well as some guidance in deriving the answers.
Byline: 

Ross C. Hemphill and Kenneth W. Costello

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Before the Death Spiral, a Black Hole

How rooftop solar picks off the utility’s largest and most lucrative customers.

Let's make it clear also that affixing solar panels to your roof won't take you off-grid. Indeed it takes you to even greater dependence.
Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Germany's Energiewende

Lessons learned for U.S. utilities – drawn from first-person fact-finding.

Policy experts travel to the continent to get a first-hand view on the lessons the U.S. utilities should take away from Germany’s rush to renewables.
Byline: 

John Pang, Chris Vlahoplus, John Sterling, and Bob Gibson

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Future Shock

ERCOT load growth: patterns, possibilities, and second thoughts.

Data from ERCOT indicates that energy intensity is falling markedly, as measured in terms of kWh usage per number of nonfarm jobs. That suggests much less future load growth, yet EIA data based on nationwide scenarios do not seem to agree.
Byline: 

Ken Monts

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Profit and the New Normal

Delivering value in a zero-growth market.

Disruptive technologies and resource shifts are changing the utility business model. Market factors are driving companies toward four possible paths.

Byline: 

Kelly P. Gallant, Timothy P. Porter, Jack Azagury

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