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Title: Electricity Bill Savings from Residential Photovoltaic Systems: Sensitivities to Changes in Future Electricity Market Conditions

Abstract

Customer-sited photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States are often compensated at the customer’s underlying retail electricity rate through net metering. Calculations of the customer economics of PV, meanwhile, often assume that retail rate structures and PV compensation mechanisms will not change and that retail electricity prices will increase (or remain constant) over time, thereby also increasing (or keeping constant) the value of bill savings from PV. Given the multitude of potential changes to retail rates and PV compensation mechanisms in the future, however, understanding how such changes might impact the value of bill savings from PV is critical for policymakers, regulators, utilities, the solar industry, and potential PV owners, i.e., any stakeholder interested in understanding uncertainties in and potential changes to the long-term customer economics of PV. This scoping study investigates the impact of, and interactions among, three key sources of uncertainty in the future value of bill savings from customer-sited PV, focusing in particular on residential customers. These three sources of uncertainty are: changes to electricity market conditions that would affect retail electricity prices, changes to the types of retail rate structures available to residential customers with PV, and shifts away from standard net-metering toward other compensation mechanismsmore » for residential PV.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Environmental Energy Technologies Division
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office; USDOE Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE). National Electricity Delivery Division
OSTI Identifier:
1168592
Report Number(s):
LBNL-6017E
DOE Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION; 29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY; 14 SOLAR ENERGY

Citation Formats

Darghouth, Naim, Barbose, Galen, and Wiser, Ryan. Electricity Bill Savings from Residential Photovoltaic Systems: Sensitivities to Changes in Future Electricity Market Conditions. United States: N. p., 2013. Web. doi:10.2172/1168592.
Darghouth, Naim, Barbose, Galen, & Wiser, Ryan. Electricity Bill Savings from Residential Photovoltaic Systems: Sensitivities to Changes in Future Electricity Market Conditions. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1168592
Darghouth, Naim, Barbose, Galen, and Wiser, Ryan. 2013. "Electricity Bill Savings from Residential Photovoltaic Systems: Sensitivities to Changes in Future Electricity Market Conditions". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1168592. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1168592.
@article{osti_1168592,
title = {Electricity Bill Savings from Residential Photovoltaic Systems: Sensitivities to Changes in Future Electricity Market Conditions},
author = {Darghouth, Naim and Barbose, Galen and Wiser, Ryan},
abstractNote = {Customer-sited photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States are often compensated at the customer’s underlying retail electricity rate through net metering. Calculations of the customer economics of PV, meanwhile, often assume that retail rate structures and PV compensation mechanisms will not change and that retail electricity prices will increase (or remain constant) over time, thereby also increasing (or keeping constant) the value of bill savings from PV. Given the multitude of potential changes to retail rates and PV compensation mechanisms in the future, however, understanding how such changes might impact the value of bill savings from PV is critical for policymakers, regulators, utilities, the solar industry, and potential PV owners, i.e., any stakeholder interested in understanding uncertainties in and potential changes to the long-term customer economics of PV. This scoping study investigates the impact of, and interactions among, three key sources of uncertainty in the future value of bill savings from customer-sited PV, focusing in particular on residential customers. These three sources of uncertainty are: changes to electricity market conditions that would affect retail electricity prices, changes to the types of retail rate structures available to residential customers with PV, and shifts away from standard net-metering toward other compensation mechanisms for residential PV.},
doi = {10.2172/1168592},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1168592}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Jan 09 00:00:00 EST 2013},
month = {Wed Jan 09 00:00:00 EST 2013}
}