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Title: Impact of Rate Design Alternatives on Residential Solar Customer Bills. Increased Fixed Charges, Minimum Bills and Demand-based Rates

Abstract

With rapid growth in energy efficiency and distributed generation, electric utilities are anticipating stagnant or decreasing electricity sales, particularly in the residential sector. Utilities are increasingly considering alternative rates structures that are designed to recover fixed costs from residential solar photovoltaic (PV) customers with low net electricity consumption. Proposed structures have included fixed charge increases, minimum bills, and increasingly, demand rates - for net metered customers and all customers. This study examines the electricity bill implications of various residential rate alternatives for multiple locations within the United States. For the locations analyzed, the results suggest that residential PV customers offset, on average, between 60% and 99% of their annual load. However, roughly 65% of a typical customer's electricity demand is non-coincidental with PV generation, so the typical PV customer is generally highly reliant on the grid for pooling services.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
OSTI Identifier:
1225307
Report Number(s):
NREL/TP-6A20-64850
DOE Contract Number:  
AC36-08GO28308
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
14 SOLAR ENERGY; 24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION; customer demand; PV generation; grid exports; demand-based rates

Citation Formats

Bird, Lori, Davidson, Carolyn, McLaren, Joyce, and Miller, John. Impact of Rate Design Alternatives on Residential Solar Customer Bills. Increased Fixed Charges, Minimum Bills and Demand-based Rates. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.2172/1225307.
Bird, Lori, Davidson, Carolyn, McLaren, Joyce, & Miller, John. Impact of Rate Design Alternatives on Residential Solar Customer Bills. Increased Fixed Charges, Minimum Bills and Demand-based Rates. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1225307
Bird, Lori, Davidson, Carolyn, McLaren, Joyce, and Miller, John. 2015. "Impact of Rate Design Alternatives on Residential Solar Customer Bills. Increased Fixed Charges, Minimum Bills and Demand-based Rates". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1225307. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1225307.
@article{osti_1225307,
title = {Impact of Rate Design Alternatives on Residential Solar Customer Bills. Increased Fixed Charges, Minimum Bills and Demand-based Rates},
author = {Bird, Lori and Davidson, Carolyn and McLaren, Joyce and Miller, John},
abstractNote = {With rapid growth in energy efficiency and distributed generation, electric utilities are anticipating stagnant or decreasing electricity sales, particularly in the residential sector. Utilities are increasingly considering alternative rates structures that are designed to recover fixed costs from residential solar photovoltaic (PV) customers with low net electricity consumption. Proposed structures have included fixed charge increases, minimum bills, and increasingly, demand rates - for net metered customers and all customers. This study examines the electricity bill implications of various residential rate alternatives for multiple locations within the United States. For the locations analyzed, the results suggest that residential PV customers offset, on average, between 60% and 99% of their annual load. However, roughly 65% of a typical customer's electricity demand is non-coincidental with PV generation, so the typical PV customer is generally highly reliant on the grid for pooling services.},
doi = {10.2172/1225307},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1225307}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}