Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

The electric utility as investment bank for energy efficiency

Journal Article · · Electricity Journal; (United States)
 [1]
  1. Nevada Public Service Commission, Carson City (USA)
The author feels that regulators have the opportunity to direct electric utility companies to serve as investment bankers for cost-effective energy-efficiency improvements. If they do this, a number of serious barriers to an economically efficient energy services market would disappear. Capital would be widely available for investment in efficiency devices and systems. Better life-cycle cost information would be available to customers. Building contractors and landlords would be less reluctant to install energy-efficiency improvements. Manufacturers would have greater incentive to introduce better energy-efficiency features sooner. And investment imbalances caused by the gap between public and private investment discount rates would not longer exist. Electric utilities could even guarantee the performance of the installed demand-management measures. Additionally, utility companies would not longer have an economic preference for investment in traditional sources of supply. They would become able to earn their authorized rate of return on large amounts of investment in demand management.
OSTI ID:
5406765
Journal Information:
Electricity Journal; (United States), Journal Name: Electricity Journal; (United States) Vol. 4:4; ISSN ELEJE; ISSN 1040-6190
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English