The Tariff Analysis Project: A database and analysis platform forelectricity tariffs

Much of the work done in energy research involves ananalysis of the costs and benefits of energy-saving technologies andother measures from the perspective of the consumer. The economic valuein particular depends on the price of energy (electricity, gas or otherfuel), which varies significantly both for different types of consumers,and for different regions of the country. Ideally, to provide accurateinformation about the economic value of energy savings, prices should becomputed directly from real tariffs as defined by utility companies. Alarge number of utility tariffs are now available freely over the web,but the complexity and diversity of tariff structures presents aconsiderable barrier to using them in practice. The goal of the TariffAnalysis Project (TAP) is to collect andarchive a statistically completesample of real utility tariffs, and build a set of database and web toolsthat make this information relatively easy to use in cost-benefitanalysis. This report presentsa detailed picture of the current TAPdatabase structure and web interface. While TAP has been designed tohandle tariffs for any kind of utility service, the focus here is onelectric utilities withinthe United States. Electricity tariffs can bevery complicated, so the database structures that have been built toaccommodate them are quite flexible and can be easily generalized toother commodities.