This report describes various options that are now available for retail electric customers, or that may become available during the next few years as the electric utility industry restructures. These options include different ways of meeting demand for energy services, different providers of...

In May 1995, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) released two proposals for restructuring the state`s electric power industry. The two proposals follow more than a year of testimony and public comment after the CPUC issued the ``Blue Book`` (CPUC 1994a) on April 20, 1994, which...

In the broadest sense, this paper discusses issues relating to the earnings implications which flow from the pursuit of least-cost plans. More narrowly, however, the issues, discussion, and conclusions apply with equal force whenever a utility implements cost-effective demand-side measures,...

Changing electricity prices to more closely reflect production costs has a significant impact on the consumption of electricity. It is known, for example, that most of the efficiency gains in the electric power sectors of the industrialized world since the first international oil price shock in...

Changes in power contract terms for customers of Western`s Salt Lake City Area Office affect electricity rates for consumers of electric power in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The impacts of electricity rate changes on consumers are studied by measuring impacts on the...

The issue of possibly unrecoverable cost incurred by a utility, or `stranded costs,` has emerged as a major obstacle to developing a competitive generation market. Stranded or transition costs are defined as costs incurred by a utility to serve its customers that were being recovered in rates...

Transition costs are the potential monetary losses that electric- utility shareholders, ratepayers, or other parties might experience because of structural changes in the electricity industry. Regulators, policy analysts, utilities, and consumer groups have proposed a number of strategies to...

Utility shareholders can lose money on demand-side management (DSM) investments between rate cases. Several industry analysts argue that the revenues lost from utility DSM programs are an important financial disincentive to utility DSM investment. A key utility regulatory reform undertaken since...

Federal military installations often receive electric utility service under ``special`` rate schedules designed for large government and institutional facilities. These schedules are intended to be financially beneficial to the government when compared with rates offered to large non-federal...

Utility energy efficiency programs hurt shareholders because these programs reduce electricity use, and this reduction lowers revenues by more than costs are cut. Utilities and their regulators have adopted various methods to deal with these net lost revenues. The two most widely used methods...