Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Inducing Energy Conservation and Distributed Generation from Elimination of Electric Utility Customer Charges

Increased greenhouse gas emissions and negative effect on energy conservation due to electric rate structures that employ an avoidable customer charge are quantified. The extent of customer charges is determined from a nationwide survey of US electric tariffs. It is shown that if customer charges ar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergy policy Vol. 35; no. 12; p. 69514
Main Authors Pearce, Joshua M, Harris, Paul J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.12.2007
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Summary:Increased greenhouse gas emissions and negative effect on energy conservation due to electric rate structures that employ an avoidable customer charge are quantified. The extent of customer charges is determined from a nationwide survey of US electric tariffs. It is shown that if customer charges are eliminated by increasing the electric rate, there will be a 6.4% reduction in overall electricity consumption, conserving 73 billion kWh, eliminating 44.3 million metric tones of CO sub(2). For efficient energy consumers, customer charges can represent a considerable percentage of their monthly bills making the effective rate of electricity extremely high. The US's homeowners and small business owners will benefit considerably if the utilities are required to eliminate fixed customer charges.
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ISSN:0301-4215