By Emma Shumway, Diana Hernández, Qëndresa Krasniqi, Vivek Shastry, Abigail Austin & Michael B. Gerrard,
Millions of Americans are impacted by energy insecurity each year, in part due to unaffordable and inequitable electricity rates. The electric ratemaking process presents opportunities to confront issues of affordability and equity or to instead entrench traditional approaches. State legislatures, public utility commissions (PUCs), and advocates all play vital roles in making the former a reality. Historically, ratemaking has been criticized as an insular and highly technical process that caters to utilities rather than customers. But states like California and New York are making strides by broadening PUC legal authority to include explicit consideration of equity issues, adjusting incentives and values within the rate formula, implementing novel rate designs alongside other low-income customer protections, and instituting measures to make ratemaking a more procedurally just process. Other states should replicate these efforts, and those that have started making progress must continue, as energy insecurity persists.
Read the report Addressing Energy Insecurity Upstream: Electric Utility Ratemaking and Rate Design as Levers for Change in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive repository here