A 2016 Assessment of Approach to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon, and a 2017 follow-up, Valuing Climate Damages: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide.
In 2018, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission rejected the Black Hills Energy request for a fixed charge increase from $16.50/month to $20.13/month and recommended lowering it to $8.77/month.
In 2015, Connecticut passed a law defining acceptable components of a utility fixed charge as the fixed costs, operations and maintenance expenses that are directly related to metering, billing, service connections and customer service.
In a 2018 settlement of Central Hudson's 2017 rate case, the utility's fixed charge will drop from $24/month in 2019 to $19.50/month in 2021.
Indiana’s Citizen’s Action Coalition has launched a campaign against higher fixed charges in utility rates, producing a fact sheet documenting the adverse effects on equity, efficiency, and competitive markets posed by high fixed charges.
Tracking, among other things, utility rate cases across the country to give a national snapshot of ratemaking trends.
Documents the impact of rate design on efficiency investments.
NRDC, NCLC, and Vote Solar researched the results of rate cases across the US in 2016 and 2017, finding a trend of utilities aggressively proposing fixed charge increases, which Public Service Commissions tended to fully reject or scale back.
Surveyed the tensions between fixed and variable rates, as well as a variety of alternative rate structures, from the perspectives of utilities, consumer advocates, and environmentalists.
Stipulates that when the PUC applies a Lowest Reasonable Cost test, it must consider, among other things, “the cost of risks associated with environmental effects including emissions of carbon dioxide.”