Regulatory Resources Dashboard

Sixteen regulatory levers to help regulators, consumer advocates, and other stakeholders support utility cost-efficiency while meeting future energy demands.

This guide introduces the basics of performance-based regulation (PBR), outlining the need for reform, PBR tools, related reforms, and case studies.

Guidance for regulators and stakeholders on how to use comprehensive performance-based regulation to improve utility incentives.

his report explores how totex ratemaking could help keep utility rates affordable through the clean energy transition by putting utility capex and opex projects on a level playing field.

This report reviews a selection of historical PIM examples and provides a simple accounting of the results to identify important lessons for future PIM development. By exploring why some PIM proposals are rejected while others are accepted, as well as what happens to PIMs after acceptance, regulators can learn how these regulatory tools can best be leveraged in a shifting electricity landscape.

This report reviews foundational elements of different reform options, poses key questions to explore their applicability, identifies illustrative experiences for ideas and concepts, and explores policy implementation options to help spur action.

This paper is focused on changes needed at the grid distribution level to adapt the grid, and on associated options for how to evolve the utility market serving that part of the system.

This report and associated summary for regulators outlines the fundamental shifts that must take place to reduce residential carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 from 2005 through deployment of carbon-free electricity, demand-side management, building retrofits, and vehicle electrification.

This article offers five important takeaways that can improve other states’ efforts navigating new utility business models. It is based on Hawaii’s experience navigating how PBR can support climate and clean energy policy goals while still keeping rates manageable for families and businesses.

This article offers eight recommendations to regulators, utilities, and other stakeholders looking to integrate PIMs into their regulatory frameworks.

This article examines some of the emerging trends in performance-based regulation — and ways that states now implementing or considering PBR can learn from the early adopters.

This report outlines 10 key strategies to support building decarbonization. It is accompanied by a resource library that shares resources for regulators from commissions across the U.S., nonprofits, and media that expand on the themes and strategies introduced in our report.

This post explores why building electrification—as opposed to renewable natural gas—is the least-cost and most flexible path to decarbonization.

This page provides relevant research and tools for state public utilities commissions as they pursue an equitable transition to a decarbonized grid. Issues covered here include utility planning, regulatory process and strategy design, utility business models, equity, and procurement.

A new natural gas customer is added to the system every minute in the United States, and existing gas customers are covering their construction costs through subsidies knows as line extension allowances.

RMI-National Grid Research: Emerging Opportunities in Planning for U.S. Gas System Decarbonization

his report outlines 10 key strategies to support building decarbonization. It is accompanied by a resource library that shares resources for regulators from commissions across the U.S., nonprofits, and media that expand on the themes and strategies introduced in our report.

This post explores why building electrification—as opposed to renewable natural gas—is the least-cost and most flexible path to decarbonization.

This post provides regulators with a deeper understanding about why building electrification can help move cities, states, and the country away from burning fossil fuels.

GridUp forecasts when and where energy and power demand will materialize from vehicle electrification. The tool is uniquely detailed and flexible, allowing users to gain greater insight into how driving behavior will create and shape charging demand.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) fundamentally shifted the strategic landscape for utilities through an array of key changes to utility financial and tax incentives.

RMI maintains a comprehensive, open-access database of utility financial, operational, emissions, customer, equity, and regulatory data. These data collectively shed light on the capital investment remaining in fossil plants, how those plants are dispatched, how they impact customer rates, and the degree to which they prevent utilities from being climate-aligned. These data also tell the story of how renewable energy investment is shaping the electricity generation landscape, rates, and decarbonization, among many other potential analytical insights.