Decoupling Utility Profits from Sales: Issues for the Photovoltaic Industry

This decoupling white paper stays neutral on the topic, instead providing an overview of the problem with revenue loss and a background on net metering and its specific impact on the problem. The paper then goes on to more specifically define and discuss decoupling and alternatives to decoupling. This is followed by a decoupling case study of a hypothetical utility.

Billing and consumption information for our hypothetical utility is based on actual billing data previously provided by PPL, a Pennsylvania utility, to RAP for the Mid-Atlantic Distributed Resources Initiative (MADRI). , which shows the relative magnitude of decoupling overall and estimations of the impact of photovoltaics from a renewable portfolio standard that includes a solar specific requirement.