April 3, 2008



In this video lecture, Prof. Steve Weissman discusses the following topics:

Under traditional ratemaking, utilities generally make higher profits if they sell more power and lose profits as customers become more efficient. Performance-based ratemaking can address the problem of utility disincentives to promote customer energy efficiency by decoupling utility profits from the amount of sales. It also is a mechanism that can encourage beneficial behavior in many areas of utility operation. Also, introduction to integrated resource planning and portfolio planning for the right mix of generation types, transmission and conservation. Portfolio Management (PM) and Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) both constitute planning exercises and present similar issues. PM, a newer term, focuses on a single utility or other load serving entity. IRP can be performed by a state regulator on a system wide, regional or service area basis, or by a utility for its service area.



The original name of this video lecture is: Performance Based Ratemaking and Decoupling, Integrated Resource Planning and Portfolio Planning.

1. Introduction to Energy and Electricity
2. Public Utilities & Rate Regulation: Introduction to Finance and Regulatory Economics
3. Public Utilities & Rate Regulation: Cost of Service Regulation (Part 1)
4. Public Utilities & Rate Regulation: Cost of Service Regulation (Part 2)
5. Public Utilities and Rate Regulation
6. Resource Alternatives: Introduction to Tradition Fuels, and Oil and Hydroelectric Power
7. Resource Alternatives: Coal and Nuclear Power
8. Resource Alternatives - Natural Gas: The Future and LNG
9. Resource Alternatives - Renewable Energy: The Technologies and the Programs
10. Demand Side Management: Energy Efficiency
11. Performance Based Ratemaking and Decoupling
12. Deregulation and Markets: Wholesale Electricity Markets and Retail Competition
13. Deregulation and Markets: The California and Western Energy Crisis of 2000-2001
14. Climate Change, Carbon Markets and Recap and Conclusion
15. Course Review

In this course, Prof. Steve Weissman gives 15 video lectures on Energy Regulations and the Environment. This course introduces students to the legal, economic, and structural issues that both shape our energy practices and provide opportunities to overcome these critical problems. The course focuses primarily on the regulation and design of electricity systems and markets, since so many energy choices—the use of oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, the green alternatives such as solar, wind, and energy conservation or “demand side management”— relate to the way we generate or deliver electricity, or avoid the need to do so.