14 research outputs found
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Three ways to decouple electric-utility revenues from sales
Utility energy efficiency programs hurt shareholders because these programs reduce electricity use, and this reduction lowers revenues by more than costs are cut. Utilities and their regulators have adopted various methods to deal with these net lost revenues. The two most widely used methods include explicit calculations of the revenues lost because of the energy and demand reductions caused by the utility`s programs, and decoupling of electric revenues from sales. Decoupling first breaks the link between utility revenues and kWh sales. It then recouples revenues to something else, such as growth in the number of customers, the determinants of changes in fixed costs, or the determinants of changes in electricity use. This paper explains and compares three forms of decoupling:revenue-per- customer (RPC) decoupling, RPC decoupling with a factor that allows for changes in electricity use per customer, and statistical recoupling. We used data from five utilities to see how the three methods perform in terms of electicity-price volatility and ease of implementation. We discuss the strengths and limitations of each approach, emphasizing the tradeoff between simplicity and price stability
Private transnational governance in the heyday of the nation-state: the Council of European Industrial Federations (CEIF) -super-1
This article examines an example of private transnational governance in the first decades after the Second World War: the Council of European Industrial Federations (CEIF), created in 1949 by the peak-level trade associations in western Europe. Based on this case, the article takes issue with two predominant views in the current literature: a view that sees the European integration process, at least in its early stages, as driven largely by nation-states and political agendas' and another view, widespread among business and economic historians, that contacts between business associations at that time served the main purpose of re-establishing international cartels. The CEIF actually performed a wide variety of functions: it represented organized business at international events and in organizations, acted as a multilateral arena for the exchange of information and for building trust among the businesspeople of various European countries, and, from 1958 onwards, helped bridge the divide between those inside and those outside the Common Market. On occasions, for example, in the case of export incentives, it even managed to forge a consensus for policy action when national governments were unable to agree