Client: Green Energy Consumers Alliance
Authors: Liz Stanton, PhD and Joshua R. Castigliego
January 2022
On behalf of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, Clinic Director and Senior Economist Liz Stanton, PhD and Researcher Joshua Castigliego provided Applied Economics Clinic expert testimony to Dockets 21-90 and 21-91 before the Massachusetts' Department of Public Utilities. In their testimony to Docket 21-91, Dr. Stanton and Mr. Castigliego reviewed and critiqued National Grid's methods and assumptions in setting a 3 to 5 cent per kilowatt-hour (kWh) rebate for its Off-Peak Charging Program. Dr. Stanton and Mr. Castigliego determined that National Grid is underestimating its rebate by excluding important benefits of off-peak charging such as avoided transmission and distribution costs, avoided emissions and emission costs, avoided reliability costs, avoided costs due to induced price effects, and non-energy benefits. Their analysis shows that including these benefits in a value for off-peak charging could raise National Grid's rebate by 10 cents per kWh from 3 to 5 cents per kWh to 13 to 15 cents per kWh. Similarly in Docket 21-90, Dr. Stanton and Mr. Castigliego examined a possible off-peak charging rebate for Eversource by modeling avoided energy and capacity costs based on National Grid’s methodology, and offering an illustrative methodology for inclusion of other off-peak charging benefits. In the absence of a rebate, EV owners are currently being overcharged for the energy used to charge their vehicles; implementing a rebate value that includes a complete set of benefits would eliminate a cross-subsidy from EV owners to non-EV owners while at the same time providing an incentive to adopt critical emission reductions in the transportation sector.
Link to Joint Testimony (DPU 21-90)