Cooperatives Financing Efficiency Upgrades through Opt-in Tariffs
Posted on Aug 19, 2016 in Energy Savings Programs, Grid & Infrastructure, Innovation/Efficiency, Rates | Comments Off on Cooperatives Financing Efficiency Upgrades through Opt-in Tariffs
Smaller, rural cooperatives have been experimenting with a model that gets around a customer’s inability or unwillingness to take on debt or invest in energy efficiency upgrades through offering a voluntary on-bill tariff. Cooperatives have been able to lead this innovation because shareholder interests and customer interests are aligned. Put simply, the customer chooses the upgrades to be installed by a utility-paid contractor. The voluntary tariff allows the utility to recover this expense, while customer offsets the money for the tariff with energy savings, decreasing the utility’s load.
