Abstract:

This report extends the ongoing research into the evolving investor-owned utility business model and seeks to fill this void. Specifically, this report:

• Develops a comprehensive catalog of utility product and service offerings (including current, proposed, and reasonably anticipated offerings).
• Provides a categorization scheme (or taxonomy) to help organize the various offerings.
• Identifies the central topics regulators and decision-makers may need to explore as they consider new commercial opportunities within this new category of utility offerings.

This report is intended to serve as a resource for policy makers, regulators, investor-owned electric utilities, and utility industry stakeholders to support informed discussion and, when appropriate, consideration of proposed commercial opportunities. In addition, the research summarized in this report may help regulators to better:

• identify and implement staged strategies that seek to expand the commercial offerings of electric utilities;
• understand the scope of potential enabling technology investments and capabilities necessary to successfully execute these staged strategies; and
• recognize the issues regulators will likely need to consider concerning whether and how they might review and/or promote new utility offerings within the context of both long-standing regulatory principles and new objectives to advance a more strategic transformation of the electric industry.