Renewable generation is rapidly expanding across many electricity grids, often as distributed renewable energy sources (D-RES). D-RES, such as rooftop solar panels, change a household’s electric relationship with the external grid, demanding a likewise change in its economic relationship with the retailer. In particular, D-RES can impact fairness and economic efficiency considerations for electricity tariffs. We evaluate this impact on 5 tariffs, using per-minute data for 144 households in Austin, TX, USA. Our results show that traditional tariff designs allow for large wealth transfers, often to D-RES owners from non-owners, who may be paying on the median 22% more than their fair share. For economic efficiency, traditional tariffs again perform poorly. Newer time-based (time-of-use, or TOU, and real-time dynamic pricing) tariffs show few signs of cross-subsidization and better economic efficiency. Potential demand elasticity does not significantly alter conclusions for fairness, but significantly impacts those for economic efficiency. Our results clarify how different novel tariff designs in the renewable energy era achieve differing kinds and levels of fairness and efficiency; some acceptable, while others less so.

可再生能源正在许多电网中迅速扩展，通常是分布式可再生能源（D-RES）。D-RES，例如屋顶太阳能电池板，改变了家庭与外部电网的电气关系，要求其与零售商之间的经济关系也发生同样的变化。特别是，D-RES可以影响电价的公平性和经济效率考虑。我们使用美国得克萨斯州奥斯丁的144户家庭的每分钟数据，评估了这对5种关税的影响。我们的结果表明，传统的关税设计允许大量的财富转移，通常是非所有者向D-RES所有者的转移，后者可能支付的中位数比其公平份额高22％。为了提高经济效率，传统关税再次表现不佳。较新的基于时间的（使用时间或TOU，和实时动态定价）关税几乎没有交叉补贴的迹象，也没有更好的经济效益。潜在的需求弹性不会显着改变关于公平的结论，但是会显着影响那些关于经济效率的结论。我们的结果阐明了可再生能源时代不同的新颖电价设计如何实现不同种类和水平的公平与效率；有的可以接受，有的则较少。