the amount of money the utility charges per unit of energy consumed (usually defined in terms of kilowatt hours) or per unit of demand (usually defined in Kilowatts) according to the tariff.
Pros
A simple element that can be easily shaped to send signals to the market to invest.
Cons
Rates may not fully reflect the environmental and opportunity cost associated with the status quo; rates that are too low can forestall the deployment of distributed and renewable energy projects
Real Talk
Rates need to be right for the market to operate. Balancing them during the transition will be challenging and errors will be made; where possible, these errors should favor RE.