Advanced Energy Technology Forum
Moderator Sheila Hollis is Acting Executive Director of USEA. Paul Kjellander is the President of NARUC and Idaho PUC. Mark Lauby is Senior VP and Chief Engineer at NERC. Catherine Hunt Ryan is the CFO of Bechtel.
The path to decarbonization calls for renewables and related transmission infrastructure. It's not easy to build anything these days, with challenges that abound on the way to cleaner energy. Here, leaders from regulatory, reliability, and engineering, came together in the USEA Technology Forum to discuss these important issues. Enjoy these excerpts.
Moderator and Acting Executive Director, USEA, Sheila Hollis: Paul Kjellander, who is president of NARUC and also president of the Idaho PUC, has served this time on the PUC in Idaho since 2011. You may not know but in addition, he is a brilliant and talented artist and you see his work often on the cover of Public Utilities Fortnightly.
President, NARUC and Idaho PUC, Paul Kjellander: I get the pleasure of being a state regulator in the fastest growing state in the nation. I also live in the fastest growing city within that state, Boise.
You have to recognize what that means to utilities, whether you are electric utility or natural gas distribution company, as it relates to infrastructure needs. It's difficult, as an example, a utility I have the pleasure of regulating, called Idaho Power. They were looking at their next deficit year being somewhere around 2027 to 2028. Because of all the growth across the state, that deficit year has now moved up to 2023.