American Public Power Association
Paul Zummo is the Director, Policy Research and Analysis for the Regulatory Affairs Department at the American Public Power Association. He is responsible for research on issues such as electric rates, distributed generation, and renewable generation. Paul co-leads the Association’s Public Power Forward Initiative, which covers issues related to Utility of the Future, including electric vehicles, storage, and distributed energy resources.
The transition to a cleaner energy economy will necessitate changes in generation, the electrification of various sectors, and the continued development and deployment of new technologies. While there will be a role for many types of companies in this transition, electric utilities will be at the center of this changing landscape.
There is no one-size-fits-all playbook for utilities during this transition. In particular, public power utilities have shown how utilities can be nimble and take different approaches to this transition, depending on the unique resources and needs of their communities, as demonstrated in the recently published piece, Moving Public Power Forward: Community-Driven Solutions for Industry Transformation.
Often working outside of state mandates, public power utilities have adopted clean energy goals. Meeting these goals requires substantial investment in clean technologies — both established options and cutting-edge developments.
Compared to the benefits investor-owned utilities can derive from the current incarnation of the federal investment tax credit, most public power utilities face less favorable economics for direct investment in wind and solar.