Conversations with NARUC President and Washington Commissioner Ann Rendahl, First Vice President and Virginia Commissioner Jehmal Hudson, and Second Vice President and Minnesota Chair Katie Sieben with PUF Senior Advisor Paul Kjellander, former NARUC and Idaho Commission President.

The Annual Meeting showcased all the hard work NARUC has done this past year on a wide range of topics from wildfire to data center loads to DER interconnections and much more.

“Over the next five years we’re going to build more generation resources across the Southeast than in any five-year period in our hundred-year history. Our ten-year transmission plan is as big as it’s ever been, but it is all being done in a constructive way with partners like AWS.”

“The intent is that all of you would have a resource to turn to when you’re evaluating utility risk management, cost recovery, financial mechanisms, and how to balance safety, reliability, and affordability when you’re considering utility investments to address wildfire.”

“We have a descriptive report. That’s the beginning in the formation of the Natural Gas Readiness Forum so the stakeholders can get back together and continue this work and continue to align these systems. It’s too important.”

The NARUC 2025 Annual Meeting and Education Conference was held November 9 – 12 in Seattle, with the theme of Let There Be Light. The Annual Meeting is NARUC’s capstone event that featured a year-end summary from NARUC President Tricia Pridemore, with seminal topics across each utility sector, and highlighted the installation of new leadership.

“We identify who needs to be subject to our standards and let them know they have an impact on reliability so must meet our registration criteria. We register them and make sure they understand their mandatory responsibility for applying these standards. From the date of their effective registration, they’re subject to audits.”

“I always say we’re mainly an engineering firm. The way our CEO Jim Robb likes to describe it is we are the trade association of physics. We are thinking about the physics of the grid and how it plays out.”

“NERC has an important regulatory function, but we’re not doing it in an ivory tower. Everything we do is in close collaboration with industry and the regional entities. It’s a unique regulatory model that benefits from external expertise and provides the level of independence that ensures its credibility.”

“If frequency starts dropping that’s a problem because a lot of motors and adjustable motor drives are all counting on that frequency to operate. Solar panels do not provide frequency, they take frequency from the grid, unless you have grid-forming inverters, and right now we don’t.”