Conversations with Florida Chair Gabriella Passidomo Smith, Maryland Chair Kumar Barve, and Massachusetts Chair Jeremy McDiarmid with PUF Senior Advisor Paul Kjellander.

“NARUC President Ann Rendahl and others have spent a lot of time trying to get Commissioners across the country to realize that wildfire isn’t just a Western issue. We focus on wildfire in the West and trying to elevate that conversation across the country has been frustrating.”

“NARUC President Ann Rendahl and others have spent a lot of time trying to get Commissioners across the country to realize that wildfire isn’t just a Western issue. We focus on wildfire in the West and trying to elevate that conversation across the country has been frustrating.”

“New England is a high-cost region with aging infrastructure. Costs are going up and demand is not growing as fast as had originally been anticipated from beneficial electrification.”

Paul Kjellander speaks with Maine Chair Phil Bartlett on the New England Conference of Public Utilities Commissioners, Mississippi Chair Chris Brown on the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and New Mexico Commissioner Patrick O’Connell on the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners.

“In Vermont, a state-commission-established working group was tasked with estimating resources that could be flexibly managed. That work found that nearly 20% of residential demand and 20% of commercial and industrial demand could be flexibly managed.”

Responding to robust industry interest in VPPs and their potential benefits, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) and N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center (NCCETC) are collaborating to help states, utilities, and other stakeholders understand the ever-evolving policy and industry landscape.

“New substations, transmission lines, and distribution infrastructure represent enormous capital commitments. If assets are sited without rigorous flood risk assessment, utilities are not just exposing existing infrastructure to harm; they are locking in new exposure for decades.”

“There is now a dynamic where vastly different and sometimes competing goals are in the same room. Our role is to align those disparate objectives into an executable strategy.”

“Much of the existing transmission system was designed for gradual, predictable growth, yet today’s load is concentrated, time-sensitive, and increasingly tied to firm delivery commitments.”