Speaking of upcoming conferences, NARUC’s Winter Meeting is right around the corner. Where would you possibly want to be in mid-February instead of Washington, D.C.? Where the conversations about consumers, cost of service, climate change and decarbonization, coal retirements, commissions, interconnections, community solar, capital rates, court reviews, etc. will all be as cool as the D.C. air and the atmosphere at the U.S. Capitol.

If you can get there, to Charlotte, by plane, or by car, or by bus, or by boat (which could be a real challenge), then you can get by the gate for zip, zero, zilch. Because if you’re with a state utility commission, state consumer advocate office, state legislature, state governor’s office, state energy office, or a state whatever, the fee to attend Electrification 2020 giga-conference is gratis, gratuit, free.

My absolute favorite part of each year’s National Conference of the American Public Power Association is the general session when they give out the individual and utility excellence awards. This year, the awards session will fall on June 9, during the 2020 National Conference in Long Beach, California.

June 9 is a great day for APPA to do this. It’s actually when solar power got its start. On June 9, 1905, Albert Einstein’s Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough on the photoelectric effect was published in Annalen der Physik.