“This article describes a path to building healthy, modernized, and intelligent grid systems that can flexibly respond to changing pressures within this dynamic environment through no-regret investments that are robust across multiple possible future scenarios.”

“A central concern for regulators is that existing cost allocation frameworks are ill-suited for such sudden spikes in capacity needs, creating a risk of unwarranted subsidies from existing customers to data centers.”

“States are making announcements of investing multiple hundreds of millions of dollars to support nuclear development. Utilities are making announcements about reactors restarting that were shut down several years ago. This is historic.”

“At a high level, SURFA aims to discuss the concepts, industry practices, and application of financial concepts within the energy industry, including rate of return and different forms of cost of capital.”

“Our objective is to ensure that when a utility invests capital in infrastructure, it captures the full value of that investment. Life extension complements other utility initiatives by maximizing the performance of existing assets.”

“According to the most recent EIA data, we’ve reduced the outages by nearly an hour – 52.6 minutes – compared to 2019. In fact, no state has made more progress in improving outage duration and grid reliability than Michigan during that time.”

“While there are a lot of data centers in Washington, the investor-owned utilities that the UTC regulates have not seen a lot of hyperscale activity yet. This puts the UTC in a good spot to think holistically and learn from other places where large loads have been interconnecting.”

The series continues with conversations with Washington Chair Brian Rybarik and Michigan Chair Dan Scripps.

“Affordability is a central issue for our Committee and captures a significant portion of what we’ve been asked to focus on. Our priority should be, and will continue to be, affordability.”

“My biggest concern is how we can ensure customers have reliable service and can afford to keep the lights, heating, and cooling on for health and safety. It’s not just in my Committee but every Committee is trying to address these issues.”