“There is never a point at which TURN’s policies are in alignment with utility policies. The reason is because ratepayer advocates and utilities have fundamentally diametrical interests.”

A roundtable with NASUCA President Chris Ayers (North Carolina), Vice President Michael Moody (Michigan), Treasurer Tom Content (Wisconsin); the Executive Committee’s Michele Beck (Utah), Bill Fine (Indiana), Nanette Edwards (South Carolina), Patrick Cicero (Pennsylvania), David Lapp (Maryland); and Executive Director David Springe.

“The program can scale up to $250 billion of lending up to 30 years, depending on life of the asset, at a rate as low as U.S. Treasuries plus three eighths of a point. Those benefits have to flow through to regulated customers. An unregulated project, say a merchant coal plant being replaced with solar and storage, that low-cost financing benefit can accrue to the developer.”

“As a way forward, regulators and policymakers need to modernize the way they support the development, planning and operation of the bulk power system, which is beyond the certainty of resource capacity.”

“The greatest risks are cost and affordability, even with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and all federal funds coming to utilities from those laws. Washington has a state Clean Energy Fund that supports utility investments in the clean energy transition, but it does not cover the significant costs of investment.”

“We are seeing a greater number of filings by developers for approval of new solar facilities. We are also seeing an increased number of transmission projects being filed with the Commission. That’s because there are a lot of data centers being built in our state, particularly in northern Virginia.”

“When you’re trying to build things like transmission lines, you can’t build them in the West without crossing over federal land. Unless significant changes occur, that takes a long time to work through the Bureau of Land Management to ultimately receive approval.”

“The Act on Climate requires net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050. We’re going to need to figure out how the gas distribution network can deliver a low- or zero-carbon product, or we’re going to have to do something else with the network.”

“What we see are storm clouds on the horizon that are going to affect reliability, resource adequacy, and prices because of state and federal initiatives that are pushing for a rapid transition away from thermal resources into renewable resources.”

“Bipartisan legislation required the Commission to develop a plan to reduce carbon emissions from Duke Energy’s electric generating facilities by 70% from 2005 levels by 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2050.”