Strategy & Planning

Fortnightly Top Innovators 2025

Awards Named for Great Innovators of the Past

“These remarkable teams and leaders reflect every dimension of our industry’s transformation. Each award honors an innovator whose historic achievements continue to inspire today’s breakthroughs. Their stories, and those of this year’s winners remind us that progress in energy is always powered by imagination and collaboration.”

Let There Be Light

NARUC

“We have increased sponsorships this year. I’m honored to say that with the help of great Staff and support from the overall industry communities, we’ve broken every sponsorship record in NARUC history.”

State Utility Regulation: Chair Steve DeFrank

Pennsylvania PUC

“We have a new set of customers who are struggling with affordability issues, and that is something we’re noticing here. That’s a big issue we’re dealing with, and when large new loads are tied to that equation, affordability becomes even more complex.”

State Utility Regulation: Chair Letha Tawney

Oregon PUC

“There is no realistic way to interconnect larger numbers of generators of any fuel type or move that power around the Northwest without Bonneville Power Administration’s partnership, system growth, and investments. There’s no way to accommodate the growth without that partnership.”

State Utility Regulation: Chair Kevin Thompson

Arizona CC

“We’re eliminating the mandates. You’re seeing that from the administration in Washington, D.C., as well. We started down this path in 2023 with our changes in our Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff, REST rules. We don’t need to subsidize it either.”

Navigating the Data-Driven Evolution in Utilities

Conversation with Southern Company's Shane Powell

“A significant milestone in Powell’s journey was the development of RAMP, a tool that provides next-day intelligence on outages. By integrating AI, RAMP anticipates common queries and delivers insights that were previously labor-intensive to obtain.”

What if the Well Runs Dry?

Data Centers Are a Thirsty Bunch

“While the nation has been focused on an energy crisis triggered by unprecedented new additional load being added to the electrical grid from data center demand, scarcely anyone is focused on the related competition for water.”

Four Big Issues Facing Industry Leaders

Charles River Associates

“While state procurement could be a useful price hedge for customers, it’s an open question how much it helps reliability if PJM is still in the role of meeting the reserve margin through its capacity auction.”