Strategy & Planning

From the sidelines of its Annual Transmission Symposium, conversations with Burns & McDonnell’s Alberto Ruiz, Chih-Hung Chen, Jess Kurpius, Zach O'Toole, JC Perkins, Matt Ingram, Matt Lind, Kyle Combes, Michaela Nickell, Brent Windsor, Brad Gardner, Paul Barker, Danny Serrano, Vinny Montemurro, James Duehning, Mark Van Dyne, Kent Herzog, Alex Lee, and Polsinelli law firm’s Andrew Schulte.

“The State Energy Offices are most easily characterized as the energy policy arm of the governor of each state. They’re diverse. Sometimes they’re stand-alone agencies or located in a Department of Commerce. We are located within the California Natural Resources Agency.”

“Evergy’s strategic tenets are affordability, reliability, and sustainability. If you ever put too much emphasis on one of those tenets at the expense of the others, you’ll get out of balance and run into trouble. Out of balance inevitably creates issues with key constituents.”

Respondents describe an industry grappling with accelerating load growth, infrastructure vulnerability, and policy uncertainty – even as they continue to work toward clean energy goals and distributed resource integration.

“As a former Commission Chair, I recognized quickly that there is a whole host of managing and operating at any Commission that falls outside the ordinary daily responsibilities of regulating.”

Conversations with Tricia Pridemore and Jehmal Hudson about the Chairs Council Conference and New Commissioner Orientation.

“All these resources coming on have a lower accredited capacity than traditional resources. You have to make sure you’re meeting that supply-demand balance in an already tight market. That’s what we’re focused on. We’re also focused on getting more transmission built.”

“Regulatory incentives focusing on improving overall system utilization create a net downward pressure on rates, just as prioritizing rate impact benefits over other benefit-cost tests helps lower rates more readily than do traditional avoided capital cost tests.”

“Leading utilities’ resiliency programs are also typically ahead in their digital journeys by developing geospatial asset registries, accessible outage management systems, and digitized inspection data.”

“The race for skilled resources is more competitive than ever as the existing workforce ages and labor markets wane, making enterprise alignment on talent acquisition strategies, career pathways, and succession planning critical.”