Smart Electric Power Alliance
Sharon Allan is Chief Innovation Officer for the Smart Electric Power Alliance.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: In your unique role, how is the MEDSIS process going?
Sharon Allan: It's going well. We're in that phase of the process where we're putting together the recommendations and stakeholders are seeing the fruit of their labor. The DCPSC Commissioners have all expressed they are anxiously awaiting our formal document.
When we first started the process, there was a fair amount of pent up, and I can't say it strongly enough, pent up frustration over the speed at which MEDSIS was moving. We had to work to defuse that frustration.
We did a good job initially of getting people to settle in. And then we had to break it down as there was a lot of distrust, so folks were more guarded and not so open to work together. Trust takes time.
At the phase we're in now, where we're beginning to formulate the recommendations that are going to result in action from the Commission, naturally, it has folks feeling more guarded. But all that's to be expected knowing we're going toward a process that we're trying to drive toward some consensus.