NARUC Summer Policy Summit
Moderator Kim Duffley is Senior Director at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Gordon van Welie is the CEO of ISO New England. Emile Thompson is Chair of the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia. Charles Dickerson is CEO of the Northeast Power Coordinating Council. Joe Purington is the CEO of Avangrid Networks. Glen Thomas is President of GT Power Group. Vincent Duane is Principal at Copper Monarch.
NERC's 2025-2029 Risk Assessment places six of the seven RTO/ISO regions in either the high or elevated risk categories. With power demands and costs rising, RTOs find themselves under increasing political and public pressures.
This panel on Unpacking Challenges Facing RTOs, explored competing policy demands. On the panel were moderator and NARUC Senior Director Kim Duffley, ISO New England CEO Gordon van Welie, District of Columbia Commission Chair Emile Thompson, Northeast Power Coordinating Council CEO Charles Dickerson, Avangrid Networks CEO Joe Purington, GT Power Group President Glen Thomas, and Copper Monarch Principal Vincent Duane.
Moderator and NARUC Senior Director Kim Duffley: RTOs have a critical role within resource adequacy and generation investment, but there are challenges. Within the past two weeks, PJM received a letter from nine states within its footprint indicating there's a crisis of confidence, and they want to see market structure and RTO governance changes.
The governors are inserting themselves into PJM, and they've even suggested two board members to fill the open seats, but are the governors justified? There are also affordability challenges. After the last auction, many customers within that footprint saw increases in prices of ten to twenty percent.