N. Dakota PSC: Commissioner Brian Kroshus
Commissioner
“Who wouldn’t want carbon-free electricity? It sounds great, but we can’t ignore the cost and impact that has on consumers, especially low-income households.”
N. Dakota PSC: Commissioner Randy Christmann
Commissioner
“One of the issues I campaigned on was my background with coal reclamation and my desire to make sure we have something similar in place for wind farms. We have 4,000 MW of wind in North Dakota. Someday, those need to be cleaned up too.”
N. Dakota PSC: Chair Julie Fedorchak
Chair
“As we transition to more renewables, we have to recognize the need for dispatchable resources to maintain reliability. If those are largely gas, then we need more pipelines.”
A Day at the North Dakota PSC
State Commissions
This small but mighty Commission handles a lot in this vast agricultural and ranching state. North Dakota PSC is also in charge of weights and measures, protecting consumers by making sure they get what they pay for. Commissioners in North Dakota are elected and spend a lot of time traveling to hearings held among constituents for the serious business of regulating in the public interest.
They're Accustomed to Being in the Front Lines
Industry Veterans
Thirty-five veterans in the new book “Front Lines to Power Lines” stand for the many thousands of vets in our industry. The book shines a light onto the unique qualities that vets bring with them, instinctively, qualities that are so very valuable to utility service.
The Money Talked
Cristin Lyons, who leads ScottMadden’s energy practice, talks about the critical role of financial incentives to breaking the logjam in transmission development.
History Repeats Itself
Nina Plaushin, a VP for ITC Holdings, talks about the critical role of financial incentives in transmission development.
Natural Gas and Electric Prices
The Labor Department released August data on producer prices on September 10.
Notably, the average price for the natural gas sold to electric power producers was fifty-two percent higher in August than in August of 2020.
The average price of natural gas sold to commercial and industrial customers was twenty-nine percent and forty-five percent higher in August than in August of 2020, respectively.
And the average price of electricity sold to commercial and industrial customers was four percent and five percent higher in August than in August of 2020, respectively.
Average Residential Bill $126
Because of the pandemic, people stayed home more last year. This shows up in the average residential electric bill.
The data courtesy of the most authoritative source on what American households have spent their money on, the Labor Department’s extraordinarily comprehensive Consumer Expenditure Survey. 2020 data was released on September 9.
Compared with the prior pre-pandemic year, the average monthly bill rose in 2020 by three percent to $126.
As usual, the average varies quite a lot by region and by income.