Public Utilities Fortnightly held its annual State of State Regulation luncheon during NARUC’s Winter Policy Summit, a series of short, lively talks with five regulatory experts.

Regulation in the public interest was celebrated, and participants had a plethora of panels and speakers to choose from.

Inspiring words by DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko: Our industrial consumers are ready to pay the European price, so they have a guaranteed supply of electricity. We are in discussion with our government to liquidate this economic distortion, so we can use this available cross-border capacity at full capacity.

“This is the moment we believe we can finally get permitting reform done. There is a bipartisan consensus to get this done. You’re not going to be able to build out these high-powered transmission lines. We need more pipelines in this country to transport product from where it is to where it needs to be.”

“The IRA includes a new production tax credit to help the existing fleet stay online for years. It encourages new nuclear with a clean electricity investment tax credit that covers 30% of investment in zero carbon facilities, including nuclear. If the company uses American manufacturing, they get an additional 10%. If you build in a community supported by a retiring fossil fuel plant, that’s another 10%.”

“Hydrogen, biofuels, these are all opportunities that we have. Our innovation is focusing on, how do we accelerate this technology innovation? So that all the promises all the corporations have made for net zero by 2050, which is twenty-seven years from now, we can meet.”

“If you look at the grid in particular, it’s a symphony of physics. While storage offers promise, the reality is we still work with the same physics problem we always have. But now we’re trying to change supply, add load, introduce new technologies. This whole harmonization is getting more complicated and probably not as well orchestrated as it needs to be.”

“December 23, 24. In nine states there were rolling blackouts. We couldn’t get gas to the plants. All the peakers were running on oil those days, and we still had blackouts. NERC said we have this, disorderly retirement of generating assets in this country putting us at greater risk. My membership is concerned. We’re trying to be a voice of reason.”

“Let’s talk about gas stoves. It’s not causing you asthma. Unfortunately, there are activist groups cherry picking studies that have done no testing, trying to fearmonger and tell you that you were doing wrong by your family. They’re ignoring studies that have done the testing and ignoring the federal government task force that has found no causation.”

“On our priority list is siting and permitting. If you want to have the benefits of the two major legislative initiatives that have passed over the past couple of years, you’ve got to be able to do siting and permitting more efficiently.”