GreentechMedia: Top 10 Utility Regulation Trends of 2019 — So Far

Written by Coley Girouard | Aug 1, 2019

GreentechMedia reposted AEE's popular Top 10 trends piece by AEE's Coley Girouard. See excerpts below and read the entire GTM piece here. The piece was later covered by T&D World here.

In January, we published a list of the top 10 utility regulation trends of 2018. With 2019 beyond the halfway point, we check in on the top public utility commission (PUC) actions and trends so far this year. Ten prominent trends and actions stand out above the rest, from renewables increasingly dominating utility resource plans, to wildfires sparking utility safety and liability concerns in California, to transportation electrification investments becoming more widespread from coast to coast...

1. Renewables dominating utility resource plans

During the first six months of 2019, the trend of recent years toward a more advanced, clean and flexible grid has continued. This has largely been driven by the continued price decline in renewables. In most states, it is now often cheaper to build new wind and solar plants (in some cases even when paired with storage) than to operate existing fossil-fuel power plants. Utilities are starting to take notice, and renewables are dominating their long-term resource plans...

2. Rethinking the utility business model
Many states are exploring changes to the traditional cost-of-service regulatory model to move toward a system that better reflects new market conditions, allows utilities to take advantage of the growing service economy, and rewards performance against established goals rather than inputs...

3. Distribution system planning for distributed resources
The distribution grid is the backbone of a reliable electric system used to deliver electricity from the transmission system to individual consumers. Modern planning processes are critical for providing essential electric service efficiently and cost-effectively. As distributed energy resources (DERs) deployment continues to grow, utilities and DER companies are seeking ways to maximize the benefits of DERs to the system, while maintaining reliability and reasonable costs for customers...

See all 10 trends in the GreentechMedia story here, as covered by T&D World here, or on AEE's blog post here.

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