CPI Publications
- August 25, 2022
- Nuclear Energy as a Keystone Clean Energy Resource
- Since the first wave of nuclear retirements was announced in 2016, states have started to recognize the value of the carbon-free electricity nuclear power plants provide and the complementary role these plants can play to the intermittent renewable resources of wind and solar. Currently, 13 states have legally enforceable Clean Energy Standards (CES), which require a large amount of their electricity to come from carbon-free electric generating resources, including nuclear. Furthermore, four states include direct financial support through power purchase agreements or zero-emission credits (ZECs) to nuclear power plants, helping to offset some of the financial distress low wholesale power prices have brought to nuclear power plant owners.
- August 16, 2022
- Compendium of Cyber Incident Notification Requirements for Critical Infrastructure Utilities by State
- Detailed list of states who require utilities to report cybersecurity incidents.
- July 14, 2022
- Enhancing Grid Reliability through Demand Response Surge Call summary
- On June 24, 2022, NARUC facilitated a state commission staff “surge” call on enhancing grid reliability through demand response (DR). The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) 2022 Summer Reliability Assessment identifies heightened reliability risks for the summer, particularly for the Midcontinental and Western U.S., as the regions are faced with widespread drought, heat, wildfires, and extreme peak demand. In order to avoid capacity shortfalls, grid operators may need to employ mitigating actions such as demand response to reduce or shift consumer electricity usage. This assessment underscores the increasingly important role of demand-side management (DSM) to help ensure grid reliability in a changing climate. During this surge call, commission staff from Maryland, Nevada, and Rhode Island will share their perspectives on the administration of demand response programs in their states, approaches to engaging customers, and lessons learned and opportunities for the future.
- April 11, 2022
- Draft Microgrid Framework - NASEO-NARUC Microgrids State Working Group
- Draft Microgrid Framework - NASEO-NARUC Microgrids State Working Group
- March 29, 2022
- Mini Guide on Engagement between States and Regional Transmission Organizations
- Mini Guide on Engagement between States and Regional Transmission Organizations
- February 11, 2022
- Valuing Resilience for Microgrids: Challenges, Innovative Approaches, and State Needs
- The United States depends on the delivery of reliable, affordable, clean, and safe electricity. Electric utilities invest billions of dollars each year in generation, transmission, and distribution assets to meet this need. However, experiences with recent natural disasters of increasing frequency and duration demonstrate the shortcomings of this approach in the face of modern threats. Further, as customers rely on electricity for a broader range of important needs, such as transportation, as well as critical life-saving services and mission critical facilities such as water treatment, medical care, shelters, telecommunications, and more, the need to minimize the likelihood and impacts of outages grows. Against this backdrop, resilience has emerged as a key consideration to guide electricity spending, whether from utilities, customers, or taxpayers. Although reliability has been defined and measured for decades with broadly accepted metrics that measure how many customers lose power and at what frequency and duration, resilience considers the electricity system’s response to a disruption and its subsequent impacts on customers. Developing tools and methods to accurately assess the costs and benefits of resilience investments is a critical step toward the goal of mitigating the impacts of outages on customers and society.
- February 9, 2022
- NCEP Mini Guide on on Transmission Siting: State Agency Decision Making
- NCEP Mini Guide on on Transmission Siting: State Agency Decision Making
- February 1, 2022
- Energy Emergency and Preparedness Data: FAQs ad Quick Guidance on Crisis Communications
- Reference guide that describes tactics for developing or enhancing Crisis Communications capabilities with PUCs and State Energy Offices.
- January 10, 2022
- State Approaches to Intervenor Compensation
- Intervenor compensation is the practice of reimbursing individuals or groups for the costs of their involvement in state utility regulatory proceedings. These groups advocate for views and issues that may otherwise not be introduced into the proceeding by the utility, large customers, state utility consumer advocates, attorneys general offices, or others. Programs have been developed in several states to encourage participation at all stages of proceedings before the state Commissions where the costs to intervene would otherwise create a financial hardship. This paper reviews the states with legislative authorization for intervenor compensation, the states with active intervenor compensation programs, and provides insights on program implementation through several case studies.
- January 7, 2022
- NCEP Mini Guide: Public Utilities Commissions and Consumer Advocates: Protecting the Public Interest
- This mini guide describes the overlap and distinction between PUCs and CAs, examines the current and emerging state of engagement between the two parties, and offers ideas for how relationships can be strengthened based on the experiences of PUCs and CAs. To inform the paper, the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) conducted interviews with commissioners, commission staff, and consumer advocates (from state agencies and nonprofits) who have experience working with their counterparts.
- December 20, 2021
- Issue Brief: Log4j Vulnerability
- This one-page brief explains the recently discovered Log4j vulnerability, which may affect critical infrastructure entities.
- December 17, 2021
- Think Microgrid Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Overview
- NARUC-NASEO Microgrids State Working Group
- November 5, 2021
- Black Sky Subcommittee Use Cases
- The intent of the Use Cases document is to amplify themes, challenges, and needs identified in the group’s Needs Assessment deliverable. Each identified scenario examines particular shortcomings identified in the Needs Assessment.
- October 27, 2021
- Lessons Learned from the Ongoing Response to the COVID-19 Crisis
- A final lessons learned report from the Emergency Preparedness, Recovery, and Resiliency Task Force's Subcommittee on COVID-19. The report details key lessons learned for state commissions from the ongoing response to the COVID-19 crisis. The scope of the analysis includes workforce issues, changing business practices, low- to moderate-income customer impact, regulatory responses, utility financial approaches to pandemic response, and other key challenges.
- October 27, 2021
- Regulators' Energy Transition Primer: Economic Impacts of the Energy Transition on Energy Communities, Environmental Justice Considerations, and the Implications on Clean Energy Jobs
- The primer offers a background for NARUC members to understand how the transition from coal to low-carbon energy resources is affecting communities and workers. It also provides further discussion into the environmental, climate and energy justice considerations of the transition, as well as an overview of current federal programs and funding available to support affected communities.
- October 27, 2021
- Regulatory Considerations for Utility Investment in Defense Energy Resilience
- A white paper detailing the regulatory considerations for utility investment in defense critical electric infrastructure, shares the Department of Defense energy resilience policy landscape, and describes processes by which state utility regulators can engage with defense community partners to enhance defense systems resiliency.
- October 27, 2021
- The Role of State Utility Regulators in a Just and Reasonable Energy Transition: Examining Regulatory Approaches to the Economic Impacts of Coal Retirements
- The ongoing trend of coal retirements has disproportionately affected the socioeconomic health of communities where power plants are located. For many public utility commissions, these impacts have led to important questions around the scope of PUCs’ statutory authority to analyze, consider and mitigate losses to host communities within their role as utility regulators. Due largely to variations in state legislative charges, commissions have taken different approaches to articulating what lies within the public interest. This report examines the authority of PUCs across the country to consider non-energy economic impacts beyond direct ratepayer effects, and summarizes approaches that PUCs, utilities and other stakeholders have used to mitigate the economic fallout of coal retirements, specifically.
- October 25, 2021
- Federal Funding Opportunities Guidebook
- A key resource guide detailing available federal funding opportunities for resilience and disaster recovery investments. The Guidebook highlights federal funding program eligibility, reporting requirements, and key regulatory takeaways.
- October 21, 2021
- Coal and Carbon Management Guidebook: Coal-to-Hydrogen Opportunities and Challenges
- This guidebook provides a detailed outlook of the opportunities and challenges for coal and biomass resources and infrastructure to participate in the growing low-carbon hydrogen economy. It also outlines the present and forecasted market demand for hydrogen, addresses how state utility regulators can analyze and manage risks associated with low-carbon hydrogen technologies and summarizes DOE’s investments in research and development for hydrogen production from coal and biomass.
- February 22, 2021
- A Guide for Public Utility Commissions: Recruiting and Retaining a Cybersecurity Workforce
- This publication provides insight on cybersecurity roles within public utility commissions and highlights recruitment and retention tactics for public utility commissions to develop or expand a cybersecurity division, including alternative strategies. Appendices include a compendium of example cybersecurity job descriptions, pipelines to recruit qualified cybersecurity staff, and a list of cybersecurity training opportunities.
- February 8, 2021
- Opportunities to Improve Analytical Capabilities towards Comprehensive Electricity System Planning
- This document provides a summary and synthesis of Task Force outputs related to tools and methods needed to support greater alignment between resource, transmission and distribution planning processes.
- February 8, 2021
- Task Force Blueprint for State Action
- The Task Force Blueprint for State Action supports states seeking to further align electricity system planning processes in ways that meet their own goals and objectives. The Blueprint provides a step-by-step approach for states to develop and implement a plan or series of actions to better align planning processes, based on the experience of Task Force member states.
- February 8, 2021
- Task Force on Comprehensive Electricity Planning Fact Sheet
- Task Force on Comprehensive Electricity Planning Fact Sheet
- January 21, 2021
- Public Utility Commission Stakeholder Engagement: A Decision-Making Framework
- Summarizes emerging stakeholder engagement strategies used by public utility commissions, as traditional utility and regulatory practices change with evolving customer needs, new technologies and shifting policy goals. The whitepaper also offers commissions a framework to evaluate decision points as they design stakeholder processes by providing key questions, emerging best practices, and related resources informed by other commissions’ experiences.
- January 13, 2021
- Executive Summary: Private, State, and Federal Funding and Financing Options to Enable Resilient, Affordable, and Clean Microgrids
- NARUC-NASEO Microgrids State Working Group
- January 13, 2021
- Executive Summary: User Objectives and Design Approaches for Microgrids: Options for Delivering Reliability and Resilience, Clean Energy, Energy Savings, and Other Priorities
- NARUC-NASEO Microgrids State Working Group
- January 13, 2021
- Private, State, and Federal Funding and Financing Options to Enable Resilient, Affordable, and Clean Microgrids
- NARUC-NASEO Microgrids State Working Group
- January 13, 2021
- User Objectives and Design Approaches for Microgrids: Options for Delivering Reliability and Resilience, Clean Energy, Energy Savings, and Other Priorities
- NARUC-NASEO Microgrids State Working Group
- January 6, 2021
- Understanding Cybersecurity for the Smart Grid: Questions for Utilities
- Understanding Cybersecurity for the Smart Grid: Questions for Utilities
- October 26, 2020
- Artificial Intelligence for Natural Gas Utilities: A Primer
- Artificial Intelligence for Natural Gas Utilities: A Primer
- October 23, 2020
- Appendix B - Template Cyber TTX Checklist (Cybersecurity TTX Guide)
- Appendix B of NARUC's Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise Guide
- October 23, 2020
- Appendix C - Template SitMan (Cybersecurity TTX Guide)
- Appendix C of NARUC's Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise Guide
- October 23, 2020
- Appendix D - Template Exercise Evaluation Guide (Cybersecurity TTX Guide)
- Appendix D of NARUC's Cybersecurity TTX Guide.
- October 23, 2020
- Appendix E - Template AAR-IP (Cybersecurity TTX Guide)
- Appendix E of NARUC's Cybersecurity TTX Guide.
- October 23, 2020
- Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise Guide
- This guide details the steps that PUCs can take to design, execute, and evaluate a cybersecurity-focused tabletop exercise (TTX). An exercise could examine utilities’ and other stakeholders’ readiness to respond to and recover from a cybersecurity incident or analyze the PUC's internal capabilities. This guide includes example scenarios and customizable templates.
- October 23, 2020
- Public Utility Commission Participation in GridEx V: A Case Study
- This case study examines the experiences of six public utility commissions who participated in GridEx V. It highlights the benefits they perceived as well as the challenges they encountered. The intent of this case study is to pave the way for more PUCs to actively engage in the planning, preparation, and play for GridEx VI, slated to take place in November 2021. Through GridEx, PUCs have the opportunity to build relationships, clarify roles, and strengthen their response capabilities in coordination with key partners.
- October 15, 2020
- Battery Energy Storage Technology Adoption & Electric Utility Structure
- Battery Energy Storage Technology Adoption & Electric Utility Structure: Analyzing factors driving storage deployment across utility ownership structures
- October 5, 2020
- NCEP Mini Guide: Engagement between Public Utility Commissions and State Energy Offices
- The mini guide details ways in which public utility commissions and state energy offices interact, how these relationships can be strengthened and how governors’ state energy office directors and commissioners, as well as staff, can look to further engage with their counterparts. This mini guide features condensed excerpts from interviews with state energy office directors or staff and commissioners or commission staff from four states: Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota and North Carolina.
- April 21, 2020
- NARUC Smart Grid Interoperability
- NARUC Smart Grid Interoperability
- April 10, 2020
- Advancing Electric System Resilience with Distributed Energy Resources: A Review of State Policies
- Resilience is an important focus for state energy regulators, particularly as novel and more severe threats have emerged and caused substantial damage to the energy system and broader society in recent years. Traditional definitions and measures of reliability do not fully account for the array of system threats and impacts. As NARUC observed in 2013, “Resilience fits within the existing structure of reliability that public utility commissions already oversee, but is particularly valuable for dealing with severe and non-traditional hazards” (Keogh & Cody, 2013). This paper aims to provide an overview of the potential resilience benefits of distributed energy resources (DERs) and how commissions can incorporate DERs into resilience planning. The conversation around defining and quantifying resilience is complex and decentralized among numerous stakeholders (Rickerson et al., 2019). Commissions, however, are well positioned to apply a resilience lens to DER deployment strategies given their role in deciding who pays for DERs, what revenue streams DERs cans pursue, who owns DERs, and how DERs are treated in resource planning. This paper does not attempt to draw conclusions from that ongoing conversation but instead focuses on the following questions: • How are state commissions approaching electricity system resilience? What is the commission’s role? • What is the relationship of DERs to system resilience? • How can states implement policies to expand DER deployment in a manner that improves resilience?
- April 10, 2020
- Advancing Electric System Resilience with Distributed Energy Resources: Key Questions and Resources
- State energy regulators have a clear interest in improving the resilience of the electricity distribution system. System disruptions are costly, inconvenient, and can be devastating, depending on the duration. The vast majority of service interruptions are located in the distribution system; unfortunately, these interruptions are increasing in frequency and pose severe threats to the provision of reliable electricity service. While regulators are familiar with monitoring and regulating system reliability – defined by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) as the electric system’s ability to (a) supply adequate power to meet demand and (b) withstand sudden disturbances or unanticipated loss of components – resilience is a newer term that lacks a universally accepted definition and metrics. FERC defines resilience as the ability of the system to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and/or rapidly recover from disruptions, while NARUC defined resilience in a 2013 paper as “robustness and recovery characteristics of utility infrastructure and operations, which avoid or minimize interruptions of service during an extraordinary and hazardous event.” While state energy regulators have generally not yet arrived at state-specific definitions of resilience, they are paying increasing attention to how resilience can be incorporated into the regulatory process by exploring how to ensure utility and customer investments achieve resilience benefits when possible. This resource has two complementary parts: I: A list of questions that offers an initial starting point for state public utility commissions (commissions) to frame how they review proposed utility investments and considerations that could offer resilience benefits The questions are divided into three categories: (a) initiating a public utility commission conversation about system resilience, (b) considering particular projects or investments, and (c) understanding the broader resilience landscape. II: A list of relevant resources to improve a regulator’s ability to oversee resilience investments and obtain the best possible solutions for customers. The list of resources includes a synopsis of relevant topics covered in each resource.
- February 25, 2020
- Black Sea Cybersecurity Strategy Development Guide (English)
- With the support of the United States Agency of International Development (USAID), the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) has developed this document, the Black Sea Cybersecurity Strategy Development Guide, in order to provide information and lessons learned that will support Black Sea regulators in developing their own commissions’ cybersecurity strategies.
- February 7, 2020
- Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure Replacement and Modernization: A Review of State Programs
- Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure Replacement and Modernization: A Review of State Programs
- January 24, 2020
- Recent Changes to U.S. Coal Plant Operations and Current Compensation Practices
- This report explores the ongoing shift from coal generation towards natural gas and renewables. With 30 gigawatts of coal capacity having retired in the past two years, the report details how remaining coal plants are managing increasing pressure to act as load-following — or cycling—resources, particularly in states with high reliance on intermittent renewable generation.
- December 19, 2019
- Electric Vehicles: Key Trends, Issues, and Considerations for State Regulators
- Electric Vehicles: Key Trends, Issues, and Considerations for State Regulators examines trends in EV adoption, provides a synopsis of the types of decisions commissions are facing, and offers examples of recent state regulatory approaches to EV questions. The issue brief outlines the key issues and perspectives that commissions are likely to hear from stakeholders. Topics include who may own charging infrastructure, how to encourage charging during off-peak hours through rate design and managed charging, and emerging issues.
- November 14, 2019
- Aligning Integrated Resource Planning and Distribution Planning: Standard Building Blocks of Electricity System Planning Processes
- Standard Building Blocks of Electricity System Planning Processes
- October 17, 2019
- NCEP Mini Guide: Engagement between Public Utility Commissions and State Legislatures
- The mini guide suggests that a strong and collaborative relationship between state legislatures and commissions is instrumental to establishing coherent, comprehensive and cost-effective energy policies at the state level. This mini guide contains condensed excerpts from interviews with legislators and commissioners from three states: Minnesota, Vermont and Washington.
- July 18, 2019
- NCEP Mini Guide: Local Government Engagement with Public Utility Commissions
- The mini guide identifies key areas in which local governments may engage with PUCs, the potential impacts of local government engagement at PUCs and opportunities that exist to make regulatory processes more accessible for city and county staff. Questions and answers from interviews with local government staff and commissioners or commission staff from California, Colorado, Hawaii and Minnesota are included.
- July 18, 2019
- NCEP Mini Guide: State Agency Coordination During Energy-Related Emergencies
- The mini guide aims to identify organizational models that enable effective coordination, describe their benefits and highlight how some states have overcome challenges that may inhibit successful coordination. To gain insights into how collaborative relationships work in practice, NARUC interviewed state agency partners in Oregon, Wisconsin and Virginia. Interview questions were designed to elicit best practice insights from public utility commissions, state energy offices and state offices of emergency management—all of whom play key roles in emergency support functions related to energy (ESF-12).
- July 17, 2019
- Sampling of Methane Emissions Detection Technologies and Practices for Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure
- A product of the DOE-NARUC Natural Gas Infrastructure Modernization Partnership Administered by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners Center for Partnerships & Innovation