Agenda

Following months of collaboration, the Critical Consumers Issue Forum (CCIF) is pleased to feature state commissioners, consumer advocates, and electric company representatives to highlight CCIF’s new report, consensus principles, and other takeaways. CCIF thanks the noted NARUC Staff Subcommittees for their collaboration on the program and welcomes all interested NARUC Summer Policy Summit and NASUCA Mid Year Meeting attendees to join.

Separate registration required (no fee): Click here to register.

Buffet Breakfast Available by 8:30 am (sponsored by Edison Electric Institute)

Program 9:15 – 11:00 am (in collaboration with NARUC Staff Subcommittees)

The NARUC Center for Partnerships & Innovation and U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity are co-hosting an interactive, members-only workshop on creating a data-supported decision-making environment at state utility commissions. The workshop will include limited presentations and ample time for peer-to-peer dialogue about the successes and challenges commissions are currently facing in receiving and using utility system data from companies to facilitate timely, data-informed decision making. When a commission requests data from a utility, do you get what you are expecting? Is it useful? Does it answer your questions? Are you able to analyze the data and synthesize insights across relevant proceedings? For many state decision-makers, it is difficult to define exactly what data are needed, in what format, and then what insights it can provide. Attendees will learn about successful examples from other states while also sharing challenges that can be overcome. Insights from this session will be combined with other NARUC-DOE sessions throughout 2026 and anonymously included in a new DOE Voices of Experience summary of gaps and opportunities in leveraging electricity system data to support investment decisions. Registration is free and open to state commissioners and commission staff.

This workshop is open to NARUC members only and requires free, advance registration. Register here.

Business meeting for the Staff Subcommittee on Telecommunications

Join the Staff Subcommittee on Electricity for a hands-on interactive learning session on electricity markets that incorporate distributed energy resources (i.e., solar panels, battery storage, bidirectional EVs, etc.) through live economics experiments. By stepping into the shoes of DER owners, you will have an opportunity to experience decision making under alternative retail pricing and market access rights followed by a discussion and presentation of results from all players. No advance knowledge is required.

Participants first operate with rooftop solar alone and later gain access to battery storage, eventually being allowed to buy/sell electricity directly from/to the grid. Attendees will experience first-hand how laboratory economics experiments can enhance our understanding of both power market fundamentals and potential behavioral/strategic interactions between market participants. Come prepared to interact with the setting and with each other, to ask questions, and to examine how such activities can illuminate the interplay among market design, behavioral responses, and regulatory frameworks

This event is open to all registered NARUC meeting attendees; priority will be given to Staff Subcommittee members. Seats are limited, so register in advance to secure your spot: Electricity Markets Simulation – Registration form

Energy affordability is often measured through bills and income, but household energy insecurity shows up long before a customer misses a payment. Families may keep bills low by enduring unsafe indoor temperatures, delaying repairs, or making tradeoffs that put them at risk of frozen pipes, heat stroke, medical stress, or disconnection. To design better rates and programs, regulators need to understand not only the finacial stress, but how households cope with affordability gaps. In this interactive session, Dr. Destenie Nock will share insights from data analytics deployed across more than 4 million electric and natural gas households. The session will move beyond the standard energy burden metric to examine energy “wallet share,” energy-limiting behavior, arrearage risk, and the hidden affordability gaps that traditional bill-based metrics can miss. Attendees will learn how advanced analytics can identify households experiencing affordability stress, anticipate public health and safety risks, and inform more targeted rate design and low income programs.

The session will also highlight practical applications of this work, including regulatory proceedings in Massachusetts, low-income program design in Pennsylvania, and household energy needs across the southern United States. Dr. Nock will discuss how one state redesigned low-income rates to directly lower household energy burdens, offering a concrete example of how data can support more equitable outcomes. Attendees will leave with a holistic framework for evaluating energy affordability and using data analytics to find at-risk households before they default on their bills.

Since its creation, Lifeline service has provided essential telephone service for millions of low-income customers. Over the past several years, Lifeline has expanded from exclusively wireline voice-only service to include wireless service and mixed broadband and voice service. The anticipated transition to the all-IP network will create new opportunities and challenges for Lifeline service, as the FCC has recognized in its recent Lifeline NPRM. This panel will discuss the NPRM as well as state commission experiences as new providers seek to be designated as ETCs.

For commissioners who have served less than 12 months

(Commissioners/Commission Staff Only)

Separate registration required.

Join us for the third iteration of the NARUC Emerging Technologies Showcase, an interactive forum for NARUC members to engage directly with cutting-edge technology innovators. Attendees will be divided into small groups and rotate through a series of brief presentations led by 8 technology companies, sparking meaningful dialogue between utility regulators and innovators shaping the future of the energy sector. 

From 1:00 to 3:45 pm, this event will be open to NARUC members only. Full attendance for the duration of the program is expected and registration is required. Register here.  

From 3:45 to 5:00 pm, there will be an open house period so any conference attendees can visit the technology companies. Registration is not required for the open house. 

Sponsored by the Critical Infrastructure Committee and Staff Subcommittee, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response and the DOE Office of Electricity.

1:30 pm         Welcome & Roll Call

1:35 pm         Approval of Feb. 8, 2026 Minutes

1:40 pm         Updates

• Center for Partnerships & Innovation Update    

• NARUC Professional Development 

2:00 pm         Spring 2026 Commission Staff Scholarships

2:10 pm         Applications for Support of an Event

2:30 pm         Educational Partner Updates (5 min each)

• Center for Public Utilities, New Mexico State University
• Critical Consumer Issues Forum
• Financial Research Institute, University of Missouri
• Public Utilities Research Center (PURC), University of Florida
• Wisconsin Public Utility Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison

3:25 pm         Any Other Business

3:30 pm         Adjourn

Extreme weather events, including heat waves, polar vortices, hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding, are increasing in frequency, severity, and unpredictability. These events are placing unprecedented stress on electric, gas, and water utilities, prompting regulators and industry leaders to rethink resilience, planning, investment, and emergency response. These efforts sit alongside a critical, often underappreciated resilience mechanism: industry mutual assistance. During catastrophic weather events, utilities across North America deploy trained crews, equipment, and specialized teams to affected regions. This plenary session explores how utilities and regulators can better prepare for, withstand, and recover from disruptive events, while maintaining reliability, affordability, and equity.

(Invitees Only)

Keynote Address: Low and Behold: Barometric Extremes Amplifying Weather Hazards

Ms. Wescott will speak on extreme weather trends from an upper-level atmospheric view down to the regional impacts and implications for the utility sector and the critical infrastructure required to operate it. Topics will include barometric pumping, extreme heat and stormwater risks due to amplified rainfall rates, flash drought and subsequent wildfire triggers from water cycle changes, and cascading failures from the various hazards underway such as increasing lightning strikes. As weather hazards continue to worsen damages to key systems, attendees will learn how changes in longevity, intensity, and seasonality will present unique challenges requiring innovative solutions.

Sunny Wescott
Chief Meteorologist – Emergency Response Specialist
Executive Director, Geospatial Intelligence ISAC

Utility Infrastructure and Agricultural Landscapes

How are commissions, utilities, and developers balancing land use, water conservation, and the growing demand for energy and water security to support critical utility infrastructure needs? This panel will focus on how infrastructure projects can support rural economies, address landowner concerns, and maintain reliability. Learn how collaboration and best practices can strengthen local support while ensuring essential infrastructure is developed responsibly.

(Panelists TBA)

Grid-edge resources and load flexibility, including bring-your-own capacity (BYOC) solutions, potentially offer data centers operators multiple benefits: reduced interconnection time, lower electricity bills, or additional revenue streams from providing grid services. In addition, leveraging these customer-owned resources can reduce costs for all ratepayers while promoting economic development, but there can be regulatory challenges that must be overcome to unlock this value. This panel will discuss successful BYOC deployment models and key components of a regulatory framework that can leverage customer-owned resources to benefit data centers and all ratepayers. 

Rate adjustment mechanisms, commonly known as trackers or riders, are abound in modern rate design. Frequently introduced as a way to minimize rate shock to customers, ensure financial stability to utilities, and decrease ‘regulatory lag’, riders also commonly increase customer bills without the intense scrutiny of a fully litigated rate case. The experts on this panel will debate the pros and cons of riders as an affordability tool and compare and contrast riders with other rate design mechanisms like performance based ratemaking and decoupling.

States are playing an increasingly prominent and proactive role in broadband policy. This panel will focus on the affordability of broadband, including three distinct approaches that have emerged across states: new expansions of state-level lifeline programs, new regulatory structures governing low-cost offers, and direct subsidies to lower costs for consumers.
These approaches demonstrate that there is no single approach to increasing broadband affordability. The panel will also discuss how these programs benefit consumers and internet service providers, including by stabilizing demand in higher-cost communities.

(Invitees Only)

NARUC Committee and Staff Subcommittee Chairs

This panel will assess how different generation resources—nuclear, renewables, natural gas, energy storage, geothermal and demand response—work together to maintain affordability and reliability as electricity demand rises.

 POTS, mobile, cable, and broadband have significant experience with regulation via both state-by-state and national frameworks. Some argue that these services have benefited most from the consistency provided by a national regulatory framework, while others say that state-by-state regulation is better suited to enhancing consumer welfare. Local, state, and federal policymakers are actively considering whether and how to regulate a new generation of services and issues implicated by them - privacy, cybersecurity, data center construction, AI, etc. Federal inaction has resulted in state-by-state regulation by default in most cases, but there is growing support for the implementation of national frameworks and preemption to facilitate continued investment, growth, and innovation. Which approach is best for all these services and what lessons can the next generation of tech learn from the previous century-plus of federal and state telecom regulation?

Draft Agenda

- Minnesota's Innovative Utilities - Local utilities share one or two of their innovative programs. Invited utilities include Centerpoint Energy, Xcel Energy, and Minnesota Power.

- Resolutions (if any)

Presentation: Protecting Ratepayer Investments: What Commissioners Need to Know About 900 MHz Spectrum Uncertainty

State commissions have approved major AMI, SCADA, and distribution automation investments that rely on the FCC’s longstanding 900 MHz framework. A federal proposal to repurpose this band for a new 5G integrated Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) network could impair outage detection, voltage and temperature sensing, wildfire area monitoring, and grid restoration. Utilities report risks to more than 25 million AMI meters and nearly 400,000 field devices, with one estimating $1.5 billion to replace 10.5 million meters and 80,000 DA/SCADA devices if access is disrupted. This session will equip commissioners with the knowledge needed to evaluate potential impacts in their states, assess whether federal engagement may be warranted, and prepare for future utility filings that may seek recovery for alternate communications systems.

Inspired by the television program "Love Is Blind," this session will feature a data center developer and a utility regulator positioned on opposite sides of a “wall.” The discussion will follow a moderated, interview-style format in which the regulator seeks to establish a long-term planning partnership, while the data center developer remains constrained by confidentiality obligations and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Their exchange will explore the challenges NDAs present for resource adequacy and long-term system planning, the practice of data centers evaluating and comparing multiple utilities and jurisdictions, and the business considerations that lead developers to require confidentiality agreements.  

(Commissioner Emeritus Only)

(Invitees Only)

(Invitees Only)

(Invitees Only)

(Invitees Only)

(Invitees Only)

(Commissioners Only)

Keynote Speaker: Hon. James P. Danly, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy 

Join Deputy Secretary James P. Danly for keynote remarks on federal energy priorities. 

All In: Weathering the Storms Together for Grid Reliability

This panel will examine how utilities, grid operators, regulators, consumer advocates, and the Department of Energy work together to maintain grid reliability during extreme events. Discussion will focus on lessons learned from recent winter storms, the role of emergency authorities such as Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, and the importance of coordination across regions and fuel types, as well as address the issues that arise in balancing reliability, affordability, and resilience.

(Additional panelists TBA)

As networks transition from the traditional POTS network to an all-IP network, there are still many issues relating to transition from traditional 911 networks to upgraded NG911 networks. Since the FCC has proposed a sunset date of December 31, 2028 for the TDM network, what challenges remain for 911 networks to complete the transition in that timeframe? This panel will explore these challenges and possible solutions, including actions that state commissions can take to assist in the NG911 transition.

Transmission planning is at an inflection point, and state commissioners are among its most consequential actors. Drawing on ACEG's February 2026 Transmission Planning and Development Report Card, with FERC Order No. 1920, and other transmission planning initiatives as drivers, attendees will learn how compliance filings shape long-term scenarios, cost allocation, and interregional coordination, and where commissioners have direct leverage. SPP's Consolidated Planning Process offers a replicable model, projecting a $12–$18 benefit-to-cost ratio by integrating transmission planning and interconnection into a single framework. Commissioners will leave with tools to benchmark their region, engage Order 1920 implementation, and champion reforms that deliver reliable, cost-efficient grid infrastructure.

EVs are rapidly becoming a major force on the power system, with 6.5 million now on U.S. roads. Regulators are increasingly examining how EVs can serve not only as new load, but as flexible grid resources through vehicle-grid integration (VGI). Unlike other sources of load growth, EVs, when well managed, can help put downward pressure on rates. Active managed charging can reduce EV peak demand by more than 50%, more than double or triple distribution hosting capacity, and defer infrastructure upgrades for up to 10 years. A Washington state pilot reinforced these findings, demonstrating that load shaping can reliably deliver desired charge levels with minimal driver overrides and proving that grid benefits need not come at the expense of mobility. This panel will explore how pioneering states are translating this potential into practice through innovative regulatory frameworks, managed charging programs, and efforts to scale bidirectional charging. Michigan regulators are advancing clearer interconnection requirements for bidirectional systems and more transparent benefit-cost analysis. California is deploying dynamic rate pilots, V2X programs, and regulatory rule updates to enable both managed and bidirectional charging. Drawing on these real-world examples, panelists will highlight how stakeholders are overcoming regulatory barriers and laying the groundwork for EVs to become valuable, scalable grid assets. 

After all the commentary, questions, suggestions, and discussions, the USF Working Group is poised to release its report for public comment. This session will discuss potential changes to the Universal Service Fund to bring it into the 21st century. What is the Working Group proposing? How will it impact industry, the states, and the fund’s beneficiaries?

Fireside Chat with Bob Frenzel

A conversation between Bob Frenzel, CEO, Xcel Energy, and NARUC President Ann Rendahl.

Data Centers: Converging, Emerging, and Diverging Perspectives

Data centers, AI, and load growth are now inescapable facets of state and federal authority. They’re not going anywhere. Where are we on meeting the increasing demands on the grid, on policy decisions, our economies, and physical landscapes? Or, are we still catching up to technology that’s rapidly evolving? Through their lens of emerging issues, status reports, and technical expertise, our series of speakers will offer unique, individual quick takes on what’s working, what’s worrisome, and what’s wrong. This dynamic session will offer much to think about well past the coffee break!

(Additional panelists TBA)

C-Suite Perspectives on Investing in Clean, Dispatchable Generation

Utility executives from leading energy companies discuss the critical investments needed to deliver clean, reliable, and dispatchable power in an era of rising demand and decarbonization goals. This high-level panel will explore emerging technologies, project economics, regulatory challenges, and capital allocation strategies for firm clean generation — including advanced nuclear, geothermal, long-duration storage, hydro, hydrogen, and next-generation gas with CCS. Learn how utilities are balancing intermittency risks while building a resilient, affordable, and sustainable energy system for the future.

Hon. Ann Rendahl
(MODERATOR)
Washington

Justin Driscoll
President and CEO
New York Power Authority

(Additional panelists TBA)

Can We Have the Best of Both Worlds? Options for Improving Affordability in an Era of Load Growth

State utility commissioners face a defining paradox: at a moment of rising customer bills and political pressure to constrain rates, the path forward must also run through investments in grid infrastructure to meet ongoing and new needs. As load growth accelerates due to electrification and data center demand, and as aging systems require modernization, utilities must deploy capital to better leverage the system we have and build the system we need; without careful regulatory design, these investments could exacerbate customer affordability challenges. Is there a path to energy abundance, economic competitiveness, and consumer affordability or are they inherently in conflict? If utility regulation aligns incentives, ensures prudent and performance-based investment, and communicates how infrastructure expansion can ultimately lower system costs over time, we could have the best of both worlds. This panel will discuss questions of how, not whether, to invest, and how to structure oversight, cost allocation, and business models so that necessary capital deployment translates into durable affordability, reliability, and public trust. Panelists will provide perspectives from utilities, financial markets, and industry organizations on how affordability considerations are shaping long-term planning, regulatory strategy, and investment decisions.

(Additional panelists TBA)

Daikin Applied and Center for Energy and Environment invite you to tour Daikin's new state-of-the-art Research & Development test laboratory 20 minutes from downtown Minneapolis. The site showcases Minnesota's innovative leadership in developing high-efficiency HVAC technologies, from air source heat pumps to commercial rooftop units to hyperscale data center cooling technologies. The test center has some of the most advanced research and testing equipment to ensure products are being developed to meet efficiency and sustainability specifications. Tour attendees will have the opportunity to see chambers used to test the performance and reliability of HVAC equipment at the most extreme conditions.

Daikin Applied is a subsidiary of Daikin Industries Ltd., a leading manufacturer of residential and commercial HVAC systems. Center for Energy and Environment is a nonprofit organization with decades of experience discovering and deploying effective energy solutions through program development and implementation, research, lending service, and policy advocacy. 

Register here

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator or MISO is responsible for keeping power flowing across its region reliably and cost-effectively. MISO focuses on three critical tasks: 1) managing the flow of high-voltage electricity across 15 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba; 2) facilitating one of the world’s largest energy markets with more than $53 billion in annual transaction in 2025; and 3) planning the grid of the future.

A tour of the MISO Eagan office provides visitors with a structured overview of the Regional Transmission Operator’s role in ensuring the reliable and efficient delivery of electricity across the region. The visit begins with an introduction to MISO’s mission, governance, and operational responsibilities, followed by a detailed explanation of the systems and analytical tools used to manage real-time grid operations and energy markets. While touring the control room overlook, guests receive a comprehensive briefing on its functions and the critical activities performed by system operators. The tour concludes with an opportunity for discussion with MISO staff, offering deeper insight into the organization’s operational practices and its commitment to maintaining a resilient and dependable electric grid.

Register here