The speed of today’s power sector transition requires regulatory innovation that matches its pace, regulators, as well as utility and technology advocates, agreed in a new Department of Energy paper.
New power system technologies and operations can no longer await regulatory approval in litigated multi-year rate cases, said co-authors of the report, The Role of Innovation in the Electric Utility Sector, published in April by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Such delays increase the risk that states will fail to meet the rapidly growing need for new reliable, affordable, clean and equitable electric service solutions, they added.
