Energy Literacy: 5 or 6 things you need to know about utility commissions

The first utility commission I covered, back in the 2000s and 2010s, was the California Public Utilities Commission, which to this day is known for its super long agendas and marathon meetings.

As a reporter, I never knew when the particular agenda item I was covering might come up, so I often had to listen to the whole meeting, which could run four hours or longer. 

Some items were extensively discussed and debated among the five commissioners before either a vote was taken or the item was tabled or sent back for study and revision ahead of a future vote.

The meetings aside, what I particularly liked about the PUC agendas was that each item contained a link that would take you to relevant documents, so you could quickly see what the commission was about to vote on. If you wanted to dig deeper, you could use the docket number to look up the whole paper trail, which in some cases could be years long.

(See previous E/lectrify post: Why utility commissions take forever to do anything.)

I was therefore more than a little shocked in 2021, when I dialed in the first time for a meeting of the District of Columbia’s Public Service Commission, which lasted maybe 10 minutes. Granted, it was in the midst of the COVID-19 shutdown, which I thought might be why they voted on the two or three items on the agenda so quickly, with no discussion or debate. 

However, a more recent PSC meeting, held while I was writing this piece, lasted 5 minutes, again with quick votes and no discussion. The commission’s very brief agenda had case numbers but no live links. Finding out exactly what was being voted on took some extra work, looking up the case number on the commission’s Edocket system.

So, here’s the first thing you need to know about utility commissions. All 50 states and D.C. have one (the picture above is of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission). They have different names and operate by different rules and procedures. You can’t generalize; you have to dig in and find out how yours works.

Why you might want to do this is because the three-to-seven people who sit on the utility commission in your state may decide how much your utility will be allowed to raise your rates next year and possibly one or two years after that — all with one vote. They also may approve plans for energy efficiency programs or new solar or wind farms, or natural gas plants and pipelines, or new inter- or intrastate transmission lines — the big, high-voltage ones on pylons. 

In other words, utility commissions make decisions that can have major economic and environmental impacts on your state, your community and your day-to-day life. The problem here is that they are also, by their very nature, complicated, wonky and highly political, and most of what they do comes encased in multiple layers of technical and legal jargon.

What follows is an attempt to break through the jargon and provide some plain-language transparency and clarity about what these commissions do, how they do it and what you can do about it. 

Individual states originally established utility commissions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to regulate prices of various public services, starting with railroads and waterways and evolving with technology to cover electricity, gas, water and telecommunications.

Virginia’s State Corporation Commission, for example, was preceded by a Board of Public Works established in 1851 to improve roads and waterways in the state. It officially became the SCC in 1902 and was authorized to set utility rates in 1914.

The point to remember here is that although these commissions were created to protect consumers from unfair or abusive rates and business policies and practices, they are all founded on a strategic tradeoff. Electric utilities let the commissions regulate their rates in return for guarantees of virtual monopolies in their respective geographic areas and specific levels of profit on investments made to build plants that generate power and the poles and wires that bring it to consumers.

Commissions generally have between three and five members — a few states have seven — who are either elected (10 states) or appointed by the governor or legislature (40 states). D.C.’s mayor appoints the city’s three-member PSC. (See map above, from the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center.) 

Elections and appointments typically are staggered, so some incumbents are on a commission at all times. Terms run four to six years.

And whatever they are called — PUC, PSC, SCC — how they are structured, how they operate and what they can and can’t regulate are determined by their legislatures. 

A commission’s website will tell you a lot about how it operates. Is it transparent or opaque? Does it provide clear, easy-to-find information, promoting active participation, or does it set up barriers? 

Are the commissioners’ names and bios clearly marked on an “About Us” tab, or do you have to do a bit of hit-or-miss clicking? The Tennessee Public Utility Commission has their commissioners somewhat camouflaged within a History and Leadership submenu under its “Agency” heading. 

Is the commission representative of the population it serves? What’s the ratio of white men to women and people of color, and what kind of experience or expertise do these people have with the companies they will regulate and the issues they will consider? 

Is there a consumer advocate, an attorney or former commission staffer with deep knowledge of the state’s electric power system or a friend of the governor’s with no utility experience at all?

Information on commission meetings and public hearings and how you can participate in them should also be easy to access. Terminology may vary from state to state so finding the right links to click can be tricky.

In Tennessee, the public meetings where commissioners vote on specific issues are called “conferences.” The Virginia SCC — one of the most opaque commissions in the country — has no regularly scheduled meetings; they just periodically announce decisions. 

In California, the commission’s monthly business meetings are clearly designated as “voting meetings,” and each meeting page has links to the current agenda, a list of items that are being put on hold and any slides from meeting presentations.

You’ll also want to look at how your commission handles consumer complaints. Does the website provide a link to the state’s consumer advocate — if your state has one — often called the Office of the People’s Counsel?

In other words, you will have to spend some time exploring, figuring out the terminology and learning to navigate.

And here’s where we get to the nitty-gritty — commission decisions that could affect your electric bill, your community and the efficiency, reliability and resilience of the electric power system in your state.

Applications for rate increases, or rate cases, are just plain gnarly, involving enough digital paper to sink a small battleship. For example, Pepco Maryland’s 2023 application to the Maryland PSC for multiyear increases  — 5% in 2024, 3.78% in 2025 and 3.66% in 2026 — weighed in at 3,185 pages, including pages and pages of charts and numbers in very small type (see below).

Remember that regulated utilities are guaranteed specific rates of return on their investments, at this point between 8% and 10%. Thus, a utility’s goal in a rate case is to convince their commission that the investments they are making and the increases they are requesting are fair, reasonable and prudent — all fairly subjective standards. 

The catch, as emerged in the concerns raised about the Pepco application, is that a utility’s projections of its spending over a three-year period may be very different and considerably less than its actual spending, leading to requests for additional increases.

Other proceedings with a direct impact on consumers are integrated resource plans — the plans utilities develop for meeting future electricity demand and any state clean energy targets with new generation, new programs and grid improvements or additions. Again, we’re talking huge amounts of paper and technical jargon.

Not all states require IRPs, but what’s important here is that utility commissions and utilities have historically prioritized plans that deliver projects at the lowest possible cost. However, in some cases, a project with a higher price tag may actually offer better, more efficient or flexible technology.

Remember also that whatever a utility builds will likely be incorporated into its next application for a rate increase.

Finally, utility commissions approve certain kinds of projects — solar or wind farms, natural gas plants or new power lines — by issuing something called a certificate of public convenience and necessity, or CPCN. The certificate, which is needed to begin construction, means the project will provide both a necessary public service and public benefits.

These proceedings are where local support or opposition can have a huge impact, in some cases triggering long and divisive public meetings and debates. 

As noted, the scope of a commission’s authority and responsibilities is determined by their state legislature, which automatically politicizes what they do. 

Whether to raise rates or slow the rollout of new clean technologies, utilities and the small army of lawyers and public relations professionals they hire or keep on staff spend enormous amounts of time and money trying to influence their utility commissions. In some states, commissions are overly dependent on the information utilities give them and are likely to rubber-stamp anything these companies propose; in others, the relationship is more balanced or adversarial.

Remember, the utilities involved are publicly traded corporations with huge financial interests at stake, obscenely overpaid executives and shareholders expecting solid dividends, and they know how to game the system. 

Utilities almost always ask for more — a bigger rate increase, a faster approval — than they know a commission will approve, anticipating that they will have to settle for slightly less or make some concessions to consumers or clean energy advocates. But even when they compromise, they usually get one or two major elements of what they want. 

Everything I’ve told you thus far might leave you feeling like even trying to speak up and have an impact on the decisions your utility commission makes will have little to no effect. Between the jargon and the politics, it can feel overwhelming.

And not always easy. Commission meetings and public hearings are mostly scheduled for times when most consumers are at work. For hot issues, a commission may schedule one or two online sessions in the early evening. You have to sign up in advance and limit your remarks to two or three minutes. 

Commission websites generally have links where you can submit comments on specific issues — always include a docket or case number. Commission staff do read them, and they may become part of the official record.

The catch here is that while commissions do want your comments, to have official status in a particular proceeding — to have a seat at the table, so to speak — you have to apply to the commission as an “intervenor.” Most intervenors are companies and organizations with lawyers who do the paperwork required, or other state agencies, like the Office of People’s Counsel.

But I am going to ask you to speak up, to learn everything you can about your commission and how it works and remind them, early and often, that their primary responsibility is to serve consumers like you and the public at large. 

We’re all busy, but instead of zoning out on Instagram and YouTube videos, can you take five minutes a week to check your commission’s website, to look at the calendar or agendas for upcoming meetings?

Is there one docket or case that you find particularly intriguing or infuriating that you can follow? 

We are at a critical moment in the evolution of our electric power system. Electricity demand is growing at an unprecedented scale and speed. Our electric bills are going up and will continue to do so (which I wrote about here). Knee-jerk reactions — such as fast-tracking environmental reviews and approvals of new natural gas or nuclear plants — could end up costing us more than building out renewable energy and storage or deploying new, more flexible and dynamic clean technologies. 

Utility commissions can provide at least some of the leadership needed. 

In 2024, the Maryland legislature passed a law called the Distributed Renewable Integration and Vehicle Electrification, or DRIVE, Act, which requires utilities to develop time-of-use rates and plans for bidirectional electric vehicle charging and virtual power plants – all very cool stuff. The Maryland PSC is overseeing the design and approval of the new programs and recently issued an order that basically tells the utilities to step up their game both on TOU rates and VPPs.  

Similarly, people speaking up can have an impact. The Georgia PSC notoriously granted Georgia Power six rate increases over the past three years. In a special off-year election on Nov. 4, two incumbent Republican commissioners were defeated by Democratic challengers — the first time any Democrats have won seats on the PSC since 2006.

We have been conditioned to believe we are powerless to do anything but pay our electric bills, however high, but it’s time to change that narrative. 

Electric power is the lifeblood of our economy and society and, like our democracy itself, has become a highly participatory enterprise. We can’t sit around waiting for someone else to do it for us. Suit up!