Reg Lab

A community to catalyze energy solutions.

RMI's Regulatory Collaborative ('Reg Lab') is a cohort-style initiative that builds regulatory staff capacity and develops cutting-edge solutions to today’s pressing issues. RMI is convening a peer network of Public Utility Commission (PUC) staff to test ideas, advance thought leadership, and tackle emerging issues.

Peer-to-Peer

RMI facilitates connections and trust between experts at PUCs across the country to foster shared learning and problem solving.

Practical Support

Our cohorts acquire new skills and resources to help them navigate the hot-topic energy issues they face in their day-to-day work.

Best Practices

With the support of RMI and expert faculty, the cohorts will develop actionable guidance on how to achieve outcomes like fully leveraging state and federal energy policy, improved grid reliability and resilience, and greater equity and affordability for customers.

Be a Part of Reg Lab's Second Cohort: Near-Term Responses to Potential Load Growth

This year’s Cohort will surface and explore key drivers of load growth in each jurisdiction. Staff will evaluate the potential growth and co-create tools to mitigate and distribute associated costs and risks.

The Cohort will:

  • Strengthen understanding of the main drivers of load growth relevant to each jurisdiction, the associated risks and opportunities that emerge for key stakeholders, and how to pressure-test load growth forecasts.
  • Identify and codevelop a suite of demand-side, supply-side, grid, and business model solutions to respond to and address load growth in the near term while maintaining affordable and reliable service.

RMI will provide technical support to participants on their state-specific context in addition to Cohort sessions, which may include written case studies, facilitated discussions, or one-on-one support.

To express interest in Reg Lab Cohort 2, please fill out this form or email Katerina Stephan (Kstephan@rmi.org).

The Collaborative is free.

About six months, meeting every three to four weeks.

The meetings will be virtual.

Once you participate in a cohort, you’ll be a part of the alumni network with access to in-person networking, insights on emerging energy topics, and Collaborative tools and resources.

We’re inviting one staff member per commission. However, we do understand that staff may not be able to attend all sessions or may work with a small team on a specific topic. In those cases, we welcome additional attendees.

This schedule is subject to change based on conversations with our partners and cohort participants.

Meeting 1:
Setting the Stage
Explore participant goals and top-of-mind concerns regarding load growth and load forecasting in each state. Learn best practices for characterizing and testing when and where load is growing.
Meeting 2:
Load Forecasting amid Uncertainty
Explore perspectives across states about how load forecasting is used (e.g., in IRPs, distribution planning) and how participants navigate making decisions in the face of forecast uncertainty.
Meeting 3:
Slowing and Shaping Load Growth
Explore options to rapidly expand, increase utilization of, and create new energy-efficiency and demand-side solutions in response to emerging load growth.
Meeting 4:
Building New Supply, Faster
Surface and test various options for meeting different types of load growth with supply-side solutions.
Meeting 5:
Expanding the Suite of Options
Explore additional customer- and utility-led options for addressing load growth and identify near-term actions to support these options.
Meeting 6:
How Do We Pay for it? Balancing Cost and Risk
Discuss balancing risks equitably between customers driving load growth and others, including different cost allocation approaches.
Meeting 7:
Symposium
Use the tools and resources developed to outline jurisdiction-specific options for preparing for and responding to load growth in the following 6–18 months.

Cohort 1: The IRA and Resource Planning (NEW Toolkit Now Available)

In 2023, staff from 13 states where utilities conduct integrated resource planning came together to explore the cutting edge of planning and federal funding. Over the course of this first cohort, staff learned directly from 17 expert faculty, developed rich questions to evaluate if and how plans incorporate the benefits of available funding, and shared challenges and emerging best practices across their jurisdictions.

RMI is thrilled to share the resulting toolkit: Planning to Harness the Inflation Reduction Act. This toolkit, informed by the discussions in Cohort 1, captures action-oriented insights and recommendations for ensuring that resource plans optimize federal funding to benefit ratepayers. It includes:

  • Clear benchmarks and examples of how to adjust IRPs to optimize available federal funding.
  • Detailed actions regulators can take to enable utilities to plan in a manner that maximizes the savings for ratepayers from federal funding.
  • Specific questions PUCs and stakeholders can ask to better understand the utility’s approach to optimizing the IRA’s opportunities.

This toolkit is intended to support regulators in all states with resource planning practices. This toolkit is intended to support regulators in all states with resource planning practices. You can access the toolkit here.

Growing a Thriving Alumni Network

And this is only the beginning. Once you join Reg Lab, the benefits keep building.

The increasingly complex work of regulators won’t be slowing down in the coming years — and neither will Reg Lab.

Our alumni network has access to the collected resources of each cohort topic area, ongoing guidance and technical support, and a trusted space to work through the implications of their work. You’ll find a wealth of knowledge that you can contribute to and pass on, for regulatory cohorts to come.