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
Practical Support
Best Practices
Be a Part of Reg Lab's Third Cohort: Taking a Comprehensive Approach to Utility Cost Containment
Cohort 3 will focus on strategies to contain electric utility costs while enabling needed investments for a reliable and resilient system. Maintaining affordability for all customers has become more challenging as utility spending increases to accommodate projected load growth, modernize and harden the grid, and transition the energy system. This Cohort will leverage insights from commissions that have already implemented various strategies to control utility costs and surface new approaches for ensuring utility costs increase no more than necessary.
Over the course of the Cohort, participants will:
- Investigate the major cost trends and drivers for each participating state and explore the challenges that regulatory staff face when evaluating and managing utility costs.
- Identify and co-develop a suite of cost control actions that staff can take forward across proceedings to advance affordability while maintaining reliable and resilient service.
RMI will provide technical support to participants on their state-specific context in addition to Cohort workshops, which may include research, facilitated discussions, or one-on-one support.
To express interest in Reg Lab Cohort 3, please fill out this form or email Carina Rosenbach (CRosenbach@rmi.org).
Deadline to submit interest for Cohort 3 has been extended to March 17.
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 to two staff members from each commission to join the cohort and participate in all virtual workshops.
This schedule is subject to change based on conversations with our partners and cohort participants.
Unpack the drivers of increasing costs
Take stock of current solution set
Strategies for cost control in utility planning
Explore two or more regulatory strategies to support cost control via utility planning. Discuss the detailed application and lessons learned from employing these strategies in other jurisdictions.
Strategies informed by participant interest.
Strategies for cost control in utility investment decision- making
Explore two or more strategies to support cost control to guide and inform utility investments. Discuss the detailed application and lessons learned from employing these strategies in other jurisdictions.
Strategies informed by participant interest.
Strategies for cost control in utility operations
Explore two or more strategies that can support utility cost containment throughout differing aspects of utility operations. Discuss the detailed application and lessons learned from employing these strategies in other jurisdictions.
Strategies informed by participant interest.
Develop comprehensive regulatory strategies for cost control
Complementary strategies to advance affordability
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. You can access the toolkit here.
In 2024, staff from 15 states joined with industry experts to discuss key drivers of load growth in each jurisdiction and evaluate different near-term responses to address them. The resulting report covers the most upstream option: Improving load forecasting.
Get a Load of This is a resource designed for regulators who wish to understand the current landscape of large load forecasting and explore options for how to evolve forecasting practices as large loads emerge in their jurisdictions.
Specifically, the report includes:
- Deep dives into different large load drivers and their unique characteristics that affect the grid.
- Concise best practices for load forecasting and case studies explaining how three utilities are forecasting large loads today.
- Actions that regulators can take to improve on load forecasts that may be limited, outdated, and opaque today.
- Discovery-ready questions that regulators can leverage to ensure utilities are using robust large load forecasting practices.
We hope these insights and examples empower commission staff across the nation to navigate possibly the first period of load growth during their careers, but likely not their last. You can access the report 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.
