Public Utility Commissions play a major role in the clean energy future, utility rates and more but what do we really know about these regulating bodies? Listen in as we take a look behind the curtain at PUCs with transportation electrification policy analyst Deb Kapiloff.
Further Reading
2 Degrees Out West is a podcast from Western Resource Advocates, an environmental conservation organization that's focused on the Interior West. WRA works across seven states to protect our climate, land, air, and water. WRA protects and advocates for New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.
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Public Utility Commissions play a major role in the clean energy future, utility rates and more but what do we really know about these regulating bodies? Listen in as we take a look behind the curtain at PUCs with transportation electrification policy analyst Deb Kapiloff.
Further Reading
2 Degrees Out West is a podcast from Western Resource Advocates, an environmental conservation organization that's focused on the Interior West. WRA works across seven states to protect our climate, land, air, and water. WRA protects and advocates for New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.
Want to be part of 2 Degrees Out West?
Thanks for listening. Let's all work together to keep the West wild...
Episode Guest
Deb Kapiloff is a Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst at WRA. With an eye for effective program design, Deborah’s role largely centers around working with investor-owned utilities in the region to advance transportation electrification and shape utility offerings through the development and implementation of transportation electrification plans. These plans include programs to increase access to EVs and charging infrastructure for utility customers, as well as ways to manage that additional energy load effectively.
Full Transcript
Introduction
[00:00:00] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: We live in a world of many interconnected systems, many of which have environmental impacts far beyond our own knowledge. It's really tough to stay educated and informed and know how these systems are working either for us or against us. In this episode, we're talking about Public Utility Commissions, which on the surface seems kind of like something you wouldn't regularly research.
[00:00:28] You wouldn't Google Public Utility Commissions and dive into all of the hearings and processes behind it, but it's actually incredibly important. Do you want to know why your rates are so high on your energy bill, do you want to know why gas is being prioritized over clean energy? All of these things are impacted by Public Utility Commissions.
[00:00:50] So today on the podcast we're talking with Deb Kapiloff about Public Utility Commissions. What they are, what they mean for you, and why you should pay attention to them.
[00:01:01] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Whether it's the rate design that they're charging you, a residential customer, or whether they're going to build a new natural gas plant, they're going to close a coal plant. All of those decisions are regulated by the Public Utility Commissions.
[00:01:17] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Welcome to Two Degrees Out West, a podcast where we talk about climate solutions for the West, what's impacting our land, our water, our people, our animals here in the West, and what we can all do to make sure that we have a beautiful and thriving Western United States out here.
[00:01:36] I'm your host, Jessi Janusee I'm the multimedia storyteller here at Western Resource Advocates. Now, let's talk to Deb about Public Utility Commissions. I promise you're about to learn a lot.
[00:01:50] Hi everybody. Today on the podcast we have Deb Kapiloff, who is the Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst. Yes. Cool, at WRA. And we're going to be talking a lot about Public Utility Commissions, but before we get into the nitty gritty of that, and I'm sure you're all like, what even is that? I wanted to just talk with Deb a little bit about how she started working at WRA and her background because it's kind of a little interesting story.
[00:02:19] So you want to tell us a little bit about how you got started at WRA and what your background is?
[00:02:25] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: I started working at WRA as an intern on the regional markets team. I had just graduated from college, and I graduated during Covid and I was in the process of applying to graduate school and just looking for an internship that I was interested in, in environmental policy, and I happened across WRA and I ended up really loving my internship.
[00:02:50] I got to write a policy paper on greenhouse gas accounting in various regional market constructs. And then when the transportation occupation policy job opened up, I applied for it and here I am. That's my WRA origin story.
[00:03:05] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Nice. You're the first former intern we've ever had on the podcast.
[00:03:08] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Wow. That's exciting.
[00:03:10] I'm honored.
[00:03:11] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah, I think that's cool. I like the, you know, we have internships open a lot and it's cool to see. It's just the pathway you can take to go from an intern to working here and doing really amazing stuff in the utility sector. And now you fly all over the place, right?
[00:03:27] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah. I think that I'm going to start flying more as things go back to being in person, but I actually just had my first in-person utility regulatory hearing, and it was in Nevada last month.
[00:03:40] So that was kind of exciting to finally do one in person.
[00:03:44] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Okay. So, let’s just get into it. I was going to ask you a little bit about the intern experience, but you know what, I think we should just jump right into public utility stuff because I feel like we've got a lot to talk about.
Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst:
Yes, absolutely.
Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller:
Can you give us the rundown of what even is a public utility commission and why we all should know that they exist?
[00:04:05] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, absolutely. So, a Public Utility Commission is the regulatory body that regulates utilities, and most of their work is on investor-owned utilities as opposed to cooperative utilities or municipal utilities. So investor-owned utilities are generally in large metropolitan areas in cities.
[00:04:29] Those are the utilities that provide you with electricity and gas. Sometimes you have a different electric utility than a gas utility. Sometimes they're combined. Essentially every major decision that those utilities make, whether it's the rate design that they're charging you, a residential customer, or whether they're going to build a new natural gas plant, they're going to close a coal plant, all of those decisions are regulated by the Public Utilities Commission. So essentially the Public Utilities Commission is this huge player in decarbonization and in the power sector. That's kind of hidden if you're not in the Public Utilities Commission world. But they make a lot of really influential decisions.
[00:05:13] And so when you talk about decarbonization, you can't talk about that without talking about the public utilities.
[00:05:20] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Cool. And there's this kind of like an economic factor, right? At least when I was researching it said that most utilities are monopolies, right? So you don't have two utilities in one place.
[00:05:32] Like I have NV Energy. That is my only choice if I would like power. So the Public Utility Commission is kind of there to make sure that these monopolies are doing the right thing and have a public voice. Right. And they're not just like in a vacuum, in a private sector doing what they want, basically.
[00:05:51] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yes, totally. Utilities are a natural monopoly, which means they're a business where it kind of only makes sense to have one of them. It's not really like craft breweries where it's really easy to just like open one and customers can kind of choose what they want. There are really high costs associated with running a utility.
[00:06:13] There's a lot of infrastructure costs, but the marginal cost of adding another customer, so like if someone new moves down the street and builds a new house in your neighborhood, it's really easy for that utility to just add them as a customer, generally speaking. And so, there isn't any natural competition for utilities once a utility is serving a service territory.
[00:06:36] That's kind of it. And they're the utility for that service territory, which is why it's so important to have all these decisions go before the Public Utilities Commission to ensure that ratepayers and the utility customers are getting a reasonable deal from the utility.
[00:06:52] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Cool. So, it's not like I could just be like, you know what?
[00:06:55] It's going to be Jessi Energy. I'm going to go build a power plant in my backyard and I'm just going to get out there and start finding clients. Right. So that makes a lot of sense. There can only be kind of one utility in a region and somebody needs to pay attention to it and make sure that they're doing the right stuff.
[00:07:13] It seems like these public utilities are elected in all different ways, and I thought that was kind of interesting. There's not a standardized thing for that, like depending on the state, it's either people get to vote on who's on that or the governor appoints them and there's just kind of like different ways that states go about it.
[00:07:31] So I just thought that was kind of interesting. There's no standardization like this is how it is across the U.S.
[00:07:36] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah. That is super interesting. I think the most common way for these commissions to come about is that the governor appoints commissioners to serve terms, and then those terms are varying lengths depending on the state.
[00:07:51] So it's kind of like a classic judicial system where it's a direct appointee from the executive branch. But something that's a little weird in some places is direct election of public utility commissioners. So for example, in Arizona, the Public Utilities Commission is called the Arizona Corporation Commission, which doesn't even really tell you what it does.
[00:08:12] Like what is an Arizona Corporation Commission? It's not very obvious from the name. And so all the commissioners are decided by direct vote from normal folks. And I kind of wonder about whether folks understand what those positions are and what their roles are, or if they're just kind of filling in bubbles according to political parties.
[00:08:33] So it definitely varies. And then we've also seen some change in our states. In New Mexico, we went from having a directly elected commission with five members, and then there was a constitutional amendment, and so now it's three appointed commissioners. So these things can also change over time.
[00:08:52] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: That's good to note though, if you live in Arizona and you want to see more clean energy initiatives, look at who's on your ballot and research the Arizona Corporate Commission or whatever it's called because it actually does matter a lot and will change your rates potentially.
Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller:
So it's important to know that these Public Utility Commissions exist, and it's worth a look on Google to see how your state elects these folks because they do play an important role in your energy.
[00:09:22] It seems like there are a lot of different things that kind of fall under this. Like it's not just. energy and gas, but also telecommunications.
[00:09:31] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of these commissions actually started out as railroad commissions because that was the natural monopoly that was really important in the early 1900s.
[00:09:41] And it really depends on the state and the extent to which they regulate other industries outside of electricity and gas. But there are some that do a lot of telecoms. There are some that still do motor carriers so if you're a taxi company, it's possible that in a certain state, you're regulated by a public utilities commission.
[00:10:00] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: That's so interesting.
[00:10:01] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: It's kind of funny because you'll have these like little dockets that come before the Public Utility Commission that are just like totally unrelated to the majority of their work but because of some old law they technically have to hear these cases.
[00:10:15] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Crazy. Now I want to get on a Public Utility Commission.
[00:10:18] I'm like, let's do this. What qualifications do you need?
[00:10:21] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so that also totally varies. And sometimes you get commissioners that are electrical engineers and have a background in the sector, sometimes you get commissioners that don't, and so that's another really interesting factor of Public Utilities Commissions is just kind of understanding the commission makeup and what arguments will be persuasive to those commissioners when you are intervening in these cases.
[00:10:48] And I feel like that's a really great thing about WRA is that we've been working in these spaces for such a long time that we generally have a good idea of the commission makeup, how certain commissioners like to decide on different issues, which is good to know for sure when you're trying to secure a certain outcome.
[00:11:05] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: So let's talk about what your role is with these Public Utility Commissions.
[00:11:10] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so my role is kind of unique because it's a little bit of a new thing for Public Utility Commissions. To think about transportation electrification and EVs and just all this extra load that is going to come onto the grid that already has started doing that and it's just going to increase over the coming years and decades.
[00:11:32] And so I generally am involved in cases before the Public Utilities Commission where a utility is seeking to invest in transportation electrification plans. And what those are generally are statutorily mandated plans where the utility needs to invest in certain transportation electrification infrastructure like charging, like coming up with managed charging programs, like thinking about rate design for public chargers, and things like that.
[00:12:01] So it's essentially a plan for these utilities to kind of get with the times on transportation electrification and prepare for just a massive amount of EVs coming onto the grid in the next couple of years.
[00:12:14] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Okay, so say NV Energy comes to the Public Utility Commission and they know they have to implement a certain amount of EV chargers and their suggestion is not on par with what we feel makes sense.
[00:12:30] And then your job is to kind of step in and be like, “we actually recommend, with this knowledge from scientists and experts”. Is that kind of the deal? I guess it works in different ways, depending, so yeah.
[00:12:42] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: I actually just had a hearing in Nevada, so I love that you used that as an example.
[00:12:46] So in Nevada we intervened in the case, which pretty much means that we became a legal party and that's kind of a whole process in and of itself. Essentially because we're not the utility and we're not automatically in the case, an attorney has to file an ask to be included in the case. And they state like, this is who we are, we're WRA and this is why we have knowledgeable things to contribute and this is why we want to be involved in this case.
[00:13:16] So that's kind of step one and then that gets approved and then after that, the expert, so in this case, myself, writes a whole bunch of testimony. I think for the Nevada hearing in February, I wrote around like 150 pages of testimony. It's a lot of just writing and thinking and making recommendations.
[00:13:37] And then depending on the state, sometimes there's rebuttal testimony. Where you get to read what all these other parties have written and respond to that in another round of testimony. Or in Nevada, there's only direct testimony, so you do one round of testimony and then you just kind of get tossed into a hearing and you're with all the other parties and you're cross-examining them and trying to make your case before the commissioners.
[00:14:02] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: So who are some of the other parties that would be there for the testimony?
[00:14:06] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so there are a couple of parties that are always there. Number one is the utility and then all states also have a consumer advocate whose job it is to advocate for residential consumers in these proceedings. So they're there.
[00:14:23] And then also the commission staff write testimony and are present. And then Nevada is actually super interesting because there's a huge gaming presence in the Public Utilities Commission. So at the hearing, I was at Caesars was there and they had an attorney, and then MGM was also there. So I think that's kind of a unique thing for Nevada.
[00:14:46] But in other states we see a lot of large energy users, public charging companies that intervene sometimes like cities or municipalities and counties will intervene. So, it really kind of runs the gamut. But I will say that generally it's pretty hard to intervene in a Public Utilities Commission. Similarly, to opening up a utility, there are a lot of steps, it's not really something where you can just decide to do it.
[00:15:13] You really do need to have an attorney representing you, and you do need to be able to commit a lot of like time and effort into submitting testimony.
[00:15:22] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: That's so interesting. So there's no space for public comments, like the people's advocate. I forget what, the consumer advocate, I think that's what you call them.
[00:15:30] How are they appointed and how are they like representing the people?
[00:15:36] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so you actually can file public comment. It's just kind of a really convoluted process because you have to figure out on the Public Utilities Commission website and also for some reason, every single Public Utilities Commission website that I've seen looks like it hasn't been updated since the 1990s.
[00:15:55] You have to figure out what the correct docket number is. There are a lot of formatting guidelines. It's not like there's just a little public comment box where you can type things in. You pretty much have to submit a letter through this very, very specific process, but technically you can be a public commenter.
[00:16:12] It's just really, really rare and in a lot of cases we don't see any public comment. But the consumer advocate is again a branch of the government, and I actually don't know a whole lot about how they get appointed. I think. It's a much less strenuous process than the public utilities commissioners themselves.
[00:16:32] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah. I just wonder where they're getting their information, you know if they're the advocate for us, the people using those utilities. Yeah. how like, you know, just how are they getting feedback from consumers and bringing that to the table? That's super interesting. I want to dive into that because apparently, we have some power in our utilities, but how and who, yeah.
[00:16:57] So that's, yeah. Thinking about that for the future, I would like my bills to be less. Yeah.
[00:17:03] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: And generally that is the number one thing consumer advocates will bring up in any proceeding, how does this impact consumer bills? Like that's, pretty much like primary number one focus in every single proceeding.
[00:17:17] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Well, that's nice. I appreciate that consumer advocate that's just out there being like, let's make this cheaper. What about when there's cases like the new Silver Hawk gas plant, is that something that also goes in front of the Public Utility Commissions?
[00:17:32] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so that's a huge Public Utility Commission issue.
[00:17:35] I feel like one of the biggest things that the Public Utility Commission does in the clean energy sphere is they have the power to approve or deny giant new projects like that. So if a utility wants to make a really, really large capital investment in something like a gas plant, that's something that ratepayers will be paying for, for probably like two to three decades to come, depending on the lifetime of that specific plant.
[00:18:04] And so that's something that the Public Utilities Commission has to approve. And one of the reasons why it's so important to advocate and be involved in the public utilities sphere is because these decisions happen over a really long period. So when a gas plant or a coal plant or something like that is approved, it's often for like 5, 10, 15, 20 years that you are locked into that resource being on the grid and being a part of the generation for that utility. And because utilities have to comply with several different requirements about providing reliable service and having enough generation resources to meet demand and then some extra, that's something that's really, really important that WRA does a lot of work on before the public utilities.
[00:18:53] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah. When I was researching that, because that just came up yesterday that it's been approved, that new plant and it's the first new plant in Nevada in a long, long time so people are all like, woo. But it said it's going to take at least 30 years to pay it off. So, I was like, oh cool. So, I guess that'll just be part of our bill now.
[00:19:12] But your main thing is just the transportation electrification. So, if there's a gas hearing or whatever that is a different person from WRA basically.
[00:19:23] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so I think when you think about the bulk of the Clean Energy team, most of them work kind of on that traditional power sector decarbonization. So things like submitting testimony that offers alternatives to building a new gas plant.
[00:19:38] So that's what generally the Clean Energy team does. And then the transportation electrification team has a pretty niche role where we only work on transportation electrification-related cases before the PUC, but then, the little thing that's different is that we work across all of WRA’s states, whereas most clean energy policy folks are only working in one state.
[00:20:02] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Hence why you're going to be flying around more.
[00:20:04] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: That's why I’ll be flying around more, yeah.
Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller:
How often do they happen?
Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst:
Yeah, so it really depends on the state and on the utility. And because legislation is what requires these utilities to file these transportation electrification plans it really depends on the specific language of the legislation.
[00:20:22] So for example, in Colorado, that's in every three years process. So I have Xcel Energy’s TEP (Transportation Electrification Plan) coming up, and then in New Mexico, it's every three years that utilities have to file. So, it's kind of interesting in that, because I work in a lot of different states, sometimes I just have a ton of proceedings all at once.
[00:20:45] I think I'm going to have like three or four active proceedings this summer that are going to be filed, and we're starting the regulatory process on those. So when it rains it pours sometimes, but yeah, it just, it really depends based on the state and the statute.
[00:21:00] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: How long does it take you to write 150 pages of testimony?
[00:21:03] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Oh, That’s a great question. I'm wondering if I should factor in all my coffee breaks and things like that.
Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller:
Yeah. That’s work.
Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst:
Yeah, so this is kind of a tough question because I feel like the work starts before even writing testimony because we try to meet with the folks at the utility that are putting together these plans before they even finish filing them.
[00:21:26] So that we have an idea of what the plan is going to look like and we try to shape it to be as best as it can be. And then the plan comes out and I just kind of, I sit down and I take like 20 pages of notes on the plan, and then usually the plans are like 300 to 400 pages. So, it's a lot of reading time.
[00:21:45] And then based on that, I make a list of issues that I see that WRA needs to submit testimony on and thinks that we would like changed so that the Public Utilities Commission can hopefully agree with those and then require the utility to make those changes to their plan. And then the sitting down and writing, I feel like it takes a good two to three months to put together a solid set of testimony, and it depends on the plan and how much testimony there is to write and how many issues there are. But yeah, it definitely takes a long time.
[00:22:21] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: We wanted to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors and also to talk about our new sponsorship program for 2023.
[00:22:29] Right now, our 2023 sponsorship program is open. We're accepting new sponsors, so if you would like to support WRA and this podcast and all of the work that we do to protect the land, water, air, and people of the West. We would absolutely love that. Go to the show notes and there's a link to become a sponsor.
[00:22:48] We have all different sponsorship levels so we can meet you where you're at and get you a price point that works for everybody. Thanks so much. Now, back to the podcast. What's the process after the testimony? The utility commission listens to everything and then they just make the best decision and they implement some of what we say and some of what the utility company says and come to kind of a middle ground.
[00:23:15] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: So there are a couple of steps in between, and it depends on the state. So once everyone has submitted testimony, you read everyone else's testimony and sometimes you get to write another round of testimony or you respond to someone's testimony and you're like, oh yeah, I like that idea.
[00:23:31] That's a great idea. Or this is a really bad idea and here's why I think so. So you kind of get to have a dialogue with the other parties and then you go to hearing, or sometimes you skip that step and you just go to a hearing. And that depends on the state. And so at hearing, it's kind of a little bit like what you picture a courtroom being in that there is someone presiding over the.
[00:23:56] Sometimes that's an administrative law judge that works for the commission. Sometimes that's one commissioner, and then sometimes that's the entire commission. It just kind of depends on the state as well as what the case is. And so every attorney has the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses. So basically, one party will go first and every other attorney will cross-examine that witness and then they'll move on to the next witness.
[00:24:25] So it is kind of a little bit like a more traditional criminal court case in that sense in that you do have people up on the stand. I think it's really funny because whenever I tell people I'm going to a hearing, if they don't know me super well, they’re like, ‘Oh my God, are you in trouble with the law?’.
[00:24:43] And it's like, no, no, it's my job. It's okay. Yeah, it's a totally different kind of hearing. So that's the process. And then the commissioner or the hearing examiner, whoever is presiding over the hearing, can also ask questions of the witnesses, so it's not just the attorneys, and then it's a little bit anti-climactic.
[00:25:02] The hearing just ends. And then, you just wait for an order. So you wait for them to pretty much write their opinion, and usually, that takes weeks to months to happen.
[00:25:13] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Wow. It's crazy that this is kind of the system happening behind the curtain, you know? This is how decisions are getting made about utilities.
[00:25:22] I had no idea. I feel like most people have no idea. But also, I like the checks and balances, like that's really cool. And then in Nevada, like you were saying before there is no rebuttal process. It's just like you go, you do the hearing, attorneys cross-examine witnesses, and then you just hope for the best.
[00:25:40] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah. And sometimes you can kind of get an idea of where the commissioner is leaning based on the questions they asked during the hearing. But to a large extent, you're just kind of in the dark. And that's a very different process from Arizona. I think Arizona's a really unique state that we work in because Arizona doesn't really have hearings in that traditional sense.
[00:26:04] Arizona has these things called open meetings where essentially you don't write testimony, but you can submit comments and then to commissioners just talk about these things at an open meeting of the Arizona Corporation Commission, and then they vote on them on the spot.
Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller:
Woah.
Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst:
So you have a lot more certainty about like, what's going to happen right at the meeting.
[00:26:24] But you also have less opportunity to submit comments and to have more of a procedural process. And that's not true for all cases in Arizona, but for transportation electrification cases, it is.
Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller:
So, you can only submit written comment. You can't go to the open meeting and say anything.
Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst:
[00:26:44] You can also go to the open meeting and say anything. It's just really different. So it's not like an attorney cross-examining a witness the way it is in other states. It's kind of just like you. You go and it's not a hearing and it's not, it's just not the same procedurally.
Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller:
Yeah. Kind of like when you're submitting public comment at like a city council meeting or something.
[00:27:02] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, totally.
Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller:
Crazy. Just bureaucracy blows me away all the time. I'm just like, what? Who decided that this is how we do it? And there’s no standardization. All the websites look like they're from 92. What are we doing guys? It's wild to me. Okay, cool. So the main thing you're focusing on right now is EV charging.
[00:27:22] Is there any other elements to you going to these hearings that is prominent?
[00:27:29] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, I think a really major thing that we focus on at these hearings is kind of what we're going to do with all this load and how we're going to manage it. So essentially utilities love EVs because EVs mean more electricity.
[00:27:46] Which means that the utility gets to make more money, essentially. So it's just like adding volume in terms of electricity sales. But the thing is your car is probably going to be parked at your house or just parked like 23 out of 24 hours of the day. And utilities are like, not really taking advantage of that to an extent.
[00:28:07] And so that's something we're trying to get them to do to implement managed charging programs so that if your car is just going to be parked for 23 hours, that it should be charging at the time when you have the most excess renewables on the grid. So in Nevada for example, there's a lot of daytime solar where there's just so much availability of cheap solar.
[00:28:30] And so we want to encourage people if they're just at home to charge their cars in the afternoon or in the morning when there is all that solar. And so, we want to get utilities to essentially design rates and create programs that let customers know that there is a better time to charge and financially incentivize them to do so.
[00:28:50] So that you're not necessarily charging at like 5:00 PM when a ton of people are coming home from work and there's a big spike in power usage. So that's kinda a really interesting piece of my work. I feel like generally, utilities aren't great at doing customer outreach and kind of designing programs that work for a lot of customers, and so that's, that's really fun to work on.
[00:29:14] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: So basically, because there's excess solar and that's just cheaper energy I could get better rates if I'm doing my laundry during the day.
[00:29:23] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yes. But only if your utility has a rate design that incentivizes you to do that. So you can't just like decide as an individual that you want to do that. There has to be a rate in place that the utility has designed that you can take service on.
[00:29:38] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah. The utility has to make it cheaper during the day for me. Right. And be like, oh, we have more energy so anything you do between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM is cheaper. That would be great for me since I work from home. Please make that happen. Is that happening in other states?
[00:29:58] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so it is, and I actually, I don't live in an investor-owned utility service territory.
[00:30:04] I live in Fort Collins, which is served by a municipal utility, and so I'm on a default residential time of use rate. If you live in Fort Collins, you have two time periods. You have your off-peak where your energy is around like four times cheaper, and then you're on-peak where it's more expensive and my on-peak period is like 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM so I just, I don't do my laundry then I just wait until bed to run my dishwasher and that kind of stuff.
[00:30:31] And my energy bills are really low, which is awesome. If I had an EV, I just wouldn't charge it in that 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM peak period.
[00:30:39] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Man, there's only a four-hour period where it's more expensive? That's amazing. I'm very jealous. My rates are excruciating right now. It is very bad here in Nevada, which is crazy because like you were saying, we have so much sun and so much solar, so I don't know what the issue is, Nevada, but you probably know what the issue is.
[00:30:56] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah. I mean that's really hard to just be like, this is the reason your bills are expensive. Yeah, but I'll say something that's like a really big topic that's in the public eye and also before utility commissions right now is the cost of natural gas and the extent to which that gets passed along to customers on their bills, just because that's such an expensive commodity and that's something that WRA works on a lot is looking at ways in which we can shift away from these really expensive and volatile fossil fuels to renewables. Like you're never going to have a day where solar is super expensive just because there isn't a cost for that resource. Like once a solar farm is built that's kind of it. And the cost is very stable, whereas when you're talking about natural gas supply, that's something that fluctuates a lot.
[00:31:50] And so that really exposes customers to price volatility and having those costs passed through to their bill.
[00:31:57] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah, it's funny because right before we did this interview, I got a call from a solar company that was like, you should get solar panels, NV Energy is just going to do another rate increase. And I'm like, look, I know I just can't handle that right now, but I'm planning on it one day.
[00:32:12] When you were talking about municipal utilities, and then we just talked with Tahlia in our last episode about Tribal utilities, so I also wanted to ask you how all of that works. Like there are municipal ones, private ones, tribal ones, how does that even happen?
[00:32:26] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so that's a super good question and I feel like I'm going to give you a little history lesson, so I'm sorry in advance, but generally when electricity, you know, started to be something that was available broadly, the places where it was most economical to install, like power lines and to run all this infrastructure were really densely populated areas just because you could serve more customers there and it was potentially profitable to have a utility in like Denver, Colorado, but much less profitable to have a utility in like Steamboat Springs, Colorado, just because you have these really high infrastructure costs and very high costs to running utility. And so, it's kind of hard to have that be a profitable venture, especially back in the day, like outside of really densely populated areas.
[00:33:18] And so folks that lived in rural areas were like, oh, well we would like electricity too. And so that's kind of how co-ops came around, which are cooperatively owned utilities. And so those are utilities that are owned by the customers. So if you live in a really rural area, probably. I don't know. A couple of decades ago, more than a couple of decades ago, the people that lived in that rural area banded together and decided that they wanted to have a cooperatively owned utility.
[00:33:48] And then it's kind of similar for tribal utilities. And then municipal utilities are utilities that serve a certain city or municipality, and so they are owned by the city or that municipality. So the city of Fort Collins runs my utility, and because of that, they generally have less oversight because they're not out to make a profit.
[00:34:12] So the city of Fort Collins's utilities job, their only job is to provide me with reliable electricity and reasonable rates. They don't have any shareholders or anything like that. So that's kind of like the big difference between investor-owned utilities and these other utilities is when you're talking about investor utilities, there are these shareholders that are earning money from these utilities profits, and so that's why it's really important to regulate that.
[00:34:39] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Cool. Well, that's a lot of information. I feel like we just gave people a lot to think about. Do you have any stories or anecdotes you want to share about Public Utility Commissions and going to these hearings?
[00:34:52] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, I think something that I was not expecting is that the hearings are kind of fun and there are little silly moments in them.
[00:35:00] They tend to be pretty long. So you'll start at like nine am and you're just in the hearing until like five, six, sometimes even seven pm and also similar to another type of judicial hearing. There is a court reporter that is just typing the entire transcript of the hearing. And so at the last hearing I was at, we had this court reporter, Debbie, who was just so funny and such a character.
[00:35:28] She's the only court reporter for the Nevada Public Utilities Commission, and she's been doing the job for 50 years and she just, she really loved it and she would tell us all these stories about different hearings that she'd been to. And she just was such a treasure trove of information. And she also would, in the middle of people talking, if they were talking too fast, she would just yell out, STOP! REPEAT THAT!
[00:35:54] And you just kind of had to do whatever she said because she's the one who's writing everything down. The show does not go on without Debbie. So I thought that was really cool and I just think that it's really fun to be sitting, even watching a hearing on Zoom, and there are some parties that you'll get to know from hearing to hearing like the EV charging companies or folks that just intervene in a lot of these cases and they just have mannerisms that you come to expect and things like that.
[00:36:22] So I feel like to someone who's just like tuning in, it probably doesn't seem that interesting, but there are a lot of like little dramas and things like that to enjoy about hearings.
[00:36:33] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah. When you create relationships and you know the people, then it's like a telenovela.
Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst:
Oh yes. Absolutely.
Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller:
Well, I love Debbie.
[00:36:42] I feel like we should have her on the show so she could tell us all about the ins and outs of the PUCs. Is there anything else you want to add about this?
[00:36:50] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: I guess just if you're listening to the WRA podcast and you're curious about PUCs, I would highly recommend not going to their websites if you're trying to find out more because they're not super helpful.
[00:37:05] But what I would recommend is going to an organization's website that works at a PUC. So, like WRA, but not necessarily WRA and reading about work at PUCs, because a lot of it is really behind the scenes, but still super, super important and it doesn't get a ton of mainstream media coverage.
[00:37:25] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Maybe you can send me some links and I'll put them in the show notes and people could just click right on that.
[00:37:30] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, for sure.
[00:37:30] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Oh, I remember what I was going to ask you. It's very Nevada-specific, but I was just wondering what the gaming sector is doing. Like what is Caesars and MGM there for? Is it just because they're such a large energy user?
[00:37:44] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so they're really large energy users, which pretty much means that they don't want the utility to spend money on anything that could potentially increase their bills.
[00:37:55] And also, they want any charging stations that are cited to be like preferential to public charging like casinos. So they on one hand don't really want a ton of investment because they're worried it'll raise their bills, but on the other hand, they're like, anything you should invest, like please consider us. We would love it. That's kind of what they're interested in. But it is definitely a very Nevada thing and they're very, very present in a lot of cases at the PUC.
[00:38:26] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah. Checks out. In other states are there any other groups that are like that omnipresent?
[00:38:31] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Other groups that are omnipresent… I think that in certain states we have petroleum associations that really like to come to transportation electrification hearings and just talk about how great petroleum is and how great internal combustion engine cars are.
[00:38:47] But generally, if you don't have solid interest or a big stake in these hearings they are a lot of work and so you don't intervene, so it tends to be a pretty medium-sized party of interveners.
[00:39:02] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: When did you first even hear about this stuff? Was it in college or when you were working with WRA?
[00:39:08] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so I actually wrote my senior college thesis on regional greenhouse gas initiative, which is like a cap and trade program that applies to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and a couple of other states. And in doing that, I kind of found out about what PUCs were and I don't know, for some reason it just was fascinating to me that I had never heard of them.
[00:39:32] I think that was what really got me was that they were these really powerful. and yet I had just like never heard of them and I felt like I really should have heard of them because I was a political science and environmental studies major, and yet I had just never come across them.
[00:39:49] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah, not until your last year when you were doing your thesis.
[00:39:52] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Right. Yeah, good point.
[00:39:54] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: I mean, I feel like that's why we're sharing this knowledge so everybody knows they exist and yeah, you do have some power when you're electing them, depending on your state and yeah, not as much with public comment. I wish we could figure out a hack to help people make public comment.
[00:40:11] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah. I think in some states there are guides where it tells you like, these are the 12 links you need to click on to make public comment. But it’s definitely not easy and it's not user-friendly.
[00:40:23] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah. Unsurprising. So you're talking about how you have a bunch of these hearings coming up in the future and you're starting to research and get ready for those.
[00:40:34] Is there anyone in particular that you're the most excited for?
[00:40:38] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Ooh, that's a great question. I think I'm really excited about the New Mexico cases that we have coming up. Specifically, Public Service Company of New Mexico which serves Albuquerque and the surrounding area because we finished a rulemaking earlier this year that applies to those cases in New Mexico.
[00:40:59] And so going in, we have this rulemaking with a lot of our asks that will just kind of automatically be part of the plans and shape the plans. So I think it'll be really great to kind of go in knowing a little bit more about what to expect and knowing that we're going to have really solid filings.
[00:41:17] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Solid filings mean more power because you already know that they're going to like, it's already in place that they're going to listen to you and you know what's happening.
[00:41:26] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah. So I think a solid filing to me is something where we're largely in agreement with what's filed and we want to support it and maybe there are some tweaks and some recommendations that we have, but for the most part, WRA gets to play a supporting role until the commission approves the filing.
[00:41:45] And that's definitely a much better position to be in than getting a filing and seeing that it needs a ton of work, it's missing a lot of things that we're looking for and then we have to convince the commission that they need to add in these things and to take into consideration just a laundry list of recommendations.
[00:42:02] So I think generally, if you're in a proceeding and what the utility has put forth is pretty good. That's a great place to be, as opposed to, oh no, this is a mess. I have so much work and I'm worried if the commission will take these recommendations to heart and fix these issues.
[00:42:20] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah, way better to just be there like thumbs up, yes, go for it.
[00:42:24] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, exactly.
[00:42:27] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: So the one other thing I want to ask you about is regional energy markets. Is that something that the Public Utility Commission is also?
[00:42:34] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, so to an extent. This is just like a whole can of worms and you'll have to have another podcast episode. But when you start talking about regional markets, a lot of those are under the jurisdiction of FERC, which is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
[00:42:50] And so that's, that's like a whole different national governing body. But then if a utility wants to join a regional market, they also generally have to have that approved by their Public Utilities Commission to ensure that they can still provide reliable and reasonable service to their customers. So it's kind of a twofer and it gets really, really complicated, really fast.
[00:43:14] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Okay. But the basic is the Federal Regulating Commission has to be on board, and then the Public Utility Commission has to say yes too. And then, the utility could join a regional energy market. And a regional energy market is when utilities share energy across state lines.
[00:43:31] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah.
[00:43:45] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Sweet. Yeah, we talked about that really briefly in the last episode and I was just like, I should definitely do an episode about regional energy markets. Cause I think it's really fascinating.
[00:44:56] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah. Yeah, it's super interesting and again, I feel like something that is largely invisible unless you go looking for it.
[00:45:03] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah. Well, all of this stuff is really niche but affects everybody every day, so that's interesting. So many, so many things like that in the way the world works. But here, you know, we're out here to give people a little insight and a little window into these things. So yeah. I feel like we're doing it, Deb.
[00:45:23] Deb Kapiloff - Transportation Electrification Policy Analyst: Yeah, we're doing it. Cool. Thanks for talking to me about PUCs, I'm always so excited to talk about them. And people are like, sorry, what?
[00:46:32] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: Yeah, it's important. It's important to have people that are nerding out on different things like this, right? Who care about it and who are there to represent, you know, like WRA, and you are representing the public interest in like an environmental sense, right? And in a different way. So it's really, I feel like it's super important and good that we're out there doing that.
So much! Really a lot about Public Utility Commissions. I really did not have a lot of knowledge before we started talking about it, and I feel educated now and empowered. I definitely need to do even more research and see how I could contribute to some hearings here in Nevada. And now is the time when we like to thank all of our amazing sponsors.
This episode is brought to you in part by our generous sponsors. We'd like to take a second to give an extra special thank you to our premier sponsor, Vision Ridge Partners, as well as our signature sponsors, BOS Development, Denver Water, First Bank, and Scarpa. WRA would also like to recognize our supporting sponsors, BSW Wealth Partners, Great Outdoors Colorado, Meridian Public Affairs and Policy AZ.
And as I mentioned earlier, now is the time when we're accepting new sponsors who support our work at WRA. All the policy we're working on the legislation, the stuff at the Public Utility Commission, but also this podcast and all of our media. So if you would like to sponsor us and become a part of the WRA family, we would love to have you, please go to the show notes to find out more.
Thank you. So now we're going to go into our little wrap-up segment that we call, ‘What I like about the West’. And it's just a space for people to share things they like about the West. A little shout-out moment here on the podcast. In this episode, we have Roya Wolfe, who is a new member of WRA and she is really excited to share with us.
And I also wanted to say, if you ever want to contribute to the podcast, we would absolutely love to feature you. You listener, anyone that's listening, you can send us a one-minute sound bite of what you like about the West, and we will totally put it on this podcast. To find out more about that, go to any of our podcast webpages and the link is in the show notes always.
So scroll all the way down to the bottom of our podcast page, and there's a whole section about ‘What I like about the West’. All right, let's listen to Roya.
[00:47:11] Roya Wolfe - Development Coordinator: Hi, my name is Roya Wolfe and I am a development coordinator at Western Resource Advocates. Why do I love the West? I love the West because it is home. It was my first home growing up in Boulder, Colorado as a kid. But more importantly, it is the home to so many incredible species in a visual history of nature's evolution.
One of my favorite parts of my job is the drive to and from the WRA office. I drive past cow fields, horses, and prairie dogs, and right now it's spring, so the calves are out. I see hawks and eagles soar above me, across the biggest sky I have ever seen. I see cacti and pine trees and rolling hills of land protected by signs that say open space.
I see the mountains grow bigger and bigger as I approach Boulder, and then on my drive back home, I see them fade under the setting sun in my rearview mirror. I love all of the little things that make me smile. That's what I love about the West. I'm grateful that my 20-minute commute to and from work. Holds so much natural beauty, and then in between those drives, I get to help protect that natural beauty.
What a gift. Thank you.
[00:48] Jessi Janusee - Multimedia Storyteller: That is a warp for this episode. As always, I'm your host, Jessi Janusee, the multimedia storyteller here at Western Resource Advocate. Two Degrees Out West is a production from Western Resource Advocates. You can find out more about all of the work that we do in policy and to make the West a more wild place at our website, www.westernresourceadvocates.org.
Thank you for being here and let's keep this West wild, beautiful, scenic, lovely, and truly my favorite place to be. I'll see you guys next episode for our talk with Crystal Tulley-Cordova about hydrology in the Navajo Nation. Have a great day y'all. See you next time.