GridPulse, the Grid Forward podcast, kicked off its season 7 with a detailed discussion about the huge role state commissioners play in modernizing the grid while balancing goals for economic growth and energy affordability. Virginia Commissioner Jehmal Hudson, who is a vice president of NARUC, laid out the current responsibilities and challenges that state commissioners must shoulder, as well as how they can work better with utilities for the public good. He was interviewed by Bryce Yonker, executive director and CEO of Grid Forward. Below are excerpts from their conversation, and you can hear the entire GridPulse episode on most podcast apps or on the web.
These excerpts were generated using AI and lightly edited for readability.
Bryce Yonker: I know you’ve got your finger on the pulse of the industry. From your perspective, what are some of those main drivers that are shaping the energy landscape here right now?
Commissioner Hudson: Sure. I think if I had to summarize the energy landscape right now, I would say that we’re in an era of speed, scale and constraint. First, demand growth, it’s here in a very serious way. That’s driven by data centers, artificial intelligence, electrification, advanced manufacturing, and even the broader economic growth.
Second is resource adequacy, which is really a front-and-center issue today. Retirements are happening, and we’re all trying to work through what really counts as new generation in a modern sense, not just about capacity, but deliverability and reliability during stress conditions.
Third, there are rate pressures. Customers are feeling inflation and utilities are really facing higher capital costs. Fourth, I think we’re dealing with a lot of constraints. You see interconnection queue challenges, transmission build timelines, supply chain and workforce issues. Lastly, I think that there’s a federal-state dynamic that’s really evolving right now where we’re seeing increased federal attention on transmission, interconnection and large loads. That really requires a lot of coordination to try to avoid a lot of friction.
Bryce Yonker: The first area we’re going to take our conversation is the state regulator role. What are we getting right in this process right now? Are there areas that we need to look at improving given pressures on the requirements for the system?
Commissioner Hudson: What we’re getting right is that the state regulation is fundamentally built for public accountability. We have open proceedings. We require evidence. We test assumptions, and we put costs and benefits on the record. That transparency matters because we’re making long-lived decisions.
Where we can improve is mostly about speed and coordination without sacrificing that process. We need planning. We need better queue management. We need clearer sequencing of upgrades so that the projects don’t stall late in the process. And we should be honest that the traditional approach that we have, it doesn’t really match the pace of the demand growth that we’re experiencing right now. So we certainly want to keep the discipline, but we also want to certainly improve the execution.
Bryce Yonker: Rate pressure in many locations is a real issue. How does a modernized grid, as we make critical investments in the capabilities that we need for the system, also balance the affordability imperative?
Commissioner Hudson: We have to be very direct. The grid can’t be modernized on the backs of customers who can’t afford it. So affordability isn’t really a side constraint. It’s a core outcome.
That balancing really requires three things. One, it’s disciplined planning. The worst affordability outcome is building the wrong thing and paying for it 30 or 40 years later. So we need better forecasting, scenario analysis and stress testing. Two is risk allocation for large loads especially. We should structure arrangements so existing customers aren’t holding the bag for stranded upgrades.
Three is pacing and prioritization. Not every upgrade has the same value. Some are reliability critical, some are for other things that are really important. But regulators should insist on sequencing that delivers the most valuable for the customers and making sure that’s a top priority.
I’ll just quickly add, I think affordability also means helping customers use less. So that means opportunities looking at efficiency, demand response and targeted programs that matter because they do reduce the system cost over time.
Bryce Yonker: Capacity utilization. If we use our systems more, the math is pretty apparent that we’re going to put downward pressure on rates. It doesn’t come automatically.
Commissioner Hudson: No, absolutely. I think that this is one of the most important questions when we’re talking about the entire grid conversation, because the fastest megawatt is often the one that you unlock, not the one that you are actually able to build. At NARUC, we adopted a resolution that supported the integration of advanced transmission technologies, also known as ATTs, which precisely are used because the data shows that we have significant untapped capacity that’s sitting in the system.
Now, congestion costs across organized markets have more than doubled since 2016. We’re stressing the existing infrastructure. Now we also have over 2000GW of generation in storage projects waiting in interconnection queues. And the average wait times have more than doubled over the past decade. So the bottleneck isn’t just generation, it’s transmission deliverability.
Now, the US Department of Energy’s National Transmission Needs Study found that we may need to expand regional transmission capacity anywhere from 20% to 128% by 2035, and inter-regional capacity even more so. That massive build out, if done traditionally, is going to be really, really challenging.
So what does getting more out of what we already have actually mean? To me, that means deploying technologies to unlock latent capacity in existing lines before defaulting to new corridors. Grid enhancing technologies [GETs], things like advanced power flow controls, dynamic line ratings, and topology optimization can really increase utilization on new and existing transmission lines by 16% or more, and reduce congestion by 50% or more. The Department of Energy also found that these tools can generate over $5 billion annually in production cost savings. That’s real money. That’s real reliability impact.
From a regulator standpoint, this is really compelling for three reasons. First, it’s speed. Reconductoring and GET deployment can often move faster than greenfield lines. Second, it’s cost discipline. Customers benefit from avoided or deferred capital costs. And third is public acceptance. I think upgrading an existing corridor is often less contentious than building a new one. Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t need new transmission, but we should sequence it wisely.
“The modern grid is just so much more complex. We’re regulating not just wires and generation anymore. We’re regulating digital infrastructure demand, cybersecurity risks, distributed energy resources, resilient investments, and increasingly AI-enabled operations.”
Bryce Yonker: Our last question: do you have the right tools? Are the right information and the right systems in place for regulating our modern grid? And how is that balance between regulators and utilities going in the current state?
Commissioner Hudson: The honest answer is we have a strong foundation, but the system is certainly under strain. From an informational standpoint, regulators today have access to more data than ever before. Load forecasts, congestion costs, outage metrics, interconnection queues, distributed resource penetration and even weather modeling. That visibility into the system is far greater than what it was probably even seen ten years ago.
But the modern grid is just so much more complex. We’re regulating not just wires and generation anymore. We’re regulating digital infrastructure demand, cybersecurity risks, distributed energy resources, resilient investments, and increasingly AI-enabled operations. So the question isn’t just whether we have the information; it’s whether we have the right tools and analytical capacity to translate that information into sound decisions quickly.
In many cases, we’re adapting in real time. We’re updating planning requirements, we’re asking for scenario analysis. We’re requiring more detailed cost justifications and incorporating new technologies into review processes. But there’s no question, the pace of change and testing traditional regulatory timelines is certainly happening a lot faster.
Utilities are being asked to move a whole lot more faster than at almost any point in recent history: faster interconnections, faster transmission build out and more resilient investments, as well as more digital integration. Now, at the same time, regulators are being asked to maintain affordability, protect customers from undue risk and ensure investments are prudent and durable. Now that tension, it is very healthy. It’s not adversarial at all, but it’s certainly structural. Utilities propose and regulators test. Utilities forecasts and regulators stress tests. And that’s how the public interest is protected.
The regulatory model, I think still works, and I think it works very well. It’s transparent, it’s evidence based, and it’s accountable. But the modern grid requires the model to be a lot more faster, more technically sophisticated and more anticipatory. That’s where the opportunity really lies in front of us. Not to abandon the regulatory compact; we shouldn’t do that. But to modernize a way to how we can actually execute it.
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