AGI Day Revisited — Keynote Session

The keynote speaker panel of AGI Day ’22 kicked off with Dave Danner, the chair of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission and Megan Decker, the chair of the Oregon Public Utility Commission.

The first topic discussed was the basics of Utility Commissions, Danner said that they can be found in every state and they “regulate the rates and services of investor owned electric and natural gas utilities”. Danner continued to say that typically amongst utility companies there is very little competition, becoming monopolies. One of the points that Danner made was the importance of making sure the utility companies are providing good work and services to their customers, and are also being invested in.

Decker presented pairs of challenges and opportunities in her field. Beginning with shared vision, Decker talked about how different states and regions value certain things over another, but along with that comes challenges of logistics and uncertainty. “We have off-shore wind in Oregon, versus small modular, nuclear concentrations on the Eastside, maybe we’ll need all of it but we have deep pathways of uncertainty in the gas sector between fuels decarbonization and electrification of end uses,” Decker said.

Danner and Decker continued to both talk about how each state (Oregon and Washington) have their own unique challenges and problems they have to face. One of the problems highlighted by Danner was the time constraints of decarbonization and carbon-free requirements put into place by the state and federal government.