Regulators roundtable Leveraging AI to enhance grid reliability and manage costs

**AiDASH** (0:05)
Welcome to the AiDASH Evolve 2024 podcast.
AiDASH makes critical infrastructure industries climate resilient and sustainable with satellites and AI. Evolve 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana was our inaugural event. We gathered industry leaders, innovators, and visionaries to explore how cutting-edge technology and satellites and AI is safeguarding critical infrastructure and fostering biodiversity to ensure a sustainable future amidst climate change challenges. In this podcast series, we are recapping the entire event, every speaker and session. You can find it all on our content hub at ai-dot-com-slash-evolve2024 or check the show notes for all pertinent links. During a roundtable discussion at AiDASH Evolve 2024 in New Orleans, state commissioners and customer advocates came together to talk about ways regulation is encouraging famously conservative utilities to invest in technologies that help balance their reliability, costs, and resilience. Moderated by Angela Navarro, President, ALN Policy & Law, the roundtable comprised Erik M. Helland, Chair, Iowa Utilities Commission, Davante Lewis, Commissioner, Louisiana Public Service Commission, De'Keither Stamps, Commissioner, Mississippi Public Service Commission, and Neil Chatterjee, former Commissioner and Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. The participants talked about how state and federal regulators work with utilities as they explore technologies to enhance grid resilience in a way that benefits ratepayers. And how regulators are increasingly using data and analytics to shepherd the investments utilities are making and then measuring the return from those programs. And the roundtable participants talked about how collaboration between regulators and utilities fosters a proactive approach to modernizing infrastructure, meeting today's energy demands, and preparing for tomorrow's. Here's the roundtable discussion, led by Angela Navarro.

**Angela Navarro** (2:16)
So first, I want to introduce this incredible group of panelists. We're very lucky to have all of them here joining us. They're thought leaders, they're public servants, and they have very interesting insights to share as regulators or former regulators of the electric sector. So I'm going to start with Mr. Davante Lewis, the commissioner on the Louisiana Public Service Commission. Commissioner Lewis was elected in 2022 and took office in January of 2023 for a six year term. He covers the city of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the surrounding areas. So this is his home, and I think he can give a lot of interesting perspective about what we're dealing with here in Louisiana. We heard a lot from Governor Edwards this morning about some of that local reliability and wildfire and storm challenges. And so I know Commissioner Lewis will have something to say about that. I also, as part of their introduction, asked each of them to send me something interesting about them. So Commissioner Lewis is part of a trivia team that ranks in the top 10 in the state. So I'll try to find a way to put that into use during this panel or later this evening. Next to him, I have Chair Erik Helland from the Iowa Utilities Board. He was Iowa Utilities Commission. That's right. You're the commission now. You changed from the board to the commission. He was appointed by the governor in May of 2023, and he's been serving ever since. And he's also served as a chair, appointed by the governor to serve as a chair, and will serve as a chair for the first two years of his term. And I learned this about Chair Helland yesterday, that he is an aficionado of jazz music, really loves jazz music, and he himself plays the tenor saxophone. Not well. Very interesting. Next to him, we have our neighbor from the great state of Mississippi. We have Mississippi PSC Commissioner De'Keither Stamps. He was elected to the commission in 2023 and took office in January of 2024 for a four-year term. Prior to that, he was a legislator as well. And in addition to being a public servant or regulator, a legislator, he also runs a calf farm, a 100 plus acre calf farm in Mississippi. So I don't know how he has time to do all of that, but it's very impressive. And then finally, you know, Neil Chatterjee, former FERC commissioner, former FERC chair, served from 2017 to 2021, had a lot of great insights to share with us this morning when he and Governor Edwards did their fireside chat, but now is going to join these state regulators in providing the federal perspective, because there is truly a lot of collaboration between the federal and state regulation of the electric sector. So I first want to start by setting the stage for this panel, this regulator roundtable, and then I'm going to put each of these regulators in the hot seat and ask them some questions about their role, their insights into regulation, their insights into the transitions that are underway in the electric sector, and how we're mitigating some of the extreme weather events that we've been talking about throughout the session today. So just to sort of ground us in the role of the regulator, the role of the regulator is incredibly important. We've heard that throughout the day to day. The regulators, state regulators and federal regulators, regulate the electric sector. And typically, that regulation applies to the investor-owned utilities at the state level. We heard in the last panel from the electric cooperatives, most electric cooperatives do their own regulation via their board.