Industry News

From left to right: Jeremiah Karpowicz, DTECH; Jeremy McDiarmid, Commissioner - Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities; Jessica Waldorf, Chief of Staff & Director of Policy Implementation - New York State Department of Public Service; Carolyn Gilbert, Commissioner - Maine Public Utilities Commission

As the opening keynote at DTECH Northeast outlined, innovation, processes and people are redefining affordability and viability across the energy sector. However, regulatory differences across state lines continue to outline these specifics in a way that’s impacting grid development. Leaders across the Northeast are dealing with similar regional challenges but their distinct geographies and economies compel different approaches to these same issues. What does it mean to enable regional collaboration that creates “win-win” scenarios?

On the second day of DTECH Northeast 2025, regulators from Maine, New York and Massachusetts took to the stage to answer these questions through a combination of initiative, regulatory reform and a willingness to collaborate and adopt ideas that stretch beyond state lines.

Regulators from across the Northeast have found common ground as they address and deal with common challenges, especially with weather resilience and resource procurement. During the panel discussion, Massachusetts DPU Commissioner Jeremy McDiarmid said this type of collaboration could and should be explored in multiple ways.

“When it comes to collaboration, my thought is to beg, borrow and steal good ideas from our friends across state lines,” McDiarmid told the crowd. “We need to maintain a steady flow of dialogue among regulatory agencies to foster a truly collaborative environment.”

This mentality is driving the development of complex, multi-state mechanisms that are designed to overcome differences in local priorities and ensure critical infrastructure moves forward.

As a few examples of what this actually looks like, the group discussed the Inter-Regional Transmission Collaborative. This initiative involves nine states as part of a proactive effort to jointly plan, build, and site transmission, offering a net benefit to all ratepayers. Additionally, within ISO New England, the Long-Term Transmission Planning Process uses a unique cost allocation mechanism that allows states with a strong interest in a project to cover the difference if the projected cost-benefit falls below a certain threshold for others, ensuring vital projects are not stalled.

The type of collaboration also extends to resource acquisition and procurement, which is something Maine PUC Commissioner Carolyn Gilbert further detailed.

“It allows us to go out for a larger amount of energy, which is something we can’t over-commit ourselves.since Maine is a small state,” said Gilbert. “There’s been real opportunities to share ideas and sometimes tackle things together.”

This pooling of commitments allows smaller states to secure a larger, more cost-effective amount of energy than they could commit to alone. It’s an effort that demonstrates the power of shared risk and collective purchasing.

The rapid acceleration of electric load growth is creating a reliability crisis, especially in dense regions. Utilities need to expand their focus beyond simply adding megawatts of supply, which is something that Jessica Waldorf has seen firsthand as the Chief of Staff at the New York Department of Public Service. As she pointed out, the challenge is actually on both sides for utilities.

“The electric grid, after 10 years of being relatively flat for demand growth, is now rapidly accelerating,” Waldorf said. “You have rapidly accelerating demand, and you have declining generation.”

That’s one of the reasons that regulators are focused on how to best support asset utilization in order to squeeze as much out of the existing system as they can. It’s why load flexibility is viewed as a major, immediate opportunity.

As part of that, reducing the “soft costs” and administrative friction of developing projects is crucial for affordability. New York’s efforts to create a faster permitting pathway for rebuilding in existing transmission rights-of-way is a leading example, potentially covering 90% of new transmission projects.

While they might not be “easy” wins, they are ones that can enable a different and more effective type of collaboration to ensure an asset can be better or differently utilized in the short term.

With extreme weather events causing major challenges across the region, regulators are employing performance-based mechanisms and strategic cost recovery to incentivize utilities to improve grid resilience and keep rates affordable. Affordability has become the ultimate umbrella consideration, compelling solutions that extend beyond the rate case itself and into regulatory processes.

Performance-Based Ratemaking (PBR) has seen states use a combination of positive and negative revenue adjustments tied to specific metrics. In New York, PBR is focused on cutting-edge investments like efficiency in storm response, while negative adjustments are tied to failure to meet baseline safety and reliability targets.

Elsewhere in the region, Maine has implemented performance metrics within rate cases, which result in penalties if reliability and customer service targets are not achieved. To mitigate the immediate impact of high-cost storm response and resilience investments on customer bills, regulators are also allowing for the collection of money over extended periods and authorizing securitization.

To work across larger areas, many of those initiatives need standards that allow utilities to collect and share data, and that effort is something the entire panel agreed was critical. To prevent a patchwork of rules and provide regulatory certainty, New York uses generic policy proceedings to pull issues like rate design out of individual rate cases and standardize them across all utility territories. This consistency is vital for attracting businesses that seek regulatory certainty and for ensuring a level playing field for consumers.

“If you have a lot of different rules and uncertainty across your territories, even within your own state, it makes it really hard to attract businesses that want consistency and regulatory certainty,” said Waldorf.

These approaches and insights from the Northeast provide a powerful model for addressing both regulatory uncertainty and the core challenges of affordability and resilience across the region and beyond.

About the Author

Jeremiah Karpowicz is the Content Director for Transmission and Distribution at Clarion Energy Group, driving the conference development for DTECH events as well as reporting on the energy industry via Factor This. With over a decade of experience as a content strategist and digital leader, he possesses a rare talent for building industry connections that wouldn't otherwise materialize. He's passionate about using content and conversations to expand DTECH's events and publications to new audiences and greater impact. If you'd like to share a story idea or contribute content, you can reach him here.