Improving access, affordability takes communication with all stakeholders, panel says

Achieving a balance between access and affordability of reliable power requires all voices to be heard when implementing policies and making investments, a panel of industry leaders said Monday.

Non-profit policy think tank IdeateLABS hosted a panel discussion about how to provide reliable power to underserved and vulnerable communities while continuing to invest in energy infrastructure on the sidelines of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

The panel, made up of Deanna Rodriguez, CEO of Entergy New Orleans; Nikki Hall, director of regulatory strategy and services with Pepco Holdings; Lea Marquez Peterson, chairwoman of the Arizona Corporation Commission; Hunter Stern, assistant business manager with IBEW Local 1245; and Roberto Barragan, executive director of the California Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA), discussed the need to help low-income individuals or those on fixed incomes as the power industry evolves to address resiliency and a shift to greater reliance on electricity.

As a regulator, Peterson said the biggest challenge is to ensure that electric companies continue to invest in critical infrastructure while keeping rates affordable.

“We need to ensure that utilities are making proper capital investments so that we don’t have failures,” she said. “It’s absolutely a balance and we continue to do that while making sure that it’s affordable.”

Ensuring that communities know what investments are being made and how those investments will affect rates is one way to find that balance, Hall said. Pepco releases multi-year plans that provide transparency to customers, which allow community members to see the impact of investments and comment on how those investments will impact various groups within the community.

But explaining to customers how those investments help them in the long run, she said, continues to be a challenge.

“We are now trying to go into the community, partner with agencies, partner with the Council on Aging … to reach customers and educate them on the benefits of those programs that they’re thinking are so expensive and there’s no benefit to me,” she said. “We need to educate them on how their environment is affected by greenhouse gas emissions. They’re worried about paying for their energy, not how to modernize their energy.”

Sometimes, however, policy shifts help higher-income residents at the expense of lower-income residents, Stern with the IBEW said. For example, in California, net metering policies regarding rooftop solar provide subsidies for customers who can afford to adopt solar, but shared costs to upkeep the electric grid are shifted to customers who can’t afford those investments.

Hall said that even though there are programs available to help people who are struggling to pay their utility bills, many times the programs are under-utilized.

“We had to go beyond billings and social media and really partner (with agencies) and say ‘Hey, there are these resources that are available to you,’” Hall said. “We have to have a multi-pronged approach to getting into the community and making people aware. Inflation is up and we’re heading into a recession so we’re trying to offer things and let the community know the resources that are available to them.”

One solution, CCEDA’s Barragan said, is to work with agencies to develop community universal applications, which allow customers who apply for assistance in one program to be eligible for all assistance programs, eliminating the need to fill out multiple applications.

Sometimes, encouraging customers to access low-income services and programs and accept new investments and new rates means overcoming a barrier of trust, Rodriguez said. In her example, a previous CEO of Entergy New Orleans went into communities to hold a listening tour with low-income communities and aging communities but found that some customers were angry and didn’t trust the utility company. After years of listening, she said, community members began viewing the company in a more positive light.

“That listening is incumbent upon not just the utilities but the advocates and the regulators,” Rodriguez said. “If you’re in a constant state of arguing, it doesn’t get to the solution that is most productive and accommodating to the customers.”