Noting that public power utilities have an “ethic of demonstrated innovation in their communities,” Scott Corwin, President and CEO of the American Public Power Association, recently detailed a wide range of cutting-edge projects that public power utilities are pursuing including the development of advanced nuclear generation and the exploration of emerging non-lithium ion long duration energy storage technologies.
He made his remarks at the U.S. Energy Association’s State of the Energy Industry Forum in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 15.
Corwin participated on a panel, “Innovations in Energy,” which explored emerging technologies and new models shaping the future of the energy sector.
Corwin and other panelists were asked to detail how they see the state of the energy industry today.
“I’d say the state of the energy industry is as promising as it is ominous,” Corwin said. He noted that for public power, the focus will always be on safety, affordability and reliability.
Regardless of size, public power utilities across the U.S. “continue to find ways to provide that safe, affordable, reliable power,” he noted.
Challenges facing the power sector include supply chain challenges, regulatory burdens, rising costs and cyber and physical threats, Corwin said.
“But with challenge comes opportunity. We know our communities. We know what they need and if we can get help on the regulatory front from some of the federal and state policymakers” and continue to apply new technologies and strategies “then I’m optimistic public power can meet this moment.”
At a later point, Corwin was asked to detail how public power utilities are pursuing innovation despite operating, at times, with tight budgets.
Along with their focus on reliability and affordability, public power utilities also “have that community connection and being a part of the local infrastructure,” Corwin said.
Public power utilities have also had an “ethic of demonstrated innovation in their communities – sometimes out of necessity.”
He also highlighted APPA’s Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments program. The DEED program funds research, pilot projects, and education to improve the operations and services of public power utilities.
“Each utility and community is unique so within a community they reflect on what innovation projects they wish to pursue for their own community goals and interests and modernization and resilience…have been a large focus lately and that can enable affordability as well,” he said.
He pointed out that for some projects locally, “the business model itself – the regulatory model – can enable things” to move at a faster pace because there is not a need to seek state utility regulatory approval. “They’re bringing along their partners locally and local boards and councils are reviewing the projects, so they have community buy in,” Corwin said.
“Other partnerships are critical as well on that affordability and cost side of doing some of these” projects, he pointed out. “Yes, they’re impacted by some of the challenges we talked about – supply chain and permitting timelines – but you have partnerships that create that support including federal funding that’s been really useful in some projects including nuclear,” Corwin said.
He noted partnerships with joint action agencies, with “public power utilities coming together to aggregate their resources, and then also working with entities like TVA or the federal power marketing administrations that have a big role in innovation and also help a lot on the economics; so, there are a lot of tools put to use to innovate.”
At a later point, Corwin was asked to detail how public power utilities are leading on things like grid edge technologies and cybersecurity.
Referencing cybersecurity, Corwin said: “As we’re applying new technologies, ensuring that those are secure is really critical; we’ve never seen the level of threats on the cyber side like we do today and they’re only increasing.”
He noted that APPA does “a lot of training. We have a whole cyber defense community in public power that shares new approaches with each other. We’ve also had a really good partnership with the Department of Energy.”
In recent cybersecurity news involving the DOE and public power, the federal agency recently started notifying
APPA members of new Rural and Municipal Cyber Assistance Program funding. This funding will help public power utilities strengthen and modernize their cybersecurity efforts.
Public power utilities have also participated in a number of cybersecurity exercises including the Liberty Eclipse Full-Scale Exercise, an annual cybersecurity preparedness exercise hosted by the DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response.
Corwin said that APPA also has launched its own “public power scenarios that combine both cyber and physical threats and share those results.”
On the generation side, “it’s an exciting time,” Corwin said, noting Energy Northwest and X-energy advanced nuclear power efforts, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s interest in the potential deployment of advanced nuclear, including fusion power plant technology, and a public utility district in the Pacific Northwest (Chelan PUD), which is pursuing a fusion power plant.
Corwin also noted that in Nebraska, public power utilities have joined together to explore the feasibility and development of deploying between 1,000 and 2,000 megawatts of new nuclear technology.
With respect to energy storage, he noted that Arizona public power utility Salt River Project and Google are collaborating on a project related to non-lithium ion long duration energy storage (LDES) technologies.
In September, SRP and Google announced a first-of-its-kind research collaboration to better understand the real-world performance of emerging non-lithium ion LDES technologies, aiming to accelerate the advancements needed to deploy LDES at scale.
When asked to discuss what APPA would like to see from federal policy makers in 2026, Corwin stressed the need for planning certainty.
Corwin said that his hope would be for policy makers “to listen to the experts that are in the field that we listen to and then actually act. I think this administration actually has embraced that on the regulatory reform front, “and not just in energy but in security, and in inter-agency coordination, which is as important ...to coordinate across those agencies.”
He said permitting reform “really is critical,” for generation and transmission and aspect that flow into how we address wildfire risk. There are several bills that have been before Congress. Several have moved through the House. They’re ready to go. We need action.”
“Similarly, it’s one thing to keep the lights on in normal circumstances but when the worst of times hit in disasters, FEMA reform is critical as well. We need to be able to get reimbursed quickly and get these systems back online quickly to serve the public.”
Corwin also highlighted the Reliable Power Act, which would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission a formal role in determining, and mitigating, the potential reliability impacts of federal regulations whenever the North American Electric Reliability Corporation finds that the bulk-power system is at risk.
APPA is a strong supporter of the Reliable Power Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives in December.
