Started in 1992, the Annual Public Utility Symposium is FRI’s hallmark program. Held in September each year, the Symposium draws over 150 state utility commissioners, consumer advocates, industry executives, consultants, and academics to have open, balanced discussions about current issues affecting regulation in the water, electricity, and natural gas industries.
The FRI Public Utility Symposium is unique in that each year’s theme, topics, and speakers are determined by members of FRI’s Advisory Board, which is comprised of regulators, utility executives, and state consumer advocates. This helps ensure the program is timely and relevant to issues facing regulators across the country and across all our industry groups. It also helps ensure that all voices are represented. The program promotes a conversational format, including engagement with attendees.
In addition to a day full of lively discussion around pressing issues, the Public Utility Symposium also includes the presentation of FRI’s Crystal Award for Distinguished Service. The award provides an opportunity to recognize excellence and achievement across regulated industries and further promotes the mission and purpose of the FRI – to serve as a neutral environment for the comprehensive examination of sound regulatory policy.
Registration for FRI’s Public Utility Symposium is kept more affordable by the gifts of symposium sponsors. Learn more about sponsorship opportunities and benefits.
This year’s symposium will be held Wednesday, September 17, 2025 on the University of Missouri campus, Columbia, Missouri. The program includes panels on:
- Panel I – “Go the Distance” Long Term Transmission Planning
- Moderator: Commissioner Ann McCabe, Illinois Commerce Commission
- This panel will discuss the implementation of FERC Order 1920 and the build out of both generation and transmission. States, transmission owners, generators and RTOs will discuss how they support implementation, factors transmission owners consider in the beginning stages of planning, developing transmission planning scenarios, and potential cost allocation methodologies.
- Panel II – “It’s The Place Dreams Come True.” Resource Adequacy
- Moderator: Commissioner John Reynolds, California Public Utilities Commission
- All three public utility sectors – water, natural gas, and electricity – face resource adequacy issues. How can projects be fast-tracked? How to balance the trade-offs between the need for speed and the regulatory lag? Discussions will revolve around how renewables and storage shape resource adequacy, the need for more transmission, and the impact of renewables on regional and interregional resource adequacy.
- Panel III – “Ease His Pain” Mitigating the Cost of Building
- Moderator: Anthony Ornelas, Administrator, Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocate
- Panelists will discuss approaches used to mitigate the cost of building new technologies and infrastructure such as different rate structures that can mitigate the cost of building; how to mitigate the impacts on customers; how leaders consider the cost allocation between customers; and important factors to consider when balancing the need for speed and safety.
- Panel IV – “If You Build It, Will They Come?” Innovation, Speed, and Transitions. Views from Executive Leadership
- Moderator: Commissioner Tricia Pridemore, Georgia Public Service Commission & NARUC President
- Leaders from each utility sector will join a well-rounded discussion encompassing all the day’s previous panels. They will provide insight into innovation and the speed at which their businesses are changing, the transition between a competitive framework and regulatory constraints, having enough resources available, and a discussion on the buildout for large loads. They will also discuss if there are frameworks from the past that could be reused or whether we need a new approach.
Learn more and register – Early registration closes July 31, 2025