Power To The People: With Goldner Gone, What Next For The PUC And Energy?

By DONALD M. KREIS, Power to the People, InDepth NH

Energy and utility regulation in New Hampshire is at a crossroads. That much is obvious in the aftermath of Governor Ayotte’s announcement on Sept. 15 that Chairman Daniel Goldner of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) was out of a job as of 5 p.m. that very day.

No one can claim surprise at the news that the PUC is getting new leadership. The Governor had already made plain her displeasure over the agency’s decision in July handing Eversource a slam dunk victory, at the expense of ratepayers, in the utility’s distribution service rate case.

Meanwhile, Goldner’s term actually expired on June 30, which meant he was in "holdover" status — essentially serving at the Governor’s pleasure as she mulled over what to do next. The abruptness and timing of Goldner’s exit sent a hopeful message, above and beyond the Governor simply exercising her right to pick someone new.

Now ex-Chairman Goldner will have no hand in deciding the three rehearing motions — one from us at the Office of the Consumer Advocate, representing residential customers; the others from AARP New Hampshire, the state’s Department of Energy, and Eversource itself — that are pending in the Eversource rate case. Rehearing is the first step toward appeal and as a former state attorney general Governor Ayotte knows how unhelpful it can be to have PUC cases hashed out before the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

The PUC’s order in the Eversource rate case was classic Goldner. As a retired corporate executive and a non-lawyer, he brought an executive leadership sensibility to his job as a quasi-judicial decisionmaker, and it showed.

Goldner plucked a utility consultant’s quietly tendered recommendation from an obscure corner of the rate case record — that everyone should pay a fixed monthly tribute of $43 to Eversource, regardless of how much energy they use — and adopted it even though no party in the case was actually recommending such an outcome.

A bold move like that is often perfect for the executive suite at a company like Texas Instruments, where Goldner spent most of his career. It’s infinitely less appropriate in the context of a three-member tribunal that is supposed to act like a court and strike a balance between shareholder interests and ratepayer interests.

The rate case decision Goldner shepherded through the PUC, overcoming any misgivings that might have come from his fellow commissioners (economist Pradip Chattopadhyay and lawyer Mark Dell’Orfano) was full of stuff like that. Of note from a ratepayer perspective: Our five witnesses were not just disagreed with; they were essentially ignored.

Another example of Goldner’s "only I can fix it" approach to utility regulation was his quest to force the state’s electric utilities to rely on the ever-volatile "spot" wholesale market for the purchase of electricity to provide their default service. Intended as a backstop for customers who don’t exercise their right to buy electricity elsewhere, this default electricity had previously come entirely via six-month wholesale contracts.

The utilities made clear their queasiness about this shift but never summoned the moxie to oppose it outright. Exposing residential customers to wholesale price fluctuations is great until an extended cold snap some winter — perhaps this winter — sends the cost of default energy service into the ionosphere.

My beef was not with Goldner’s purpose, which was laudably to save people money by squeezing the risk premium out of default energy service. But then Goldner told the Legislature, through a spokesperson, that the PUC had internally developed analysis proving that the worries about price volatility were misplaced.

I fired off a request for this analysis on April 7, invoking the state’s public records law. To date I have received nothing. The PUC is supposed to make decisions based on a publicly disclosed record, not secretly developed material.

Meanwhile, an odd and noteworthy aspect of Goldner’s departure was the Governor having specified an employment expiration time of 5 p.m. I have a theory about that.

The last time a PUC chairperson departed was Nov. 12, 2021, when Dianne Martin relinquished the post. Late that evening, well after the PUC’s official close of business at 4:30 p.m., the PUC issued its infamous order announcing it would be phasing out NHSaves, the state’s suite of ratepayer-funded energy efficiency programs.

The Legislature ultimately overrode the order. It bore the signatures of the only two PUC members then in office: Martin and the newly appointed Daniel Goldner, later promoted to chairman. As the heir to Martin’s leadership style, he was, perhaps, in need of clear guidance as to the precise hour his authority expired.

Now the question becomes: Who will lead now, in the midst of an affordability crisis for utility rates that transcends our state’s borders?

Fortunately there is a whole book to read on this subject, called Preside or Lead?, available for free download and written by a respected thought leader, Scott Hempling of the Georgetown University Law Center. But the challenge Governor Ayotte confronts is greater than just selecting a new chairperson for the PUC.

Since the creation of the state Department of Energy in 2021, the Department and the PUC have never quite managed to work out their respective spheres. The Department is supposed to be the source of policy wisdom and the PUC the neutral adjudicator.

Somehow the polarities got reversed, resulting in confusion and cacophony.

News of Goldner’s departure broke in the middle of the annual energy policy summit put on by the Dupont Group, a Concord lobbying firm with lots of energy clients. Among the speakers was Tom Barrasso, head of the Department’s Office of Energy Innovation.

Barrasso’s office used to be called the Office of Offshore Wind Industry Development and Energy Innovation. At the energy summit, Barrasso was touting small modular reactors (SMRs) — mini-Seabrooks — as key to our electricity future.

The idea of rolling nuclear reactors off an assembly line, thus making them cheaper to build, is nice in theory but so far nobody has made the numbers pencil out. Asked about that, Barrasso said SMDs are important enough to pay the premium that would be needed to build them in New Hampshire.

If free money for new nuclear reactors is the next big thing for energy in New Hampshire, ratepayers should grab their wallets. But I remain hopeful that Governor Ayotte, who clearly cares about ratepayers and knows about energy, will pick leaders who are thoughtful, wise, innovative, and compassionate.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.