Background

Electricity regulators are contending with two simultaneous paradigm shifts:

1) from rate-based regulation of vertically integrated utilities to competitive markets for generation, with regional markets playing a growing role even in jurisdictions like Oregon that do not have organized wholesale markets themselves, and

2) from dependence on dispatchable central stations for most electricity generation to an electricity supply mix with high shares of intermittent renewables.

PESD is helping regulators and regulatory staff equip themselves for these paradigm shifts by hosting game-based workshops and, increasingly, deploying interactive e-learning resources on electricity market principles.

As PESD works to expand our e-learning program to energy regulators across the West, feedback from organizations like the Oregon Public Utility Commission is crucial to ensuring our plans meet the needs of regulatory staff. Funding from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies helped kickstart a pilot e-learning program with the Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC).

Pilot Program

This winter 2024/2025, 12 OPUC staff completed a suite of five PESD e-learning modules on electricity market principles and then participated in an online survey and zoom discussion to provide their input on what worked well, what could be improved, and how we might deploy e-learning tools more broadly within their organization and at other public utility commissions.

In survey feedback, participants found the modules to be well-paced (100% found the first three modules to be “just right” in their pacing), valuable (with 75% finding the modules “quite” or “extremely” valuable), and relevant to their work (75% strongly agree, 25% agree).

The zoom feedback session provided more context, and it was great to hear ideas from PUC staff on how to make the e-learning modules even more helpful. The modules are designed to cover universally applicable market topics, but the success of this session and the feedback from OPUC are encouraging us to consider how the e-learning modules might be paired with follow-on zoom discussions that delve into region-specific topics.

Next Steps

In the next six months, PESD will use the valuable information gained during this pilot to roll out the e-learning program to 100 regulators and regulatory staff at PUCs throughout the West. We are very excited to extend the impact of these modules to a wider geographic footprint!

More Information

The PESD e-learning program currently includes 6 modules on electricity markets: Fixed and Variable Costs, Offer-Based Markets, Uniform-Price versus Pay-as-Bid Auctions, Unilateral Market Power, Genco Incentives with Forward Contracts, and Transmission Constraints. Additional modules are in development. For more information about the e-learning program, please visit our webpage.

PESD thanks the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Impact Labs for the funding support, and Sudeshna Pal and the Oregon PUC participants for making this pilot possible. 

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PESD and OPUC meet to discuss e-learning modules