The District of Columbia Public Service Commission is seeking initial comments on the scope, issues, and proposed timeline for its newly opened investigative proceeding examining strategies to mitigate rising energy costs for residents and businesses. The commission opened the investigation in response to a petition from the Office of the People’s Counsel. The proceeding aims to assess and enhance energy affordability measures to protect ratepayers.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission seeks comments on additional topics in its proceeding examining time-of-use, or TOU, rates for investor-owned transmission and distribution utilities. The commission expanded the scope of the investigation to include additional rate designs that could offer savings to the residential and small business customers of Central Maine Power Company and Versant Power, specifically to examine critical peak pricing, peak time rebate, and EV-only charging rate designs. At a conference held last month, participants expressed the view that parties should have an opportunity to submit additional comments on the issues raised in this investigation, including alternative straw proposals. In 2025, commission staff filed a report prepared by its consultant, Exeter Associates, outlining recommendations for the commission’s consideration. To support this effort, commission staff prepared three illustrative straw proposals that present diverse approaches to potential TOU rate designs. 2025-00176

The Illinois Commerce Commission will hold a workshop to discuss the development of an integrated resource plan, or IRP, pursuant to the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act enacted in January. The legislation establishes an IRP process to ensure adequate electricity resources to serve customers in a safe, reliable, affordable, efficient, and environmentally sustainable manner that is also consistent with the state’s energy policy goals. The Illinois Commerce Commission Staff, Illinois Power Agency, Illinois Finance Authority, and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency are required to propose an IRP and submit the first report on Nov. 15. A December 2025 resource adequacy study by state agencies underscores increasing strain on the PJM Interconnection and Midcontinent Independent System Operator regions serving Illinois, due to load growth, generator retirements, and evolving capacity contributions. READ MORE

The California Air Resources Board and Québec’s Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks will hold their 46th joint quarterly carbon auction, which will offer allowances for current and future years. The current auction will offer 2024, 2025, and 2026 vintage allowances totaling about 54.8 million, and the advance auction will offer 2029 future allowances totaling about 6.5 million. The previous auction held in November sold all of the nearly 51.3 million current allowances at a price of $28.32 per allowance and 6.8 million future allowances at $29.61 per allowance. California’s cap-and-trade program places an economy-wide cap on major emitting sources. READ MORE

The California Energy Commission will hold a workshop to discuss guidelines for its 2026 Demand Side Grid Support, or DSGS, program. The program offers incentives to electric customers who provide load reduction and backup generation to support the grid during extreme events with payments for committed capacity and for per-unit reductions in net load. The fourth edition of the program guidelines, adopted in April 2025, includes a newly added incentive option that offers capacity-based compensation for load reduction capacity committed by dispatchable virtual power plants. Commission staff will present a summary of lessons learned from the implementation of the DSGS program in order to receive input on potential modifications to the program guidelines. 22-RENEW-01

The California Energy Commission seeks comments on the draft 2025 California Building Energy Action Plan, providing a multi-agency perspective on achieving greater decarbonization of existing buildings by improving energy efficiency, reducing overall energy consumption, and supporting strategies such as load flexibility. The commission originally published the California Existing Building Energy Efficiency Action Plan in 2015, and subsequently updated the plan in 2016, 2019, and 2022. The draft 2025 plan addresses statutory requirements established by several legislative measures, including SB 350, enacted in 2015, directing the commission to update its existing buildings strategies in furtherance of achieving a doubling of energy efficiency savings by 2030. 23-DECARB-03