Sponsors
The bill protects consumers from direct smart-grid charges and avoids duplicative state proceedings, but shifts financial and administrative burdens onto utilities and regulators—raising the risk of reduced investment, slower grid modernization, and potential impacts on long‑term service resilience.
Ratepayers (households and businesses) will not be charged for smart-grid deployment costs, reducing or avoiding direct increases on electric bills.
States with prior regulatory actions on smart-grid matters are exempted, avoiding duplicative proceedings and reducing regulatory overlap for those state governments and utilities.
Utilities and their shareholders must absorb smart-grid costs, which could force reduced capital investment, deferred maintenance, or shifting of other costs—potentially harming service quality and long-term grid resilience for communities.
Potential discouragement of utility smart-grid deployment could slow grid modernization, delaying reliability improvements and integration of renewable energy for communities nationwide.
Imposes strict deadlines on state regulators and nonregulated utilities to open and conclude proceedings within 1–2 years, increasing administrative burden and legal/management costs for state governments and utilities.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Bars electric utilities from recovering any costs of smart grid deployment from ratepayers and requires state regulators/nonregulated utilities to review and decide within set deadlines.
Prohibits electric utilities from charging ratepayers for any capital, operating, or other costs tied to deploying smart grid systems, and requires state regulators and nonregulated utilities to start reviewing this standard within 1 year and to decide within 2 years. The bill also adjusts related federal timing rules and exempts states that recently implemented or considered a comparable standard in the prior three years.
Introduced February 7, 2025 by Jefferson Van Drew · Last progress February 7, 2025