2026 NARUC Annual Meeting and Education Conference

Public power utility leaders meet with experts in technology, energy, and policy. Attendance is limited to facilitate productive dialogue. Sessions address shifts in the global energy landscape, including the energy transition, energy security, geopolitical and economic competition, and investment in energy infrastructure, renewable technologies, nuclear power, and fossil fuels. Other discussions examine reliability and affordability amid growing demand, rising costs, regulatory pressures, and customer expectations; resource adequacy, infrastructure investment, workforce challenges, supply-chain constraints, and emerging technologies; and leadership through outages, cyber incidents, severe weather, safety emergencies, and public scrutiny. The program also explores AI and other emerging technologies, including their utility applications and questions around governance, cybersecurity, workforce impacts, and risk management. Additional topics include evaluating and integrating significant new loads, generation and infrastructure investments, contracts and rate protections, aligning economic development with the public power mission, and workforce development, succession planning, leadership training, and knowledge transfer.

Sessions address electric cooperative governance, strategic planning, and emerging industry issues. A discussion covers challenges, opportunities, and successes for electric cooperatives; other sessions examine the U.S. economy, financial markets, and electric industry outlook and their effects on cooperatives. General-session themes include planning for goals, assessing risk, preparing for adversity, and the role of heroism and service. Breakouts cover questions directors should ask about data centers, preventing electrical accidents, communicating with consumer-members, and artificial intelligence and the future of energy. Electrical-safety demonstrations illustrate the risks of high-voltage electricity and the equipment and practices used to protect cooperative employees and the public. The closing session includes an update from NRECA’s board of directors.

The forum examines North American power markets across renewables, conventional generation, utilities, data centers, commercial and industrial offtakers, and government. Topics include energy-policy consistency and consequential legislation; the effects of tariffs, tax-credit regulation, geopolitical conflict, interest rates, and industry consolidation on costs and demand; FERC interconnection reform and transmission investment; and whether domestic solar and storage manufacturing can compete under changing trade and incentive rules. The program also addresses data-center and AI-driven load growth, local opposition and project approvals, equipment and workforce constraints, powered land, gas paired with battery storage, battery operations and project economics, and mergers and acquisitions in power development. Other sessions examine hyperscaler nuclear strategies, clean firm and dispatchable power, long-duration storage, geothermal, small modular reactors, gas with CCS, aging renewable assets, behind-the-meter storage, large-load flexibility, and utility–data center collaboration. Roundtable topics include understanding FEOC and tariffs, overcoming local opposition, operations and maintenance, flexibility programs, EPC partnerships, and behind-the-meter projects.

The conference combines superintendent and engineer meetings for presentations on new technology, standards, and industry regulations, alongside a joint product show featuring solutions from digital tools to bucket trucks. Agenda topics include automation, leadership, field testing for metering accuracy and hidden losses, AI tools for engineering and operations, advanced distribution operations and faster restoration, and relay testing. A group-led roundtable covers artificial intelligence in electric cooperatives, contractor requirements, dispatching, employee retention, right-of-way and line-extension policies, pole loading and guying, BESS, data center loads, electronic breakers, safety, equipment, and automation. Additional listed issues include ODOT projects, ground-grid and relay advancements, vegetation and asset management using LiDAR and drone mapping, protection engineering, utility construction coordination and constructability, and independent construction oversight and QA/QC. The business meeting includes the election of 2027 officers and new business.

Sessions address policy, regulatory, and power-supply issues affecting joint action agencies and public power utilities. Topics include affordability, reliability, load growth, member expectations, and the role of joint action agencies in supporting members. The program covers AI and data centers’ effects on electricity-demand forecasts; utility costs, procurement timelines, supply chains, and rates; advanced nuclear deployment timelines, economics, and regulatory pathways; natural-gas production, pipeline development, and supply risks; and resource adequacy, capacity markets, and regional reliability. Additional sessions address battery storage, distributed and backup generation, virtual power plants, demand response, and emerging AI applications and member services. The event is designed for CEOs and senior management of joint action agencies and state associations, board members, commissioners, and public power utilities. Select sessions may be restricted to APPA member utilities, joint action agencies, and state associations.

The conference theme is “Going Critical: Creating a Durable Nuclear Resurgence.” Plenary discussions address how technology, finance, and public policy can sustain nuclear energy momentum, and how public confidence, domestic supply chains, workforce development, investment, and state leadership can support deployment at scale. John Wagner, Laboratory Director at INL, is a featured speaker; the opening plenary also includes U.S. NRC Commissioners Douglas Weaver and Bradley Crowell. The technical program features expert-led presentations and peer-reviewed research on advanced reactors, fuel cycle and waste management, reactor physics, fusion, AI and machine learning, materials science, instrumentation and controls, criticality safety, and robotics. Named session topics include nuclear energy markets, financing and economics; hybrid and integrated energy systems; maritime and data center applications; nuclear safeguards; cybersecurity; molten salt reactor fuels and materials; and advanced/additive manufacturing. Panels address uranium mining remediation, environmental review, digital twins, advanced reactor fuel supply and fabrication, and nuclear deployment pathways.

The program examines Texas power policy, market design, infrastructure development, project investment, and operations. Shared plenary sessions address the 90th Legislative Session and SB 6, PUCT rulemaking, ERCOT’s Batch Zero large-load interconnection process, load growth, data-center power supply, 765-kV transmission, siting and permitting, and local engagement. Headline speakers include State Representative Todd Hunter of the Texas House of Representatives (District 32) and Commissioner Courtney Hjaltman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Day Two has concurrent ERCOT Market Reforms and Investment & Asset Optimization tracks. Topics include resource adequacy, transmission cost allocation beyond 4CP, data-center development, battery state-of-charge rules, cybersecurity and energy security, renewable project strategy, dispatchable generation, electricity affordability, demand response, distributed energy resources and ADER, and inverter-based resource ride-through requirements. Other sessions examine battery project economics, powered-land siting factors such as water and cooling, and strategies for optimizing assets in changing market conditions. The closing plenaries cover advanced nuclear, geothermal and other low-emission dispatchable generation; project finance amid tax-credit, FEOC/PFE, procurement, interest-rate, EPC-cost and tariff risks; and energy-asset M&A and deal trends.

The August 31 member sessions cover RHA advocacy priorities, proposed Washington and Oregon legislative priorities, technical committee work, and a 2026 electrolytic hydrogen case study on long-duration seasonal storage using hydropower, electrolyzers, pipeline connections, and fuel-cell power production. The technical update also addresses waste-to-energy pathways, including technologies for producing hydrogen from waste feedstocks. Other sessions cover transportation-market development, Toyota fuel-cell solutions, and member project and commercial updates. A Douglas County PUD facility tour focuses on electrolyzer systems, hydrogen storage infrastructure, operational safety, and deployment in rural and utility-scale settings. The conference program examines state and local hydrogen policy, Washington’s market strategy, California infrastructure lessons, customer-centered transportation solutions, hydrogen fueling networks, workforce and economic development, and regional transportation markets. Sessions also address electrolysis opportunities amid generation constraints and rising power prices; hydrogen production from wastewater, forestry biomass, and landfill gas; and local innovations for electric and gas systems. The final program day covers alternative fuels and global energy markets, public-private partnerships for transportation infrastructure and fuels, climate policy and energy affordability, and emerging energy technologies including hydrogen, geothermal, nuclear, and biomass. A vehicle and equipment expo and a community celebration are also listed. The August 31 sessions are for members; the facility tour is open to the public, and the community celebration is free and open to the public.

The conference focuses on the customer-utility interface, including planning, demand management, distributed energy resources, storage, DERMS, energy efficiency, interconnection, standardization, scalability, AI, data center growth, and next-generation loads. The program includes tutorials, technical tours, welcome and opening remarks with a keynote, breakout sessions, exhibits, stage presentations, startup lightning pitches, a poster session, and a closing session. Super Sessions address generation mix and grid reliability; data center growth and the AI economy; flexible load management; AI for planning, operations, and reliability; and asset management for an affordable grid. The program also includes an invite-only Innovation Challenge and brings together utility engineers, planners, consultants, developers working on large-load interconnections, AI and data-center leaders, DER providers, policymakers, regulators, and researchers in data, cybersecurity, and grid-edge systems. PacifiCorp is the host utility.