Chairman of Federal Regulatory Commission Speaks March 4 at Marshall

Sponsored by the College of Business, Wellinghoff’s presentation, “A Day in the Life of the Grid,” will be open to the public as well as the Marshall University community. He will speak at Marshall University Foundation Hall, home of the Erickson Alumni Center, at 4 p.m. A question-and-answer session will follow.

President Barack Obama named Wellinghoff chairman of FERC in 2009. Wellinghoff is an energy law attorney with 37 years experience in regulatory, consumer and commercial law. Prior to joining FERC as a commissioner in 2006, he was in private practice focusing exclusively on client matters related to renewable energy, energy efficiency and distributed generation.

He served two terms as the State of Nevada’s first Consumer Advocate for Customers of Public Utilities and authored the first comprehensive state utility integrated planning statute. That statute has become a model for utility integrated planning processes across the country. He also was the primary author of the Nevada Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) Act. Nevada is one of the two states to receive an “A” rating by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Wellinghoff has written and lectured extensively on numerous subjects related to energy policy and practice including renewable project development and renewable portfolio standards; smart grid and integration of electric vehicles and consumer appliances into the grid; demand response and distributed generation; efficient energy market structures and development and licensing of hydrokinetic systems.

Chairman Wellinghoff’s priorities at FERC include opening wholesale electric markets to renewable resources and providing a platform for participation of demand response and other distributed resources in wholesale electric markets, including energy efficiency and local storage systems such as those in plug-in hybrid and all electric vehicles (PHEVs and EVs).

In addition, he is focused on promoting greater efficiency in our nation’s energy infrastructure through the institution of advanced technologies and system integration. As chairman, he created FERC’s Office of Energy Policy and Innovation (OEPI), which is responsible for investigating and promoting new efficient technologies and practices in the energy sectors under FERC’s jurisdiction