Process for Purpose - RMI

This report by RMI examines regulatory reform efforts across 10 US states, emphasizing that the design of the process used to implement utility business model updates is as critical to success as the technical and economic details of the reforms themselves.

• The design of the process used to advance utility business model reforms is often overlooked in favor of technical and economic details, which can lead to adversarial debates and suboptimal outcomes. To counter this, stakeholders are increasingly using broader, more participatory processes to handle the complexity of electricity reforms and core utility business changes.
• Successful regulatory reform processes consist of four distinct stages: initiating the process, communicating the vision, conducting the process, and delivering outcomes. While various stakeholders can initiate these efforts, utility regulators are particularly important because they are generally responsible for driving the efforts toward final policy outcomes.
• Regulatory undertakings require a guiding vision that defines the opportunity, the benefits to customers, the grid, and public policy, the expected outputs, and how regulators will use those outputs. Furthermore, states can utilize two types of processes: investigatory processes for exploring needs and options, and decisional processes for adopting new rules or programs.

APA

RMI (2019). Process for Purpose - RMI. https://rmi.org/resources/process-for-purpose/

Chicago

RMI. Process for Purpose - RMI. 2019. https://rmi.org/resources/process-for-purpose/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Process for Purpose - RMI |date=6 February 2019 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/process-for-purpose/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2019process, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Process for Purpose - RMI}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2019}, month = feb, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/process-for-purpose/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }