Welcome Your New Expert Interview Series: Peter Allen, New Expert in the Transmission Professionals Group - [an Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Expert Interview]
The utility sector is undoubtedly growing at an unprecedented rate, but many leaders find themselves wringing their hands that the amount of new workforce coming in may not be keeping pace with what’s needed. Just as critically, though, it’s when the retirement of lifelong utility professionals take out of the equation their institutional knowledge and deep, unparalleled expertise that these leaders have even more reason to worry.
Making sure the dreaded loss of expertise does not become insurmountable, the Energy Central Network of Experts always seeks to add to the ranks these long-time experts who have seen the transformation of the power sector from the inside and can share their key lessons learned with the wider community. The latest member of the experts in our Transmission Professionals group can do just that: Peter Allen.
Peter spent 22 years at the California Public Utilities Commission before retiring at the end of 2022. Before that, Peter’s career saw him navigating various different aspects of the sector across transmission and utility regulation, all of which he touches upon below in his New Expert Member Interview. Keep reading to learn about Peter’s experience and then in the comments below welcome him as our latest official Energy Central Expert!
Matt Chester: Thanks for agreeing to be one of our experts, Peter. Can you give your background in the industry so our community better understands what went into you being established as an expert?
Peter Allen: I'm an attorney, graduated from law school in 1989. I started out working for a firm that did securities class actions, so I learned about securitizing bad debt in the wake of the savings loan crisis. In 1991, I started representing the city of San Diego in utility proceedings before the California Public Utilities Commission. They had a longtime attorney doing that work who wasretiring, and this was before energy was cool, so no one else really wanted the job. So I became the city of San Diego's CPUC attorney and started litigating cases on behalf of the residents of San Diego and the city itself in front of the CPUC, doing both energy and telecommunications.
In 1992, I went to work for the utility consumer group TURN, which at the time was Toward Utility Rate Normalization, now The Utility Reform Network. And so I worked for them litigating mostly energy proceedings, both natural gas and electric, and some telecom cases in front of the CPUC.
In fall of '94, I actually quit practicing law to go to art school. There's a long story behind that. But ended up going back to work at TURN for the summer of ‘95 to fill in for an attorney on paternity leave who was in the middle of litigating a Southern California Edison general rate case. So I think I'm the only art student who had a summer job litigating electric rate design at the CPUC.
Eventually in 1998, I joined the CPUC as an attorney. I started out doing FERC litigation in the wake of California's electric deregulation. Later I was the CPUC’s lead attorney on CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, similar to the federal NEPA, so I was advising the Commission on CEQA issues, particularly relating to transmission siting. I also acted as Interim Assistant General Counsel, supervising attorneys doing enforcement work before the Commission.
After a few years I became an administrative law judge, and did a range of proceedings in response to California’s energy crisis that followed its deregulation, including allocation of billions of dollars in electricity contract costs that the state of California had signed in the wake of PG&E and Southern California Edison becoming non-creditworthy. I was also the administrative law judge responsible for implementing California's RPS renewables portfolio standard. That was in 2003 and 2004.
In 2007, I left the CPUC and went to a major law firm which had a very strong energy project finance practice, so I was doing regulatory work supporting the energy project finance people, but also doing some other CPUC litigation, including representing Shell in a fight with Chevron over the cost of transporting crude oil on a CPUC-regulated oil pipeline. In late 2008 the firm went under, and I returned to the CPUC as an attorney.
After returning to the CPUC I mostly acted in an advisory capacity, but I also was Interim Director of the Policy and Planning Division, acted as an ALJ on a major electric procurement planning proceeding, and was again Interim Assistant General Counsel, this time on the advisory side. Later, I think around 2015, I became the deputy director of what was then the Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division (now the Safety Enforcement Division), supervising all of the utility safety issues.
Around 2016, I returned to being an ALJ, and presided over a range of proceedings, including resource adequacy, the retirement of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, and the state side of PG&E’s second bankruptcy. And then towards the end, I switched back to being an attorney, but on the advocacy side, and did a lot of work on wildfires, which was not really my specialty, but I learned a lot about a transmission and distribution ignited fires, and I negotiated the CPUC’s settlement with PG&E over their ignition of the Kincade fire. I retired in December, but I still like connecting with people in the industry.