Ask the Experts: Renovating Rooftop Rate Design

Thad Culley is the Senior Regional Director and Regulatory Counsel for the Southeast for the non-profit solar advocacy organization Vote Solar. Before joining Vote Solar, Thad worked with the law firm Keyes & Fox, LLP in Oakland, California, where he worked on distributed generation issues including interconnection, rate design, and net metering before utilities commissions in over 15 states. Thad is currently a member of the California, South Carolina, and North Carolina state bars and is a board certified Utilities Law specialist in North Carolina. Thad is based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Lon Huber is a Vice President at Duke Energy overseeing the development and implementation of pricing and strategic solutions for the collection of over $22 billion in regulated revenue per year. Responding to changing customer needs, Lon is tasked with the development of new innovative electric rate designs in all jurisdictions of Duke Energy. Lon works to create new customer centric product bundles by leading the company’s demand side management and energy efficiency strategy as well as customer renewable strategy.
Lon also heads Duke’s Regulated Wholesale Portfolio consisting of 7.6 GW of contracts and over $2 billion revenue. Lon’s team structures all renewable QF contracts, which in the North Carolina consists of the nation’s second largest state portfolio of solar, second only to California. Finally, his team supports Duke’s generation procurement, helping Duke transition its 53 GW fleet to net zero by 2050.
Lon has received numerous awards for his creative solutions to the electricity industry’s most pressing issues, including the top honor from the Energy Storage Association as well as Utility Dive’s Innovator of the Year award.

As Vice President of Regulatory and Business Innovation, Janet Gail Besser leads SEPA’s Regulatory and Business Innovation Pathway and related work.  She brings to this role broad energy industry experience as a regulator, clean energy business association leader, utility executive, developer, consultant, and consumer advocate.  Previously, she was Executive Vice President of the Northeast Clean Energy Council (NECEC), Vice President, Regulatory Strategy and Policy at National Grid, Chair and Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, where she led electric industry restructuring, and an executive and expert consultant at Analysis Group and Lexecon.  She also held senior staff roles at the Massachusetts Energy Office and New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, served as policy director for a DC-based national independent power association, and began her career as a small hydro developer and low-income consumer advocate.  Janet is a nationally recognized expert on a wide range of energy policy issues with deep relationships across the industry.  She earned a Master in Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and a B.A., magna cum laude, from Williams College.