Utility rate cases and transmission siting at portfolio scale
The problem
An investor-owned utility runs a rate case every two to four years per state, plus certificate-of-public-convenience-and-necessity filings on every new transmission line, plus interconnection queue submissions, plus resource plan updates. The regulatory affairs team supports twelve state PUCs and FERC. Each state has its own methodology, its own testimony format, and its own preferred style of witness prep. The lead regulatory attorney spends three months per case on the same evidentiary base while adjusting for state-specific requirements. The utility never wins hearings by argument. It wins by preparation the other side did not bother with.
Why the usual approach breaks
Rate case filings are not documents. They are a stack of interlocking spreadsheets, cost-of-service studies, load research analyses, capital budgets, and depreciation lives, with narrative testimony that has to reconcile every number to a source. When the intervenor files a data request, the response has to be verifiable, timely, and consistent with every prior filing. When the ALJ rules on a threshold issue, the next filing has to internalize the ruling without re-litigating the settled question.
The team maintains this in a shared drive. Institutional knowledge lives in the head of the associate general counsel who has been at the utility for twenty years. When she retires, the entire filing tradition risks going with her.
How AI Permitting closes the gap
AI Permitting ingests the prior rate cases, the FERC filings, the state commission orders, and the current test-year data. Draft testimony is generated per witness with citations to the cost-of-service study, the load research, the depreciation study, and the prior orders that constrain the ask. Data-request responses are drafted against the actual filing exhibits, not from memory. When the intervenor's cross-examination hits a specific line item, the trail is queryable in seconds, not reassembled overnight.
Cross-state consistency runs continuously. When the utility takes a position in California on prudency of a transmission investment, and a different position in Nevada on the same asset, the system flags it before opposing counsel does.
Implementation pattern
The regulatory affairs team onboards the prior five years of filings, the current test-year data, and the state-specific methodology templates. AI Permitting handles the mechanical assembly, the citation reconciliation, and the cross-filing consistency. The attorneys spend time on the questions that actually move outcomes: prudency of investment, ROE benchmarking, allocation of risk between shareholders and ratepayers.
Next step
If your team is preparing a rate case or a CPCN and the timeline is tight, an architecture review takes your current filing calendar, the state PUCs you deal with, and the prior orders that constrain you, and produces a written findings doc your VP of regulatory affairs can present to the general counsel.