Statehouse News Bureau

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With HB6 Settled, Ohio House Turns Attention To Energy Grid Modernization

By Andy Chow

Published February 10, 2020 at 7:31 PM EST

For the last decade, Ohio lawmakers were locked in heated debates over how the state should address energy generation, from bailing out nuclear to rolling back green energy standards. With a new law that does both of those on the books, Ohio's House and Senate leaders are turning their attention to a different energy debate: modernizing the power grid.

Grid modernization can be an umbrella term for a number of topics related to the way electricity is delivered from the power plant to a home or business.

New technologies in this field continue to develop, such as upgraded control systems or improved battery storage. Republican House Speaker Larry Householder said it's up the legislature to make sure these breakthroughs can fit into Ohio's code.

"There's some things in state law that holds back some of those things so we're having discussions on how to open up some of these avenues up," Householder said. "We're 20 years behind in what we should do as far as laws to allow their life to be better and to properly utilize the electricity that we have in this state."

Part of the debate when it comes to developing what's known as "smart grid" technology is how much of that cost should be passed on to customers.