{"id":7970,"date":"2019-09-16T11:09:52","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T15:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/?page_id=7970"},"modified":"2025-10-09T13:47:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T17:47:28","slug":"steve-schlauch","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/jobs-internships\/directed-internship-program-dip\/steve-schlauch\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Schlauch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beginning in the summer of 2018, and continuing on throughout the Fall semester, I was extremely fortunate to hold a student research appointment at Duke University\u2019s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, with their Climate and Energy Program Lab. The initial role of the research position\u2014under the supervision of the program director, a senior policy associate, and a public policy professor\u2014revolved heavily around the architecture of crafting a publicly available, free, database driven web portal related to public utilities commissions (PUCs) in the Unite<\/span>d States.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The operations and responsibilities of PUCs vary throughout the U.S., but they can all be defined somewhat similarly as a governing body that regulates rates and services of a public ut<\/span>ility within each state. They assist in shaping the landscape of the U.S. power system. Therefore, the primary goals for the content and functionality of a PUC web portal were to track emerging new technology and clean energy policy trends proposed and ordered in public utility commission dockets and bills; describe the legal authorities and structures of dissimilar PUCs, as well as the electric generation mix of each state; and enable comparative analyses that suggest policy proposals from \u201csimilar\u201d states to the user\u2019s target state or utility commission.<\/p>\n

Inspiration for the web portal was built on research undertaken by a group of attorneys and academics from all over the U.S. known as the PUC Collaborative. This group of professionals had immense interest in documenting the similarities and differences between PUCs in America. They devised a state survey consisting of over three hundred questions pertaining to PUC structure and governance, state energy and electricity profiles, renewable energy programs, electric vehicle programs, and several other categories. Their aim was to compile surveys for every state in the country, but only 20 surveys were completed by the end of 2015, and the project eventually came to a halt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Climate and Energy Program Lab gained access to the completed surveys, enabling my supervisor and I to sift through and analyze the material to use as a springboard of potential ideas and direction for the web portal to set itself apart from other comparable database driven websites such as <\/span>AEE PowerSuite<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>DSIRE<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>NC Clean Technology\u2019s 50 States Reports<\/span><\/i>. Following further research and scoping, I was assigned to numerous tasks including constructing mock datasets for the use of drafting web design templates; creating PowerPoint presentations to showcase the lab\u2019s progress to groups of advisors; scheduling in person and WebEx meetings with PUC Collaborative members, as well as collaborators at NC State and NARUC; overseeing other students hire<\/span>d to work with the lab during Fall semester; and uploading multiple datasets into the MySQL program in preparation for updating and testing a beta website in the spring of 2019.<\/p>\n

Among the array of functions that the web portal plans to provide, my supervisor and I were credited with creating a unique comparative tool called <\/span>States Like Mine<\/span><\/i>, which enables the user to find states that are similar to their target state based off of specific PUC characteristics, as well as energy statistics and actions that have been taken in states on topics such as electric vehicles, net metering, and a range of others as the web portal continues to evolve.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After working on such a project for seven months, I was inundated with insightful takeaways, but the most important primarily revolve around being able to incorporate my new-found perspective toward the arena of public utilities commissions and the energy sector into my strong interest in urban psychology, environmental and social justice, and public policy. As a graduate student in City Planning, the knowledge I now possess about PUCs and power systems in America, and how a majority of its citizens are assuredly unaware of the enormity of power with which both sectors occupy, I\u2019ve acquired an enhanced mentality regarding the importance of planners and their awareness of energy inequality, as well as knowing the makeup of their state\u2019s utility commissioners and what their politics and agendas consist of.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beginning in the summer of 2018, and continuing on throughout the Fall semester, I was extremely fortunate to hold a student research appointment at Duke University\u2019s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, with their Climate and Energy Program Lab. The initial role of the research position\u2014under the supervision of the program director, a senior policy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16747,"featured_media":0,"parent":7077,"menu_order":12,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16747"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7970"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11367,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7970\/revisions\/11367"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cityplanning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}