SB 190 the safe choice

My parents live in Sikeston. My great aunt lives in Kennett. My cousins, meanwhile, live in Salem and Monett and a host of aunts, uncles and family members live throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area.

What happens in Missouri affects them, and as we all know, what affects family affects you.

Which is why I care about SB 190 and think it offers a winning energy proposal.

In an increasingly digitalized world that's exceedingly dependent on huge amounts of electricity generation to charge and recharge pint-sized, handheld electronics and interactive devices, we all need more energy to meet increasing demand.

Much of Missouri's electric infrastructure and substations are decades old, installed and put in service back when my parents were kids. Times and technologies have noticeably changed.

Missourians today expect more from their grid. They also expect the implementation of more renewable energy from solar panels and windmills. They don't want the capability of my parents' electric grid; they want a smart grid.

And, they don't want intermittent services or brown-outs. Per a report by Sustainable Power Systems, Missouri had 57 outages in 2015. Only five of them were planned.

Other states realize this and have adjusted accordingly, fine-tuning their regulatory models to meet growing demand, changing technologies and wear and tear. Not Missouri. Not yet.

SB 190 offers us a chance to make a difference.

If adopted, SB 190 would establish the "Missouri Economic Development and Infrastructure Investment Act," legislation sponsored by Sen. Ed Emery that aims to revitalize Missouri's aging utility infrastructure over a five-year period by modernizing the state's electric grid and reforming outdated regulations.

Not only does Missouri's economy stand to benefit via the creation of thousands of jobs and provisions that incentivize economic development, but the act would spur investment and improved reliability for the electric grid.

Case in point: State-of-the-art technology that can identify and repair outages, and restore power, without interruption in service would be added. The bill also includes incentives to mix more Missouri-produced bio-power into the grid and strengthen its cybersecurity.

Furthermore, SB 190 keeps in place the rigorous oversight responsibilities at the Public Service Commission, which ensures families and businesses are shielded from undue rate shocks. Price spikes like these can be backbreaking for those struggling to make ends meet and households throughout the state on fixed incomes, since unpredictable rate swings are not accounted for in most household budgets.

A severe shortage of reliable and affordable electricity can also be a hindrance for communities when attracting and keeping good-paying jobs -- something I've seen firsthand in the Bootheel and urban portions of the state. Missouri manufacturers today compete in a global, high-tech marketplace yet lack a local, high-tech electric grid to power it. Bringing that grid up to par with neighboring states via a forward-looking regulatory framework would help keep nearby production costs stable and predictable and avert unexpected spikes that would drive up costs, crush bottom lines and hurt job growth.

And since the cost of energy is built into every good and service we use daily -- like the clothes we wear, the shampoo we use, the carpet we walk on, the medication we take and the food we eat -- the bill would help keep the price of these common, everyday goods steady. The linchpin, however, is the forward-looking regulatory framework envisioned by the legislation.

Missouri's current regulatory model dates to 1913. It's hardly changed since, and we've paid a heavy price for that via outages from severe weather and other unknown elements. While Missouri has very reliable electric service, it ranks near the bottom nationally in the time it takes to restore that service.

Under this bill, the grid technology to instantaneously restore power, or prevent outages, would finally be put in place in Missouri. Elsewhere, 46 states have reformed and updated local policy to modernized its electric grid and invest in its infrastructure. Missouri should be one of them.

Brydon Ross is vice president of state affairs for Consumer Energy Alliance.