Energy Seminar Series: Allocating Electricity, September 25, 2025

Abstract:
The U.S. electricity system is premised on the ideas that utilities have a duty to serve all customers in their service territories and that electricity supply should always meet demand. But a rapid increase in data center energy needs is revealing problems with those premises. To meet this moment, and to address future electrical-supply challenges, we propose a partial shift to a new system, in which major new electricity consumers can connect to the grid even where electrical supply will not always be sufficient, can have their use curtailed by utilities, and can use secondary markets to hedge against curtailment risk. We explore the potential for this new approach by using examples from natural gas management and water law in the western United States. In both fields, a foundational assumption is that supply will sometimes fall short of demand, and both fields therefore hold potential lessons for electricity-supply challenges.

Biography – Dave Owen

Dave Owen is the Albert Abramson ’54 Distinguished Professor and the Associate Dean for Research at UC Law San Francisco (formerly Hastings), where he teaches courses in environmental, water, energy and administrative law. His research spans those same fields, with a primary focus on water resource management. He previously taught at the University of Maine School of Law, practiced water law, and, before law school, worked as an environmental consultant. He has won UC Law SF’s highest teaching award, and several of his articles have been selected by peers as top environmental-law articles of their respective years.

Biography – Alexandra Klass:

Alexandra B. Klass is the James G. Degnan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. She teaches and writes primarily in the areas of energy law, environmental law, and natural resources law. In 2022 and 2023, she served in the Biden-Harris administration as Deputy General Counsel for Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy Demonstrations at the U.S. Department of Energy. Professor Klass’s recent scholarly work, published in many of the nation’s leading law journals, addresses regulatory and permitting challenges to integrating more renewable energy into the nation’s electric transmission grid, siting and eminent domain issues surrounding interstate electric transmission lines and oil and gas pipelines, and applications of the public trust doctrine to modern environmental law challenges. She is a co-author of Energy Law: Concepts and Insights Series (Foundation Press, 2d ed. 2020), Energy Law and Policy (West Academic Publishing, 3d ed. 2022), and Natural Resources Law: A Place-Based Book of Problems and Cases (Wolters Kluwer, 5th ed. 2022). Before joining the Michigan Law faculty in 2022, Professor Klass was a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she was a member of the faculty from 2006 to 2022. She has been a visiting professor at Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, Uppsala University (Sweden), and the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law. Prior to her academic career, Professor Klass was a partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Minneapolis, where she specialized in environmental law and land use litigation