Add enough thermostats to the program, and the utility might not need to spend as much on new transformers — or even a new power plant.

“Having the utility serve as overall conductor is the one thing that provides benefits to everybody and not just the people who have the device,” said Scott Smith, MGE’s assistant vice president of regulatory strategy and a member of the group. “It’s not necessarily a customer avoiding a rate; it’s the utility avoiding a cost. If we avoid the cost, that’s a savings for everyone.”

The report suggests regulators develop new programs to encourage utilities to invest up to $100 million per year — a little more than 1% of total revenues — into new technologies, such as battery storage or tools to manage load.

“We need to move much faster in designing pilots using new technologies … to empower customers to make better choices,” Ebert said. “Over five years we believe we will significantly accelerate this transition and do it in a way that’s going to allow us to understand how it’s going to affect reliability, safety and cost.”

The group also recommends additional investment in energy efficiency, particularly in ways that cut consumption when energy is most expensive and most likely to be produced with fossil fuels.

Traditionally every dollar spent by Focus on Energy, the state’s ratepayer-funded conservation program, have traditionally yielded about $4 in benefits. Yet the report noes that over the past decade Wisconsin fell from number 8 to number 25 in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s national rankings as other states’ energy efficiency policies evolved.