From research to real impact

Shaping tomorrow's utilities at UF's Public Utility Research Center

With inflation close to 10% in 1971, President Richard Nixon announced the Price Commission that would work with wage and price controls to help the United States. Former UF Warrington Dean Robert Lanzillotti was one of seven members of the commission. He was responsible for the utilities sector and began conversations with utility companies in Florida, learning about their economic and other challenges.

That’s how the Public Utility Research Center (PURC) was born at the University of Florida.

Lanzillotti learned that utility prices were already regulated in Florida, but he wanted to create a research center that ensured people were properly evaluating their questions. He didn’t want the center to make recommendations because of their research—he wanted the research to be done properly so experts in the utility industry were equipped to make important decisions.

Today, that’s still how PURC operates.

“People are interested in our opinions on topics, but we keep that separate from academic research,” said Mark Jamison, director of the center. “We are still analyzing things and then letting others figure out their situation through what the analysis says. We always tell them that we aren’t the experts in their world, but we can help them understand the fundamentals and what everyone else is doing. We can help them understand what the research says, but it’s their decision on how to implement it.”

PURC has three areas of operation today. The center works in international outreach to bring people to UF for training and professional education events, serves the state of Florida as a place where people can analyze utility regulatory issues with analytically correct methods, and strengthens technology advancement in areas like broadband growth.

PURC hosts conferences and training programs that play an important role in educating the public and funding the center. The PURC Annual Conference has been held every year since 1971 and is designed for members of utility companies and lawyers in Florida, as well as UF students and faculty. Florida’s Sunshine Law keeps the conference from addressing current issues, so they focus on issues of the future, with AI and cyberattacks the main focus of the 2024 conference.

“The conference focuses on what we see coming soon and teaches those in attendance how they might approach it,” Jamison said.

PURC also offers an international training program, which started in January 1997 with seed money from the World Bank. Almost 4,000 people from 156 countries have completed the program, which focuses on energy, water and telecommunications. Attendees learn specifics on how to set up their energy markets and pricing, how to advance water and sewage systems, and how to handle broadband advancement in their area.

They also work with PURC’s Director of Leadership Studies Araceli Castaneda on implementation. After learning about specific areas, Castaneda helps attendees find detailed ways they can work through politics, banking and consumers to get their infrastructure set up correctly.

“After a few years, we found that people were going back to their countries and things were falling apart,” Castaneda said. “Their political system couldn’t deal with the pressure of significant changes. It wasn’t an economics problem, it was a people problem. We had to show them how to navigate through the transitions.”

In total, PURC hosted eight training courses that provided 235.5 hours of in-person classroom instruction in 2023.

Jamison and Director of Energy Studies Ted Kury play important roles in the research produced by PURC. Jamison is active with the American Enterprise Institute, where he publishes blogs and hosts public events. Kury is actively posting his research on The Conversation. Their papers on venture capital and the technology industry are often circulated throughout Capitol Hill and influence policy.

The two participate in guest lectures around the UF campus, and students are also involved in different parts of PURC. Students can lead sessions in their area of expertise during conferences or even work with PURC to solve utility issues through data analytics projects. In 2023, PURC produced 31 blog posts to go with 13 working papers, journal articles and book chapters. They also completed six op-eds and 14 presentations, panels and events.

Whether it’s students, peers or industry, PURC is making a noticeable impact.

“Participants are often telling us we are the No. 1 program to come get trained,” Jamison said. “We get so many international people coming to us, they learn about the University of Florida through us. It’s rewarding to do that and then see these people return to their countries and make a huge impact.”