Senator Ron Winterton was among the many presenters at the 2024 Uintah Basin Energy Summit held this week at the Uintah Conference Center. Senator Winterton shared that for the first time last year Utah became an importer of electricity rather than an exporter. In response to this alarming trend, Winterton and his colleagues passed legislation saying Utah won’t let power plants be decommissioned until a replacement is operational because Utah is not going dark. It was as coal power plants were shut down that Utah went down the road of needing to import energy for the state and their efforts combat that trend. Senator Winterton also shared that the legislature has been giving the Governor’s Office more direction of where they want the focus when it comes to energy. He also spoke about the challenge of how to get generation to users when the federal government won’t allow right-of-ways across a lot of federal lands. He said there is the expectation to move to renewables but then they are not allowing for the transmission lines needed.
