Less than two years into his time as Ohio's top utility regulator, Asim Haque has already served in the role longer than each of his two predecessors, and says his main goal is to make the office more forward-looking.

To understand what he means, some review is in order. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has spent most of the last decade embroiled in cases dealing with how power plants are regulated and compensated. This debate played out in complicated proposals that were litigated for years.

Haque, the PUCO chairman, says the time has come to shift the focus to how to modernize the electricity grid.

"We are trying to change the energy dialogue in the state of Ohio," he said.

This year, the PUCO began a series of forums called Power Forward, looking at regulatory issues tied to advancements in the way electricity is generated and delivered. Haque says one of the purposes is to prepare the PUCO staff to deal with plans from major utilities and other companies that are using new technologies.

American Electric Power and FirstEnergy both have pending proposals that include some form of technological upgrades for the local systems that deliver electricity. At the same time, unregulated companies such as Nest Labs are offering products that give customers more control of their energy usage.

Broadly, this all fits under the umbrella of "grid modernization," a term that refers to attempts to make the electricity system more resilient and interactive, according to the definition used by NC Clean Energy Technology Center, a research group at North Carolina State University.

"I think customers are still, on a month-to-month basis, very surprised when they open up their utility bills, and it doesn't need to be that way," Haque said. "Technology exists where consumers' experience with their utilities can be far enhanced."

The PUCO's job will be to decide who pays for new technologies, and how much. This likely will be a mix of projects from regulated utilities, which would be paid for through customer bills, and work done by unregulated businesses that can be integrated into the system, he said.

Ohio leaders are wise to take a broad look at the grid rather than handle these issues through a piecemeal approach, said Sonia Aggarwal, a vice president at Energy Innovation, a research firm based in San Francisco.

"This is coming up in almost every state," she said. "It is one of the hottest topics, as far as topics can be hot in the world of utility regulation."

She lists California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York and Rhode Island as states that have taken notable steps to modernize the grid.

Haque, 38, who lists no party affiliation, was a staff attorney for Honda before 2013, when he got appointed to the five-member PUCO by Gov. John Kasich. In May 2016, Kasich made Haque the panel's chairman.

The PUCO regulates investor-owned companies that provide electricity, natural gas, telephone and water services, and also oversees moving companies and other motor carriers.

The previous two chairmen, Thomas Johnson and Andre Porter, each served in the role for about one year. Both of them spent much of their time dealing with plans from electricity utilities to allow profit guarantees for power plants that might otherwise close. Johnson remains a voting member of the board, while Porter left to take a job in Indiana.

Today, after litigation in several venues, the profit guarantees were rejected and the utilities are moving to sell or close many of the plants.

"We lived the future-of-power-plants dialogue here at the agency for three-plus years," Haque said about the profit guarantees.

His term on the PUCO ends in 2021 and he says he will remain chairman as long as the governor wants him in the role. Starting in 2019, that governor will be someone other than Kasich, who is term limited.

"I will continue to do this job so long as the governor wants me to do this job," Haque said.

dgearino@dispatch.com

@dangearino