Utility Dive Submission Guidelines: Pitching Power Sector Commentary

Key Takeaways

• Utility Dive runs contributed commentary from outside experts alongside its daily reporting, and its editors judge pitches on the same grounds as news: a live development, a defensible claim, and relevance to utility executives and regulators.
• A workable pitch is a 150-to-250-word email stating the thesis in two sentences, the evidence behind it, the news peg, and the writer's role.
• Finished commentary generally runs 600 to 900 words, argues one point, and discloses every employment or commercial interest.
• Contributed commentary at trade outlets is normally unpaid. The return is exposure to the officials who set rates, write rules, and sign procurement contracts.
• Utility Dive suits US-focused experts writing on current regulatory and market developments. Long-form regulatory analysis fits Public Utilities Fortnightly or The Electricity Journal, while Energy Central offers a simpler entry point for professionals building a byline.

1. Introduction

Power sector experts have more to argue about than usual. Federal transmission planning rules, EPA greenhouse gas standards for power plants, interconnection queues that stretch for years, and load growth forecasts reshaped by data centers have all moved from technical detail into public controversy. The people who decide these questions, state utility commissioners and their staff, FERC officials, and utility resource planners, read trade publications during the workday. Utility Dive is among the most widely read of those publications.

Most experts who try to publish there run into the same problems. Pitches get no reply. Accepted drafts come back heavily edited. Some submissions read like marketing and quietly damage the author's standing. Utility Dive publishes little formal guidance for outside contributors, so the practical process has to come from how the newsroom operates and from standing practice at daily trade outlets.

This article covers what Utility Dive publishes, how to build a pitch an editor can act on, how to write the piece after acceptance, and how the outlet compares with other venues for power sector commentary. The aim is to move a submission from a cold email to a published byline with as few wasted cycles as possible.

2. What Utility Dive publishes and who reads it

Fit decides the outcome before any writing starts. Utility Dive, published by Industry Dive (part of Informa since 2022), covers electric, gas, and water utilities for a professional audience. Its reporting tracks state rate cases, FERC proceedings, EPA rulemaking, wholesale market design, resource planning, wildfire liability, renewables and storage deployment, and the load growth questions data centers have raised across the country. Readers include utility executives, state commission staff, regulatory attorneys, consultants, investors, and vendors who follow the same beat.

The publication runs two kinds of outside material. Staff reporters write the daily news. A smaller stream of contributed commentary, published under the opinion label, carries arguments from outside experts: former regulators, academics, think tank researchers, utility consultants, and industry association staff. Sponsored content also exists, but it runs through the commercial side of the business and is labeled as such; the editorial commentary stream is separate.

Read two weeks of the section you plan to target before you pitch. That reading tells you the publication's rhythm, its length norms, and what it has already covered. If your topic ran last month, the new contribution needs a new angle, such as a docket ruling, a filing, a cost figure, or a state comparison the earlier piece missed.

3. Building a pitch editors can act on

A pitch is a short memo that answers four questions: what is the claim, why now, what evidence supports it, and who is writing. Editors at daily trade publications triage email quickly and reject most of it for reasons that have nothing to do with quality: the topic lacks a news peg, the piece reads as promotion, or the argument cannot be verified from public sources. A pitch that survives states its claim in the first two sentences and gives the editor enough to judge the whole piece.

Take a concrete case. A state supreme court has just ruled on the allowed return on equity in a major rate case. An economist who has followed the docket can pitch within a day or two: the ruling narrows the gap between authorized and market ROEs, two other states are litigating the same question, and the commission data to support the claim sits in public filings. That pitch hands an editor a headline, a nut paragraph, and a reason to run the piece this week.

A workable pitch email contains:

• A subject line naming the development, for example "Commentary: what the ROE ruling means for rate cases".
• Two sentences stating the thesis.
• Two or three sentences of supporting evidence, with named sources such as dockets, FERC orders, EIA data, or published reports.
• The news peg, with dates.
• A one-line bio with title and employer, plus any relevant disclosure.
• Links to two or three prior publications.
• Availability and a draft timeline.

Send it to the editor who covers the beat; Utility Dive lists editorial staff and contact details on its site. If there is no reply in about a week, one polite follow-up is reasonable. After that, the better use of time is a different venue.

4. Writing the piece once it is accepted

Write for readers who already know the basics and need one argument, with numbers, to take back to their own work. Contributed commentary at daily trade outlets usually runs 600 to 900 words, though the assigning editor sets the final target. The audience does not need a definition of a rate base or an interconnection queue. It needs a position, the public evidence behind it, and the consequence for utilities, regulators, or customers. Editors will check claims against the sources you cite, cut promotional language, and apply house style, so the draft you send should already be lean.

Compare two openings. A weak opening announces that the energy transition requires new thinking. A strong opening states that a specific commission order will shift hundreds of millions of dollars in transmission costs between customer classes, then shows the arithmetic from the docket. The second version gives readers something they can check and use.

A structure that works at 700 words:

1. First paragraph: the claim and the news peg.
2. Second and third paragraphs: the evidence, each tied to a public source such as a docket, an order, or a dataset.
3. Fourth paragraph: the consequence, stated for a specific actor, whether state commissions, utility planners, or market participants.
4. Final paragraph: the boundary conditions, meaning what the argument does not cover.

Disclose affiliations in the bio line. If your employer or a client has a position in the proceeding, say so in the text; editors ask, and undisclosed conflicts end relationships. Cite documents readers can open themselves: Federal Register notices, FERC eLibrary dockets, state filing websites, and EIA or Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory datasets.

5. Where Utility Dive fits among power sector commentary outlets

Pick the venue by depth, timing, and career stage, then pitch there first. Several US outlets take outside commentary on electricity policy, and each rewards a different kind of writing.

Three questions sort the choice. First, how time-sensitive is the argument? A piece that depends on this month's order belongs at Utility Dive or RTO Insider; an argument about rate design doctrine can wait for Public Utilities Fortnightly. Second, how long is the argument? Trade commentary runs 600 to 900 words; anything longer needs a magazine or a journal. Third, what does the writer need? A senior expert aiming at commissioners wants Utility Dive's readership; a graduate student building a record may start at Energy Central and move up.

6. FAQ

Q1. Does Utility Dive pay for contributed commentary?

Trade publications normally run outside commentary unpaid. The publication pays its staff journalists; outside experts write for reach. The realistic return is an email exchange with a commissioner's office, a conference invitation, or a citation in a regulatory filing. Confirm the terms with the editor when the pitch is accepted.

Q2. How long should the pitch and the finished piece be?

Aim for a 150-to-250-word pitch email and a 600-to-900-word draft. Both numbers are norms across daily trade outlets, and the assigning editor can override either. Ask for the target length before you draft; it is cheaper to learn that the editor wants 500 words than to cut a finished 1,100-word piece.

Q3. Can consultants and vendors publish there?

Yes, with disclosure. Private sector authors get published when the argument rests on public evidence and reads as analysis. A piece that promotes a product, attacks a competitor, or advances a client's position without disclosure will be declined. Editors also apply their own balance; if the last several opinion pieces came from consultancies, a submission from a university or a former regulator has a better shot.

Q4. Can I republish the commentary on my own website after it runs?

Ask before you publish. Outlets set exclusivity terms at acceptance, and those terms differ: some allow a repost after a waiting period, some ask for a link to the original, and some want you to wait several weeks so the original ranks in search first. Put the question in the acceptance exchange so the terms are on the record.

7. Conclusion

Utility Dive rewards the same qualities its newsroom runs on: a specific development, a verifiable claim, and writing that respects a professional audience's time. Experts who match one concrete argument to one live proceeding, disclose their position, and keep the draft under 900 words publish there repeatedly. Experts whose arguments run long, lack a news peg, or need peer review should route the work to Public Utilities Fortnightly, The Electricity Journal, or another venue built for that depth, and save the trade outlet for the next timely claim.

The practical next step: choose the single proceeding or rule you know better than most of the field, write the two-sentence version of your claim, and email it to the section editor with the docket numbers attached.