Extraordinary Times, Extraordinary Potential: A Q&A With Portland General Electric's Maria Pope

EP: What are you prioritizing during your tenure as chair of EEI?

MP: I am honored to serve on the EEI Board alongside impressive leaders from across the industry. We are working together to advance our enduring value proposition: providing safe, reliable, secure, and increasingly clean energy to the customers we serve, while working to keep costs as low as possible. As I began my term, the Board developed multi-year strategic priorities.

The first priority is enhancing and strengthening grid reliability, resilience, and security. We are facing ever-increasing physical and cybersecurity threats while also managing incredible growth. To respond effectively, we need to increase the speed at which we bring on new generation, accelerate investments in our distribution and transmission networks, and adopt new technologies to enhance the resilience of our systems.

At the same time, we are driving a customer-focused vision and are strong advocates for policy solutions that benefit customers. The Inflation Reduction Act and its technology-neutral investment and production tax credits, as well as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, are powerful accelerators. These policies will help support customer affordability and create millions of jobs during the next decade, and they should be protected.

Our industry must redouble stakeholder education and engagement efforts to preserve these tax credits and other provisions of these laws that are directly benefiting customers. We also must work to secure a repairs fix in the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, prioritize siting and permitting reform, and advance other initiatives aimed at fostering a supportive policy and regulatory environment. Underpinning much of our work is our belief that the investor-owned business model is the most efficient and economical way for our industry to serve customers. 

We are continuing to educate policymakers and other stakeholders on our regulatory compact and on the value our model delivers through efficient f inancing of important investments in our national infrastructure. EEI member companies are driving economic growth and are pivotal to national security during this transformational time.

Maria Pope speaks at EEI 2024 with Antonio Neri, president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, on energy demand and the changing technology industry.

EP: Addressing energy security concerns also is a top priority for EEI and our member companies. How is the industry approaching this challenge?

MP: We have a clear responsibility to our customers to ensure reliable electricity, even as we respond to significant demand growth and changing customer needs.

EEI strongly advocates for the continued development of diverse energy resources—including natural gas, renewables, and new and existing nuclear energy—as well as grid-enhancing technologies that support flexible demand and increasing capacity. EEI member companies also are coming together to address resource adequacy concerns.

PGE and our peers in the West have had success balancing the demand and supply of electricity at lower costs to customers by participating in collaborative efforts like the Western Energy Imbalance Market, which delivered more than $6.25 billion in cumulative economic benefits between 2014 and 2024.

For PGE, regional connectivity and cooperation among electric companies enables us to draw on wind resources from Montana, batteries in California, hydropower in the Pacific Northwest, and solar arrays in the desert Southwest. It all comes together to improve reliability and stabilize energy markets.

Addressing energy security and resource adequacy concerns will require significant capital investment. EEI member companies have invested more than $1.3 trillion during the past decade in critical energy infrastructure projects of all kinds, spending more than $170 billion each year to make the energy grid stronger, smarter, cleaner, and more secure.

PGE’s Coffee Creek battery storage facility is one of several new projects that is helping the company improve grid operations by matching available supply to current demand.

EP: How are electric companies using AI and other advanced technologies in their own operations?

MP: Technology is revolutionizing our industry, making us smarter, more efficient, and more effective. We are using technological innovations, particularly AI, to shorten design timelines, accelerate project completions, and optimize complex grid operations.

At PGE, to name one example, we created an “AI Design Review Bot” that has reduced our engineering cycle times twelve-fold. AI is critical as distributed energy resources (DERs) become even more common. AI already is helping to balance the surging demand for power and to enhance grid management.

PGE estimates as much as 25 percent of the power needed on the hottest and coldest days of the year could be supplied by customer-sited DERs—such as solar panels, batteries, and EVs—as soon as 2030.

PGE’s wind resources are bringing geographic and resource diversity to the company’s generation portfolio.

EP: Last year, we saw the devastating impacts of Hurricanes Helene and Milton across the Southeast, in addition to catastrophic wildfires and myriad other extreme weather events across the country. What strategies are electric companies pursuing to mitigate risks posed by these events?

MP: The impacts of extreme weather on lives and livelihoods, local economies, and critical infrastructure are increasing. That’s why all EEI member companies are devoting significant time and resources year-round to prepare for and respond to extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and less predictable.

EEI member companies dedicate more than $30 billion annually to adaptation, hardening, and resilience initiatives to strengthen the nation’s transmission and distribution infrastructure. This includes using innovative technologies like AI-enabled cameras, weather stations, and advanced modeling programs that help companies prepare for and respond to weather-related events, particularly in high-risk areas.

It is worth noting that many of these investments supplement the work of public safety agencies, strengthening communities against a variety of threats. Wildfires also are a growing challenge, affecting more communities across the U.S. each year.

From the southwest to the northeast, there’s a need to do more to prevent wildfires before they happen and to protect affected communities from long-term costs. We need a comprehensive national strategy that emphasizes community protection, wildfire prevention, responsible investment, and rapid recovery.

There is also an urgent need for long-term policy solutions that will require cooperation with regulators, legislators, insurers, public agencies, and many other stakeholders. Wildfires truly are a societal problem that requires societal solutions.

While the challenges of extreme weather are formidable, our industry is in this together. When a major event hits—whether it is a tornado, hurricane, ice storm, or wildfire—we actively support one another through mutual assistance efforts. After Hurricane Helene, an army of more than 50,000 workers from nearly every state in the country deployed to the Southeast to help with recovery and restoration efforts. Just two weeks later, when Hurricane Milton made landfall, mutual assistance crews and resources were redirected to Florida.

These events collectively represent one of the nation's largest-ever mutual-assistance mobilizations, and our industry’s coordination with federal officials and other stakeholders through the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council was critical to delivering a safe and efficient storm response for impacted customers and communities. Our ability to support each other and work together is one of our industry’s superpowers.

“Our ability to support each other and work together is one of our industry’s superpowers.”

EP: Customer affordability is a central concern for EEI member companies and their customers. What are electric companies doing to help keep costs as low as possible?

MP: Like many industries, electric companies are facing mounting pressure over price increases. When costs go up, people may need to make difficult choices, as they work to pay rent, keep the lights on, and put food on the table.

We have a responsibility to manage our business in a way that prioritizes customers, and we are committed to keeping costs to customers as low as possible. Fortunately, new demand means that, as more businesses and people are connected to the grid, operating costs can be spread out.

Ensuring these savings materialize requires thoughtful work on the part of electric companies and regulators to shape and adjust rate structures. Growth also requires investments in generation, transmission and distribution, and advanced grid technologies, all of which will help minimize costs in the long run.

As these investments are made, we have an important opportunity to drive customer energy efficiency and efficiency in our operations. Customers—understandably—want to know what goes into their bill, and every part of our operations must deliver customer value.

EP: With a new administration and new Congress in Washington, do you see an impact on this industry?

MP: Electric companies create millions of good jobs, power the U.S. economy, and play a critical role in a variety of national and international policy and security priorities.

We’ve always worked with regulators and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure our industry’s significance is understood and that our economic impact is enhanced by supportive public policy. That doesn’t change when a new administration arrives or political power shifts.

We are committed to engaging with the new administration and Congress to advance public policies that benefit our customers and to address common issues of global economic competitiveness and national security.

We share common interests and will work collaboratively, as we always have, when there are opportunities to better serve the American people with the reliable and affordable energy they need to thrive.

PGE’s AI-driven cameras provide 24-7 visual observation of high-risk fire zones. The company’s ability to detect wildfire smoke and alert a network of 50 public safety partners in real time helps reduce risk and keep communities safe.

EP: Looking out at the rest of 2025 and beyond, what message do you have for EEI member companies?

MP: We know that our customers expect the world’s most reliable electricity, and we know it’s our job to deliver it safely, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The pace of change that we are witnessing is accelerating. I am proud that EEI’s member companies are leading the way and are moving at new and exciting speeds as AI advances; more data centers come online; manufacturing and industrial activity accelerates; and homes, businesses and transportation continue to electrify.

Our customers are counting on us to meet today’s rapidly growing energy needs and to help make America home to the industries that will drive our future. At the same time, we are managing the increasing risks of wildfires and extreme weather; tackling energy security and resource adequacy as demand rises; and investing in a smarter, more flexible, more connected, and more resilient grid. We are balancing these efforts while working to keep costs as low as possible for customers.

As an industry, we have a clear set of priorities. Electricity is vital to our national security and economic competitiveness. Electricity powers our lives. We need a reliable, modern energy system for a modern age. Working together, we can deliver an energy grid—and an energy future—that is reliable, weather-resilient, responsive, and ready for the demand arriving now.

In these extraordinary times, our challenge is to capitalize on the extraordinary potential in front of us. I am confident that we are up to the task. EP