PPL Corporation's Vince Sorgi: Wired for Intelligence

Electric Perspectives (EP): Vince, it’s been several years since you first outlined your thoughts in Electric Perspectives of PPL’s Utility of the Future strategy. How has that strategy evolved, and why is it more important than ever?

Vince Sorgi (VS): Our original Utility of the Future strategy to get stronger, smarter, cleaner, more resilient, and highly efficient remains largely intact, but two major industry shifts have required us to update and sharpen our approach.

First, we’re seeing massive data center requests to connect to our grids in Pennsylvania and Kentucky—demand at a scale we hadn’t anticipated just a few years ago. For example, in our Pennsylvania service territory, we have more than 20 gigawatts (GW) of data center projects in advanced planning—nearly triple the current peak demand that took more than a century to reach.

Second, while affordability has always been part of our strategy, business and household budgets have tightened further in recent years, making affordability a front-and-center issue in policy discussions and even gubernatorial races.

To create headroom for needed investments, becoming more efficient as a company and as an industry is more critical than ever. To address these shifts, we’ve updated our strategy to prioritize building highly reliable, gas-fired, combined-cycle generation. This is evidenced by our regulatory filings in Kentucky and our joint venture with Blackstone Infrastructure to build generation to serve new data centers in Pennsylvania.

In addition, we’ve doubled down on deploying advanced technology and AI—AI that will be key to enabling the next wave of operational efficiency. In short, our strategy continues to evolve so we can deliver safe, reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy for our customers no matter how the landscape changes

EP: What are the key components of PPL’s strategy today? And how are you defining “utility of the future”?

VS: Our Utility of the Future strategy centers on five primary objectives:

1. Improve the reliability and resiliency of our electric and gas networks through system hardening, smart grid technology, and automation.
2. Advance a cleaner energy future affordably and reliably. This includes building natural gas combined-cycle generation, renewables, and battery storage while accelerating clean energy research and development (R&D).
3. Deliver operational efficiencies to support affordability. Every dollar we save in operations and maintenance expenses is $8 that we can invest to improve infrastructure without impacting customer bills.
4. Empower our customers through digital solutions. There is tremendous potential to improve the customer experience through connected tech and AI.
5. Develop and empower our employees to thrive in a rapidly changing energy landscape, equipping them with the skills, tools, and mindset to lead and adapt as our industry evolves.

The future we envision is generation that’s cleaner, more diverse and less-centralized, including substantial behind-the-meter generation enabled by our networks. It’s transmission and distribution that’s intelligent, more reliable, resistant to increased storms and flooding, self-healing, and able to detect failing equipment before outages occur.

It’s decision-making driven by powerful analytics and deep insights mined from a wealth of sensor-driven data. It’s highly efficient operations using technology and AI to deliver better results at lower costs.

And, it’s technology-enabled talent, next-generation digital architecture, and a dynamic, engaging, and highly collaborative workplace shaping the future of energy.

In a nutshell, the utility of the future is one that’s ready for anything—and always ready to deliver for our customers, our communities, and our shareowners.

EP: What can you share about the progress you are making with this strategy and what you’re doing to position the company for success?

VS: We recognized early on that to implement our Utility of the Future strategy, we needed to change every aspect of our business without jeopardizing the critical services we provide. That began with how the company was organized and who we had leading it. So, over the past few years, we’ve completed a dramatic transformation of PPL—one that’s set the stage for everything we’re accomplishing now.

We built a strong, experienced, and highly collaborative leadership team aligned around a clear vision, mission, and set of new corporate values. We restructured our organization to break down silos, speed the adoption of best practices across the enterprise, and drive continuous improvement. We developed common design and operations standards across our utilities to consistently drive advanced technology and more robust engineering and construction specs. Every part of our capital plan was scrutinized and realigned to ensure it fully supports our strategy and delivers value.

Importantly, we also made bold moves on the technology front. We hired a new Executive Vice President of Technology and Innovation reporting directly to me. We launched an ambitious Business Reinvention initiative and have since begun partnering with some of the biggest and brightest technology firms in the world to help us achieve our vision, deploy digital solutions, and incorporate AI. This includes firms like Accenture, Microsoft, SAP, GE Vernova, Landis & Gyr, ServiceNow, and Quant.

These are not just technology providers—they are strategic partners who have signed up to help us achieve our strategy. The level of partnership and engagement with these firms is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, and it will be one of the enabling factors in achieving our vision. And, just as importantly, we established a change management center of excellence to help our teams better embrace and lead through this change.

Setting the stage in this way was not easy and took a lot of time and commitment, including from me as the CEO of the company, but we’re already seeing the benefits: faster execution, greater efficiency, and a culture that’s energized and ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities ahead.

EP: The intersection of AI and energy is one of the hottest topics in our industry these days. How is PPL enabling the AI revolution, and how do you see AI fitting into your overall strategy?

VS: AI is like the industrial revolution 2.0 on steroids. It is reshaping the landscape, bringing new hurdles to overcome, but also opening doors to transform our operations and support our strategy in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few years ago.

At PPL, we’ve made it a strategic priority to serve this new data center demand, and our strategy is twofold. First, enable speed to market and rapidly connect data centers to the grid through industry-leading responsiveness and agility. Second, support the development of new generation to meet this growing demand.

To achieve the first objective, we’ve put in place an interconnection process that allows us to deliver a high-level scope and estimates to developers within 5–10 days, provide a full feasibility report within two months, and support construction in 6–12 months, pending required regulatory approvals. Thanks to investments we’ve made and continue to make in a highly reliable grid, we’re able to quickly connect these large customers, often with minimal additional transmission work.

On the generation side, PPL recently formed a joint venture with Blackstone Infrastructure to build generation to serve new data center demand in Pennsylvania in a way that directly supports economic development, helps to mitigate rising electricity prices for customers, delivers value for our shareowners, and helps—not hurts—resource adequacy in PJM.

In addition, we’re supporting legislation in Pennsylvania that would allow regulated utilities to build and own generation again, given the PJM market, alone, is failing to deliver the generation needed to meet growing demand.

We believe unprecedented demand growth requires an unprecedented response. Given the pace and scale of new data center demand, we need everyone who is willing and able to build generation to do so as soon as possible.

Sorgi joins members of the PPL Corporation team in ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

EP: How is PPL dealing with speculation around data center demand projections?

VS: We know that demand forecasting is a critical component of system planning. In Pennsylvania, for example, our PPL Electric Utilities subsidiary collaborates closely with developers and PJM to validate the demand of proposed data center projects. 

This starts with evaluating the technical and financial feasibility of a project, as well as established land control. To ensure an accurate representation of emerging demand, only data center projects with advanced agreements are included in the annual load forecast that PPL Electric provides to PJM. To be clear, these are advanced agreements with hyperscalers or developers authorizing grid connection work—agreements with enforceable cost recovery that escalates as milestones are met, often reaching tens of millions of dollars.

Additionally, PJM is discounting the large demand forecast that we provide by up to 30 percent. In addition, we are working with other transmission owners in PJM and engaging in focused conversations with regulators to ensure consistency and confidence in load forecasts.

EP: There’s growing concern that competitive markets like PJM aren’t incentivizing new generation fast enough to meet surging demand. There has also been pushback from Independent Power Producers (IPPs) about reopening the door to regulated utility ownership of generation. What are PPL’s views on the matter?

VS: This is one of the most urgent issues facing our industry right now. All of the signals and all of the forecasts point to a problem—generation is just not being built, or built fast enough, to satisfy future demand.

PJM has warned of a capacity shortage as early as the 2026/2027 delivery year, citing accelerating retirements and slow replacement build-out. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation has repeatedly warned that resource adequacy risks are rising, especially in regions relying heavily on market signals. Despite record-breaking capacity prices, PJM’s market is failing to deliver the new generation needed to meet rising demand—proving that price signals, alone, just aren’t enough. And, of the more than 800 GW of total capacity that has entered PJM’s queue since 1998, only about 11 percent has actually gone into service.

Bottom line: proposals don’t power homes and businesses. Steel in the ground does. While this is often positioned in the media as an “us versus them” debate between regulated utilities and IPPs, that’s not how we view it at PPL, and it doesn’t need to be that way. Ultimately, the grid doesn’t care who wins that debate—it just needs solutions. In a world of surging demand and evolving risks, securing our energy future requires an all-of-the-above approach, with every tool, every partner, and every solution on the table. PPL is committed to being proactive, not reactive, in addressing resource adequacy and ensuring our infrastructure keeps pace with economic growth and technological change.

The legislation introduced in Pennsylvania would allow utility-owned generation to complement the market, not replace it. It would allow utilities to build generation only when the reserve margin isn’t met through market mechanisms, with robust regulatory review and opportunities for market comparison.

In other words, utility-owned generation is only a backstop if the market doesn’t deliver. If the market delivers, then the utilities will never own generation in rate base. And, if the utility does end up owning generation, and that generation produces excess revenue, 100 percent of that net revenue would be returned to customers, ensuring customers benefit from any upside while being shielded from downside risk.

The other key aspect of the legislation is permitting long-term contracts between the state’s utilities and the IPPs to help derisk IPP construction of new generation should they want to go that route versus just relying on market price signals. In short, the proposed legislation contains the kind of smart solutions and ideas we need more of, and we’re hopeful such legislation can gain lawmakers’ support.

A recent PJM proposal to incentivize large customers to “bring their own generation” and encourage demand flexibility is also something that we think has merit, and we’ll be involved in fleshing out details to advance that concept as a workable proposal.

Markets worked when demand was flat and supply was abundant—but that world has been flipped on its head. We’re entering an era of explosive growth and shifting reliability needs, and we believe it is time to stop looking in the rearview mirror and start planning for the road ahead.

EP: Powering AI is clearly one piece of the equation for PPL. On the flip side, how are you thinking about using AI to deliver better outcomes?

VS: AI isn’t just the next wave of innovation—it’s a tidal force promising to reshape our entire industry. The more we learn about the possibilities of AI, the more we see how truly transformational it will be and how it can accelerate our strategy.

Ultimately, our vision is to embed AI as a core capability in every aspect of our business. We’re not just talking about classical and generative AI, but agentic AI that adapts and acts, and maybe even one day physical AI—think, for example, of robots performing or assisting with some of our most dangerous work.

As part of our Reinvention effort, we’ve launched cross-functional teams to advance new technology and AI in four key value streams: Advanced Customer Ops and Engagement, Predictive Field Ops and Asset Management, Grid and Pipeline of the Future, and Next Generation Enterprise Services.

In each of these areas, we’re either already using or exploring the use of AI. For example, in customer service, we’re piloting a multilingual, AI-powered digital customer service agent—Alex—that we’re incredibly excited about. Alex will eventually be available 24/7 to handle routine customer inquiries in 70-plus languages, freeing up our representatives for more complex issues.

In addition, we’re deploying an AI-driven platform that will incorporate AI at every step of the customer experience. This includes handling the initial customer contact, seamlessly handing it off to the best-fit agent, delivering AI coaching and insights to our agents, providing automated summaries post-call, and triggering backend workflows so our agents can spend less time typing and more time listening and assisting.

In our grid and field operations, we’re using AI to monitor equipment health, predict failures, dispatch crews proactively, and optimize crew routing, outage response, and vegetation management. We’re working on AI agents to help us optimize protective settings in grid operations to enhance reliability and fault response. We’re also developing digital agents that will deliver job-specific safety messages, providing tailored reminders about hazards before crews begin a job.

Among other examples, we’re exploring the use of AI agents to lighten the heavy lift associated with complex regulatory filings. These agents will be able to assist with pre- and post-filing work, including responses to third-party discovery requests that can be incredibly time-consuming and require quick turnaround. This could trim thousands of labor hours to help keep energy affordable.

And finally, we’ve begun to roll out Copilot for Microsoft 365 to our employees, helping them work smarter and more efficiently. We have only just begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible here.

“AI isn’t just the next wave of innovation—it’s a tidal force promising to reshape our entire industry.”

EP: What’s your message to investors and analysts attending the EEI Financial Conference in November?

VS: My message is simple: PPL is not just keeping up with change—we’re leading it. Our industry is positioned at the intersection of some of the most important trends taking place in our country. And, at PPL, we have a clear strategy, a strong track record of execution, and a culture that embraces innovation.

We’re thinking bigger, we’re thinking bolder, and we have an opportunity, both as a company and as an industry, to build utilities of the future that are stronger, smarter, cleaner, and ready to power the next century of progress. The key is to enable all of this progress while, at the same time, keeping energy affordable for customers. That has been a core component of our strategy since we launched the new PPL in 2022, and it remains a core part of the strategy going forward.

EP: Any closing thoughts on what it will take to succeed in this new era?

VS: Innovation. Agility. The foresight to seize opportunities created by next-generation digital architecture, cloud solutions, and advanced technology. Enhanced collaboration across the industry, in R&D, with technology partners, and with a wide array of stakeholders, including the IPPs. And, above all, the courage to embrace change.

The challenges we face are complex, but in every challenge lies opportunity. At PPL, we’re building the utility of the future today, and we’re excited to help shape the energy future for our customers, our communities, and our shareowners.