The U.S. energy grid is one of the most sophisticated machines ever constructed, supporting the health, prosperity, and security of millions of Americans across vital sectors of the economy. The grid’s ever-growing complexity—comprised of nearly 12,000 power plants, 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, 60,000 substations, and 3 million miles of power lines—brings a near-constant stream of resilience threats and challenges. The grid’s interdependencies with critical energy, water, and telecommunications infrastructures amplify the risks from both natural and manmade threats, which is why holistic strategies for comprehensive protection are essential.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), including Argonne National Laboratory, addresses these multifaceted challenges comprehensively, with a strategy that seeks to:

• Understand external threats through collaboration across various disciplines.
• Identify vulnerabilities within interdependent infrastructures, modeling system behavior under diverse conditions.
• Develop technologies to bolster resilience without compromising customer affordability, reliability, or equity.

Importantly, DOE’s strategy also engages industry and government partners to validate and implement solutions from a multidisciplinary perspective. The DOE National Laboratories are on the cutting edge of scientific discovery, developing a spectrum of technologies to increase the resilience of the grid against natural and manmade threats, on a timescale ranging from real-time to decades into the future.

At Argonne National Laboratory, founded in 1946 as the country’s first national lab, the Climate Risk and Resilience Portal forecasts climate hazards like heatwaves, wildfires, and flooding for the next 50 years on a 4-kilometer grid, aiding electric companies like ComEd and private-sector partners like AT&T in safeguarding infrastructure. Similarly, the Hurricane Electric Assessment Damage Outage tool uses national data to rapidly predict the impact of storms and to project electric infrastructure restoration needs. This helps electric companies and governments predict and mitigate disruptions to ensure grid and interdependent system resilience.

To integrate distributed energy resources like residential solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles (EVs) and chargers located at homes and businesses into the grid safely and efficiently, DOE developed software such as the open-source TDcoSim. is software enables grid operators to conduct transmission and distribution analyses and to simulate potential power system impacts. Industry partnerships—including Argonne’s work with Pacific Gas and Electric Company to develop tools for assessing wildfire risks—are helping to identify and address security vulnerabilities.

The energy grid is a linchpin for health, prosperity, and security and is vitally important to essential services and industries. Protecting the grid requires collaboration among the federal government, electric companies, and private-sector partners in the technical, scientific, and industrial fields. This tested and proven approach extends the power of DOE laboratories beyond their confines, fostering partnerships to address the most pressing security and resilience challenges that the grid faces today—and is likely to face in the years and decades ahead. 

Learn more about DOE's and Argonne's partnerships with electric companies and private-sector stakeholders, including new opportunities to collaborate.

Mark C. Petri is director of the Electric Power Grid Program and Grid Security and Resilience Lead at Argonne National Laboratory.

Pedro J. Pizarro (PJP): First, it’s been a privilege to serve on the EEI Board of Directors’ Executive Committee for the past six years and an honor to be selected as chair of EEI. Our industry’s collaborative spirit is a model for other sectors—and is a major benefit to electric customers around the country. Reducing carbon emissions 36 percent below 2005 levels is no small feat, and EEI members did that safely, affordably, and reliably while navigating increasing climate impacts and unprecedented growth in the use of electricity.

That cooperation and collaboration extends to how our members respond in times of need. They support each other through mutual assistance, with a collective commitment to physical safety and cybersecurity all while stepping up to advance our industry’s goals. I was proud to lead the EEI delegation at COP28 in Dubai and share these same messages. At every opportunity, I reminded people that the electric power industry is at the center of the clean energy transformation. We provide an essential service and have done more than any other industry to reduce carbon emissions in the United States. However, now is the time for action. We simply cannot wait to make the investments necessary to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. We must continue to work together to educate policymakers and other key stakeholders about the roles that we all must play in evaluating and approving prudent investments in grid resilience. With what we know today about energy needs and potential threats to critical energy infrastructure, proactive investments can be made that will greatly drive down risk and could even help to save lives.

EEI Chair Pedro J. Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, attends EEI's annual Wall Street Briefing.

EP: EEI and our member companies were strong supporters of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, which are driving meaningful investments in our sector. What do you see as the next key policy priorities for our industry?

PJP: The clean energy future is a marathon, not a sprint, and runners know when it’s time to pick up the pace. Legislation that will accelerate our clean energy future is a priority. It has been rewarding to see EEI’s work result in favorable policies within the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. Now, we must continue to focus on implementation. These wins need to translate into getting steel into the ground and real benefits for our customers.

Reforming the transmission siting and permitting process is high on the priority list. Even with the provisions included in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, it’s one of the major headwinds we face in building out the massive amount of new infrastructure our country needs.

Edison International’s recent analysis of the state of California, Countdown to 2045, anticipates that electricity demand will skyrocket by more than 80 percent by 2045. To accommodate that growth, the state will need to add transmission at four times and distribution at 10 times historical rates. Colleagues from other states and countries tell me they have similar expectations in their areas. Our energy grid must expand like never before. 

We also need legislation to address the financial risk that comes with climate change impacts like extreme storms and catastrophic wild res. is uncertainty around liability creates unknown and unpredictable risks for the electric companies that play a vital role in growing the economy and delivering affordable and resilient clean energy across our economy. Left unaddressed, this liability will constrain critical investments in new clean energy resources and the resilient infrastructure needed to deliver it to customers. 

The escalating threats to our grid security represent another area where we need close collaboration with the federal government. Notable policy priorities include congressional authorization of the new Energy Threat Analysis Center, an important venue where industry operators and government partners will help identify threats and share mitigation strategies across the industry. Additionally, we need liability protections to eliminate barriers to information collection and sharing between industry and government. We must address any tension we see between our fiduciary obligations and our role as critical infrastructure providers supporting national security.

“The clean energy future is a marathon, not a sprint, and runners know when it's time to pick up the pace.”

EP: Can you speak to the central role our industry plays in serving customers, particularly as the economy continues to electrify?

PJP: Our ultimate responsibility is to safely provide reliable and clean electricity to our customers at an affordable cost. That is what we must do—period.

Investor‐owned electric companies can build and maintain the energy grid quickly and at a lower cost to customers than any other model. We have an obligation to serve all customers in all communities and to provide programs that support affordability. That includes solar energy and energy storage installation, energy efficiency, demand response, and time-of-use programs. Customers also need clear communication from their electricity providers, which is why electric companies are working to provide timely information in a variety of ways that can be tailored to the preferences of each customer. This helps to ensure that customers are getting the information they need, when they need it, in the ways they prefer.

We’re seeing more customers electrifying their cars and homes. There also is a large number who can’t yet afford electric technologies. Getting all pieces of that right is more important than ever. Electric companies recognize our responsibility to be trusted advisors—educating customers on new products and technologies and helping them understand new opportunities to save energy and lower their bills.

EP: In addition to your role as EEI Chair, you serve as a co-chair of the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC), which facilitates coordination between the highest levels of industry and the federal government to prepare for and respond to national-level disasters and threats to critical infrastructure. Can you speak to the value of this partnership, and the progress that has been made together?

PJP: Forums like the ESCC are a great way for us to pool our experience and reach better decisions and outcomes. We’ve made progress in a few key areas.

Mutual assistance is one. The electric power industry has been effective at coming together in times of crisis. Over the past decade, we’ve applied that commitment to expanding mutual assistance programs to manage cyber incidents and to secure our supply chain.

The ESCC enables the electric power industry to work effectively with government partners in responding to threats to critical energy infrastructure. That’s vital when real-time coordination makes a difference. In recent years, we have effectively coordinated support with the White House, the U.S. Department of Energy and various government agencies, and federal law enforcement in responding to challenges like COVID-19, extreme weather events, and high-impact physical attacks on the grid.

Another key area is shared forecasting. ESCC members bring their company’s unique vantage points to industrywide discussions about threats and hazards. This can include perspectives from varied geographic regions, different business models, and individual grid architectures. We exchange information and assessments to create a better shared understanding of the threats and risks we face.

Our federal partners bring powerful intelligence gathering capabilities to the table, and, together, we can evaluate today’s risks and deliver actionable intelligence and guidance to the experts who operate the energy grid.

Pizarro discusses transportation electrification with U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

EP: You have often spoken about the need for our industry to remain focused on scaling up physical and cybersecurity defenses. How have you seen our industry’s focus on protecting critical energy infrastructure evolve during your career?

PJP: The electric power industry is committed to security and resilience, while also understanding our responsibility to maintain affordability. Those longtime priorities, which are sometimes competing, have led us to a thoughtful, risk-based approach to defense. We track threats, apply the best-suited mitigations, and avoid chasing one-size- fits-all solutions.

Our risk-based approach to protecting infrastructure has allowed our industry to evolve as the grid and the threats change around us. Every day, industry security teams work to identify and adapt to the changes we are seeing anything from more dangerous malware to more powerful rearms. The teams also are looking at changes to the grid itself, especially as more renewables and distributed energy sources on the grid expand the attack surface. There’s some good news with new technologies and tools in the market that can help us protect our infrastructure.

With rising geopolitical concerns from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to rising tensions with China it is more important than ever that we continue to refine our existing security strategies while adding new tools to the toolbox.

“The electric power industry is committed to security and resilience, while also understanding our responsibility to maintain affordability.”

EP: Can you discuss the significance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to moving our industry forward?

PJP: I’m proud that DEI has become a universal part of our business. EEI launched an industrywide DEI initiative in 2020 that focused on diversifying our workforce at all levels, and 100 percent of member companies participated. EEI also has supported the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which is another way we are making sure that the investments being made in clean energy, electric transportation, and resilience are benefitting underserved communities.

At Edison International, I see every day how diversity makes us stronger. In 2022, we achieved gender parity among our independent board directors, and, in 2021, we reached gender parity among my direct team of senior leaders.

Our diversity initiatives include suppliers. It’s important to support our local businesses and communities, and having a diverse supplier base also helps increase collaboration with community-based organizations. They are a valuable source of feedback from underserved communities and provide better education and awareness on important topics.

We also have workforce development e orts to add more diverse talent, including our Edison Scholars and Lineworker Scholarship programs. e Edison Scholars Program awards $50,000 in shareholerfunded academic scholarships to 30 high school seniors each year to study science, technology, engineering, or math in college. Our Edison International Lineworker Scholarship program welcomed a third cohort of 12 scholars in 2023, including our second female scholar. The program awards scholarships up to $25,000 and is funded by Edison International shareholders and IBEW Local 47.

We can’t do this in a vacuum. Being transparent and providing data are essential to building trust. We hold ourselves accountable by setting goals and reporting outcomes annually in our Sustainability, DEI, Community and Economic Impact and Supplier Diversity reports.

There are many other great examples of DEI programs and initiatives throughout the industry. What is clear is our shared commitment to developing the workforce that we need to deliver a resilient clean energy future.

Through the Edison Scholars Program, Edison International awards $50,000 scholarships to 30 high school students each year who plan to study science, technology, engineering, or math in college.

EP: How can the industry attract and retain workers with diverse skillsets and backgrounds to power the clean energy future?

PJP: This is an exciting time to be part of the electric power industry, and I encourage young people to be a part of the clean energy future. The electric power industry is rooted in a strong sense of mission: We account for around 5 percent of the U.S. economy, and we reliably and affordably power every other industry. Over time, our mission has expanded to leading efforts to drive down carbon emissions across the U.S. economy. We will need new technologies, new processes, and new laws and regulations. Most important, new bright minds must join our ranks. There is tremendous opportunity ahead.

I recommend that young people learn as much about the industry as they can. Talk to everyone: people in transmission and distribution, planners, engineers, lineworkers, customer service representatives, public affairs experts, and information technology specialists. Read articles to see how the media is covering the industry. Follow industry leaders and companies on social media. No matter the role, having a well-rounded understanding will help you go far.

Invest in yourself, guided by feedback from those around you. Our companies operate strong electric networks by nurturing strong human networks. Connect with the network around you, contribute to it, and seek input from it. Set personal goals by identifying senior roles that you aspire to reach in 5-10 years. Get feedback on what two or three skills you would need to build to be a good candidate for those roles, and work hard to develop them. Your career journey may or may not end up in those specific senior roles, but the act of investing in your development will prepare you for the opportunities that do come your way.

Finally, aim to serve. Our industry is committed to serving serving our customers, supporting our communities, partnering with government leaders, and helping one another through our strong tradition of mutual assistance. As you progress as an energy professional and leader, you will find that more of your role is about helping your team succeed than about helping yourself. Your success will be defined by your team’s success, just as our industry’s success is defined by our collective ability to provide reliable, resilient, and affordable clean energy to our customers and communities that depend on us more than ever before.

Tom Fanning (TF): First and foremost, running Southern Company—one of the great companies in the world, when you consider our economic significance and our mission of delivering clean, safe, reliable, and affordable energy to our customers.

Getting Vogtle done—the first newly constructed nuclear unit to be built in the United States in more than 30 years—also was significant. Vogtle required resilience. It required vision. It required courage. To see that come to fruition—knowing that we were able to keep the aircraft carrier running optimally on top of making sure that Vogtle was a success—was a very rewarding thing.

Additionally, Southern Company gave me a platform for a lot of external engagement, which had three focuses: engagement in national energy policy; my long-standing involvement with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; and national security engagement, particularly over the past decade. That national security work really started with the creation of the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC) more than a decade ago, and it progressed into my own e orts to reimagine national security in a digital realm.

That meant redefining private-sector interconnections and how the private sector should work with government to preserve and enhance our national security. That manifested in my appointment to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and then my role as chair of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Advisory Committee, which came through a White House appointment.

I was never identified as a Republican or a Democrat. I developed a reputation for being able to work with anyone for the betterment of America. That has been very fulfilling.

When Vogtle Unit 3 went online in 2023, it became the first newly constructed nuclear energy plant to be built in the United States in more than 30 years.

EP: You mentioned the importance of industry-government and inter-industry coordination. Can you speak to the signi cance of these partnerships and how they have evolved?

TF: It was very clear, when I became the co-chair of the ESCC in 2013, that living within a silo had been adequate to a point but was sorely insufficient to carry out our mission. The U.S. economy is built upon interdependence. Thinking only about electricity issues is very short-sighted.

In thinking about redefining the relationship between the private sector and the government, particularly around security, it is important to remember that the dogma of not fighting battles on other people's shores doesn't apply. In a digital world, there are no borders. There are no friendly oceans east and west. The bad guys are attacking our systems hundreds of millions of times each day. 

When you come from our industry, you know that electricity represents 5 percent of the U.S. economy—but it’s the first 5 percent. It is the most fundamentally important piece, and it is foundational to our economic and national security. We built momentum when we started linking with other lifeline sectors, particularly finance and communications. We created the Tri-Sector Executive Working Group, which united electricity, finance, and communications to support our national and economic security.

In thinking about redefining our relationship with government, I want to acknowledge recent administrations led by Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. All have treated us in a non-partisan way. We've built, in my experience, an effective relationship with our sector's risk management agency—in our case, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The leaders at DOE have been terrific partners with us. Of course, EEI President and CEO Dan Brouillette was one of those leaders when he served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy and then U.S. Secretary of Energy.

EP: What are the most important shifts in public policy affecting our industry that you have seen in your career?

TF: Concern with the climate has been a giant ocean current for our industry—to help lessen the effects of climate change and define our industry's role. That touches carbon emissions, but it's a much broader issue than that.

One thing to watch out for, as I tell my successors at Southern Company and in the industry, is: Don't let yourself get funneled into single-issue politics. Our mission in the electricity industry is defined by clean, safe, reliable, and affordable. We have to think about that broad mandate. We have to maintain balance while pursuing multipronged objectives.

And, former EEI President and CEO Tom Kuhn deserves great credit. Certainly, not every company agrees with everything that Southern Company does. But, one of the benefits of EEI is this Power by Association^SM. I always laughed and said Tom was our chief psychiatrist. He kept us together, and he became a real icon for the folks in Washington, D.C., in terms of his effectiveness. Our industry is too important to fall into parochial factions, and Tom has really helped us avoid that.

“Our mission in the electricity industry is defined by clean, safe, reliable, and affordable.”

EP: You have previously spoken of the importance of leading by principle. In 2015, you published Leadership Perspectives, a book that features leadership mantras and nuggets of wisdom that have helped guide your career: “Be here now.” “Fix the roof while the sun is out.” Where did these mantras come from, and do you have any favorits that have helped make you an impactful leader?

TF: I am a fan of off-the-wall analogies and metaphors for our business. And, two of my favorites have actually been two other books. One was Barbarians at the Gate, which teaches the simple lesson that, if you don’t run your business as well as you can, someone else will. The second was The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

I have always been fascinated with the idea of how best to reach people, and this book was one way I attempted to do that. My first idea for it was based on how The Art of War relates to Southern Company. I took concepts from that book and explained what they meant to the business. But, it was too dense and deep and long. I put it aside and decided that I wanted something that could be digested on a plane ride. I wanted it to be punchy. That became Leadership Perspectives. It still pulls from The Art of War and Barbarians at the Gate, but it is quick and to the point.

One idea I talk about is aspirational behavior. There are those of us who get their energy not from the here and now, but from what may be. And, when you think about legacy, how much better off would society be if people thought about legacy very early in life? How do you want to act now to create a legacy that benefits other people? Defining how you operate in life should always be anchored in the “them,” not the “you,” which is one of the hallmarks of our industry.

I’ve coached football for many years. And, one of the ideas I’ve given to kids is: If you’re not early, you’re late. If you’re late, you are not respecting the mission or other people’s time. I run meetings that way. We don’t delay meetings because somebody isn’t there. We go.

Another idea, whether it’s work or a sport, is to bring three things to everything you do: Do the right things, do them to the best of your ability, and bring a sense of fun to whatever you do. If work is fun, you never work a day in your life.

I also use a lot of movies as metaphors. The greatest movie ever written, Casablanca, has a famous line when Rick, the protagonist, is talking to a police chief. The chief says, “Rick, I just blow with the wind.” He takes what comes. Taking what comes, in my opinion, is lethal to corporate culture. You have to influence your environment. Similarly, one of the most important ideas in the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is proactivity. I am not acted upon. I choose to act. That’s the same concept. If you don’t like the way things are, in work or in life, change them. Make your environment as good as it can be.

Throughout his career, Fanning worked with government leaders to help make the grid more secure and resilient. Shown above, he testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism in 2018.

EP: Thomas Edison once said, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed always is to try one more time.” How has the concept of perseverance factored into your work at Southern Company?

TF: The tougher the issue, the more you will find yourself in the minority  when you get to the moments where perseverance, courage, and vision matter. If everybody felt that what you were doing was the right thing to do, it would be easy to get tough things done.

Now, you had better be right. You had better be open to changing your course of action. If you think about Vogtle, we had our major constructor, Westinghouse, go bankrupt. We had their parent, Toshiba, on the verge of bankruptcy and owing us $3.7 billion. We had support from the federal government in the form of tax advantages and loan guarantees, and those were set to expire. We had the COVID-19 outbreak. We had the Fukushima nuclear accident.

All of those moments tested our perseverance. In dealing with COVID-19, I remember working with Sean McGarvey, the president of North America’s Building Trades Unions. We had very tough conversations at the outset. What was this virus? Did we have to shut down the project? We had 10,000 people on a limited site in Georgia. How do you keep that going?

Our conviction was to make that site the safest place on earth. We had to change work practices. We decided to put a medical village onsite, and we moved essential medical facilities there. It takes a whole lot of effort, persuasion, and an unmitigated belief that what you’re doing is right and necessary and important to get those things done.

EP: How can the industry continue to develop the careers of promising young professionals?

TF: The first thing we can do is acknowledge how fundamentally important our work is. Not to denigrate soft drinks, but if all I did every day was get up and worry about how to sell brown sugar-water, I wouldn't feel as convicted as I do in this industry. What we do really matters to people.

Second: Ask the question, “Do I have the ability to influence an outcome for the betterment of society?” In this industry, absolutely. That is a very powerful motivator, and it speaks to our culture. We have been so successful at moving and selling electricity over the years, but the greatest harbinger of future failure is past success. People tend to get wedded to the way things went last year if last year was successful.

What I’ve tried to do is cultivate a celebration of the barbarians—of the people who come in and, for all the right reasons, challenge conventional wisdom . They want to make things better. Frankly, that is also the mission of a CEO. What you want to do is protect these people and nurture them, because the body politic of a successful culture will be to reject changes. But, these barbarians are so useful in helping to move company culture forward. EP

In November, Oregon took a big step forward in using electric vehicles (EVs) to reduce emissions from its waste management operations. The state’s first all-electric garbage truck completed its first pickup in Portland, thanks in part to support from Portland General Electric’s (PGE’s) Drive Change Fund.

“We’re proud to work together with customers and community members to demonstrate what’s possible in diverse industries in building an economy increasingly powered by electricity from renewable resources,” said the company in a press release.

The zero-emissions truck, operated by COR Disposal and Recycling, can hold a charge for two days of trash pickups and takes three hours to recharge. It will operate in East Portland—an area that PGE says has been disproportionately impacted by climate change and air quality concerns. PGE helped with the installation of charging infrastructure needed to operate the truck.

“This milestone for COR will create green jobs for our community while linking together social, economic, and environmental justice in ways our economy has never witnessed,” said COR CEO Alando Simpson, thanking PGE and other community partners “who made this fully electric truck a reality for the residents of East Portland.”

PGE’s Drive Change Fund was established in 2019 to help support local businesses, municipalities, and nonprofits interested in accelerating the electrification of their transportation fleets. In 2023, the fund, which is supported by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ’s) Clean Fuels program, made nearly $2.3 million in grants available to advance the electrification of transportation in Oregon.

The types of projects it helped support include a wildlife conservancy’s purchase of EVs to help transport injured animals and plants, a public works department’s investment into an electric street sweeper, and a health-care nonprofit’s use of an EV to deliver prescriptions to patients, among others. Information about the types of projects supported by the Drive Change Fund is available on PGE’s website. Grant applications for 2024 will be available in February.

Electric companies are investing more than $4.2 billion across the country to deploy charging infrastructure and to pave the way for an EV future, with more than 26 million EVs projected to be on U.S. roadways in 2030. The transportation sector is the economy’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. In Oregon, the DEQ estimates transportation accounts for more than a third of the state’s carbon footprint.

Learn more about how electric companies are fueling the electrification of transportation.