Edison Electric Institute Newsroom

Powering Growth While Delivering Value to Customers

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:39:48 +0200

In this episode of Electric Perspectives, Hanna Grene, Microsoft’s Global Go to Market and Innovation Leader for Energy and Resources, joins EEI Chief Legal Officer Rachael Marsh. They discuss Microsoft’s Community-First AI Infrastructure initiative, how digital solutions can enhance the grid. They also explore how electric companies, technology providers, and communities can work together to ensure data center growth delivers benefits for the communities where they operate.

Following is an abbreviated transcript, lightly edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full episode and catch up with other recent interviews, visit electricperspectives.com/podcast.

Rachel Marsh (RM): Earlier this year, Microsoft launched its community-first AI infrastructure initiative, and I attended the launch event here in DC. What prompted Microsoft to develop that framework and what community-first means in practice when it comes to AI infrastructure?

Hanna Grene (HG): Absolutely. I've spent my career in energy and so much about what I love in this space is that we're always balancing between the different goals of reliability, affordability, economic opportunity and, and the trust that we have with our communities and the value that we deliver to our communities. And so to me, the work that is happening right now in delivering more energy for AI and also more AI to unlock capabilities in energy is still at the crux of those continued opportunities and some of those continued concerns. What we know is that the AI era will require more energy infrastructure. But as I mentioned, it can also give the energy industry powerful new tools. And so what prompted our community-first AI infrastructure work is to step back and listen to our communities. I hope what you see in our 5 pillars of community-first AI infrastructure reflects what you're also hearing from your members and in their communities.

We started from a point of listening. What we've heard is that communities understand and value the benefits that digital infrastructure deliver in their backyards, specifically the ability to create jobs, the local investment that accrues values to local businesses, as well as tax benefits and tax resources in communities. But they're also asking reasonable and important questions, like: what will this mean for my electricity bill? What does it mean for local water resources? You know, how do we benefit as a community, not just from the tax base, but from this AI era that we're living through? And so it was that listening and those questions that really infused our approach to community-first AI infrastructure.

RM: What are those five pillars?

HG: We'll pay our way to ensure that data centers don't increase electricity prices, that we'll minimize our water use and replenish more water than we use. We actually have some really exciting advanced technology where we're doing much, much more closed-loop and entirely recycled data center systems. So there's been leaps and bounds of, I would say, evolution, and new capabilities in that space. Three, we'll create jobs for residents. We invest in local partnerships and do offer local training and path to skilled jobs, often working with local community colleges and trades programs. Four, we add to the local tax base, and we've seen in communities that, that we've worked with over time that this has been used to fund hospitals, schools, parks, libraries, and that's really a highly local conversation on their priorities.

And then five, this is an era where more and more AI skilling is becoming important across different sectors. And so we want to be a part of that local skilling, investing with schools, community colleges, and universities, but also offering skills training for businesses and local nonprofits. So those are our 5 pillars. And, you know, as I said, it came out of community listening, but also listening to EEI's members, because having been in this space a long time, I think of utilities as community organizations. And so we learned so much through our direct partnerships with utilities as well.

RM: I love that framing. Now I want to talk about some of your work and your forward-looking solutions that help enhance infrastructure. I understand Microsoft has collaborated with utilities to enhance grid infrastructure through something called digital twins. Could you unpack how digital twins work and how they can help deliver value to customers?

HG: Sure. And I'll take an even wider lens than just digital twins, but to try to put digital twins in a nutshell, when you think about the power grid, it is truly the world's most amazing and complex engineering feat. It’s not just the physical assets, but the geographic space that they embody, the workforce that's constantly working on them. It is a living, breathing machine. Interacting with the physics of the world around it.

And so when we talk about digital twins, you know, the most like layman's way to think about it is how do you take the massive amount of data that's in that big engineered system and happening in the dynamic world around that system, the weather, the temperature, the humidity, you know, where there's an outage because somebody's doing work, where you have a new subdivision coming online and take that big dynamic system and reflect it in a way that is digital using all of that real-time data, but to help you do planning, to help you make decisions about where you might build future infrastructure, to help inform things like predictive maintenance, to go out and repair or fix something like a transformer before you have an outage incident.

And so, it’s about how you take this tremendous amount of data that we throw off of our assets across every part of the value chain, and use that data to improve your decision-making with accuracy before you're in a moment of need.

RM: So a supercharged advanced form of modeling. And it sounds like it has both real-time moment-to-moment applications and then also longer-term applications. Can this deliver cost savings and efficiency for customers?

HG: Yes, and that's just scratching the surface. I get excited about grid use cases because I'm a bit of a grid nerd and because we're dealing with a level of complexity both in what we're building, I mean the absolute behemoth scale of the capital infrastructure plans that are happening across the industry right now to build infrastructure, to improve our infrastructure, to get new generation online, that's a tremendous AI opportunity.

The benefits that I see there are that we've done a lot of work in AI for permitting and helping take what can be a very manual and slow process to build environmental permitting documentation, and even to do the front-end engineering design work. So there's a lot of AI that can be applied to streamline permitting. One of our customers in that, Aloe Atomics, saved $80 million using AI for permitting instead of taking a traditional approach. So big cost savings as well as big, big time savings. And as I mentioned, the engineering and design work is not only about safety and accuracy, but repeatability and de-risking projects.

And then when I look into the grid itself, this system that we're building, we're building in more complexity as we go. AI's superpower is helping us manage that complexity without compromising on reliability. And so when we think about things like predictive maintenance, when we think about things like storm restoration and repair, it's about reliability. It's about workforce safety.

There's a ton of phenomenal work that's been done in helping our folks in the field have real-time, accurate information about the systems that they're working on that improve the safety and the productivity of our workforce. You know, do you need to do two truck rolls to have the right piece of equipment at a site, or can we provide some of the backend AI insights so that the equipment order was placed at the right time to get you the right equipment to go to the site with the right information. It's money, it's time, it's safety, it's reliability, and it's keeping the lights on for our communities.

RM: Let's shift gears just a little bit. I have an 11-year-old daughter, and like a lot of parents, I think about the future workforce and what that's gonna look like. And of course, here at EEI, we think a lot about the energy workforce. How does AI change how we should think about our workforce, and particularly our workforce in energy?

HG: We have such an incredible workforce opportunity in energy right now. There are two things happening in parallel. The first is a lot of the skilled trades that we talked about. There is a tremendous opportunity for us as an industry, and we're coming together as we already are with our partners and utilities to hire more trades and to grow the skilled workforce because we need more. The retirement rates of folks rolling out of these jobs is very, very high.

We are in a large growth and build cycle as an industry, and so we do need more of a skilled workforce to jump in. We have customers that are seeing AI as an opportunity to help with that skilling and to help with that workforce growth. So you probably have a set of engineers who know everything about substation X, Y, and Z. AI can actually be a path to help more of your workforce as they come on board, skill up, learn, dive into operating manuals, access best practices.

And I want to be super clear that that's about enabling folks to come online and do skilled work faster and more safely. Nothing here is about removing a job. We need more. I always say that an energy workforce is a yes-and equation. I'm really not worried about job loss in our industry. The answer is yes, and, and so AI is a tool, I think, to helping us grow and scale up and skill up and onboard for this tremendous growth that we are all experiencing and ensure that people enter the field and enter these high-risk jobs with the resources and the safety that they need to be successful.

RM: Last question: How can electric companies, technology companies, organized labor, and communities best work together to make sure this growth moment creates real benefits for communities, families, my parents, like all of us out here in America?

HG: I want to spend one more minute on what I'm seeing in the future. And then I really want to spend some time on that community benefit because I'm personally very passionate about it. But, you know, as I think more and more about this future we're entering into, I do think AI fluency will matter. And I do think getting your hands on these tools and challenging ourselves to rethink how we use them and how they benefit my day and your day and your productivity, I think it's important. But what I've already seen firsthand is that critical thinking, data literacy, cybersecurity, and judgment are more important than ever because the human is staying and our energy employees and our energy workforce is staying at the center of all of this work. And so the value is not, you know, AI making choices for us. The value is the people in our workforce who know the system, who ask the right questions, and who apply their judgment using this very powerful tool to augment their capabilities.

And while we're in this moment of building quickly and innovating and managing an increasingly complex system and delivering at scale. We need those tools to superpower what we do. But the human judgment, the human operator is who stays at the center. And so when I think about the nervousness people might have about AI, that's clear to me. The creativity, the human judgment, the you knowing your industry, your operations, that stays at the center of our work.

It is so important that we come together to the community organizations, to the utility, to those that are building infrastructure, in that the stakeholders have a voice. And so this is what's so central to us in the community-first AI work that we've put out there. It's central to how we work with and partner with utilities. Each stakeholder holds a piece of that vision of what it's going to take to be most meaningful and most productive in their community. And so I do think it is that coming together of those with the stakes to provide that point of view. To make this a moment that is really successful for communities.

This was part of what it took to build the grid to begin with was this engagement with communities to build infrastructure. It's what it took to build our water utilities. It's what it took to build railroads. It's what it takes to build airports. And so to me, this is not fundamentally different than those large investments that power our economy every single day. But we can learn from what worked and what didn't in those different time periods. And the more that we, again, center those stakeholders in the conversation and ensure that the communities reap the upside of this tremendous investment, I think that's the real opportunity at our fingertips.

How Electric Companies Help Customers Stay Cool and Save Energy During the Summer Months

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 19:24:33 +0200

Summer heat is driving up energy demand, as Americans crank up their air conditioners amid record-breaking heat to stay safe and comfortable. Over the past two weeks, more than 200 million Americans were under extreme heat alerts, with temperatures as high as 115°F across central and eastern parts of the United States.

This led to weekly electricity output hitting record levels in early July. America’s electric companies delivered twice as much energy in seven days as New York City uses in an entire year.

EEI’s member companies work every day to deliver reliable, affordable energy to the customers counting on them, maintaining a range of initiatives to drive efficiency and lower customer costs.

Dominion Energy

Dominion Energy’s EnergyShare assistance program gives eligible customers up to $300 from June 1 through September 30 and up to $600 October 1 through May 31 to help cover cooling and heating costs. The EnergyShare program also helps customers weatherize their homes to save money long term.

“Don’t make assumptions about whether you’re eligible or not. It’s not a lengthy or arduous process. You can check it out, see if you qualify, and if not, there are other options to explore,” said Dominion Energy spokesperson Craig Carper in a statement.

Entergy Texas

Entergy Texas’ energy efficiency team partners with local contractors each year to provide customers with free air-conditioning system tuneups. They recently worked with customers in the Orange and Dayton areas and are expanding to more communities across the state of Texas. Through the CoolSaver program, technicians optimize home cooling systems by cleaning, inspecting, and adjusting key components during tune-ups.

“We know summer heat in Southeast Texas can be intense, and inefficient cooling systems can add stress to a family’s budget,” said Entergy Texas Energy Efficiency Program Manager Weslyn Brown in a statement. “These tune-ups and upgrades help improve comfort, reduce energy use and put customers in a better position during the hottest months of the year.”

Eligible customers may also qualify for weatherization improvements, including air sealing, upgraded attic insulation, and duct sealing. These services help maintain indoor comfort by keeping cool air inside and blocking heat from entering the home. The company values these services at more than $250 per unit. Due to a high volume of applications, the CoolSaver program is not accepting new applications until next year.

Duke Energy

Duke Energy helps customers manage their summer energy use with tools and programs designed to meet customers where they are. Usage Alerts help customers stay informed about their projected energy use and estimated bill amount before their next bill arrives. Customers may also be eligible for a free home energy assessment, which offers personalized recommendations to help them better understand their home's energy use and identify opportunities to improve efficiency.

“Summer can be a challenging time for many households, and our goal is to give customers simple, practical tools that help them better understand their energy use and identify options that fit their needs, lifestyle and budget,” said Duke Energy spokesperson Caroline Fountain.

Depending on where they live, customers may also have access to time-of-use rates, bill credits through demand response programs and rebates for energy-efficient home upgrades. Together, these tools and programs help customers better understand their energy use and find options that fit their household needs, lifestyle and budget. Program availability varies by location, so customers should check the offerings available in their area.

Resources and Tips to Help Reduce Energy Bills

Electric companies across the country are also proponents of the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps qualifying customers with their energy bills. August is LIHEAP Action Month, when EEI and the National Energy & Utility Affordability Coalition raise awareness about LIHEAP and advocate for continued federal funding for the program.

Learn more about how EEI’s member companies keep electricity prices low during LIHEAP Action Month and throughout the year.

There are also simple ways you can save energy and money while simultaneously keeping your home cool. EEI and our member companies encourage customers to follow these seven energy efficient tips in the summer:

Service Your AC: Schedule a professional tune-up and replace filters as recommended.
Use a Smart Thermostat: Program temperatures to improve comfort and reduce energy costs.
Keep Airflow Clear: Make sure vents and the outdoor AC unit are free of obstructions.
Cover Windows: Close blinds, curtains, or drapes on sun-facing windows to reduce heat gain.
Switch to LEDs: Use LED bulbs and take advantage of natural daylight when possible.
Seal Air Leaks: Caulk and weather-strip cracks and openings to keep cool air inside.
Cook Smarter: Grill outdoors or use a microwave to minimize indoor heat.

For more tips on how to save energy during the summer, check out EEI’s More Than 100 Ways to Improve Your Electric Bill booklet.

Electric Companies Partner with Tech Companies and Data Center Developers to Drive Benefits in Surrounding Communities

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 19:43:42 +0200

Electricity is having its biggest moment in a generation. After two decades of flat growth, U.S. power demand is climbing at a historic rate, driven by advanced manufacturing, electrification, and load growth from data centers. Even though data centers have captured public attention, their role in America’s energy landscape is nuanced: When connected to the grid, they lower price pressures, drive economic development, and ultimately benefit customers and communities across the country.

Large-load data centers not only help reduce electricity costs for retail customers but also deliver meaningful community benefits through investments in the local areas where they operate. EEI member companies actively work with tech companies and data center developers to strengthen benefits in surrounding communities.

Rate Payer Protection

EEI member companies ensure new customers pay their full cost of service, freezing or even lowering rates for existing customers in the process. This same principle is reflected in the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge that formalizes an approach electric companies have been executing for years: hyperscalers are responsible for securing their own power supply, funding necessary infrastructure upgrades that benefit everyone, and paying for the capacity they reserve regardless of actual electricity use.

Alliant Energy

Regulators in Wisconsin recently approved We Energies’ Customer Protection Plan, ensuring that the cost of hosting data centers will not affect residential customers. In addition, Wisconsin regulators approved a contract for Alliant Energy to power a Meta data center without impacting residential customers. Alliant Energy is currently in the middle of a five-year rate freeze facilitated by the company’s data center customers.

DTE Energy

DTE Energy announced that, following its latest filing with the Michigan Public Service Commission, it intends to pause requests for electric rate increases for at least 2 years. The decision is driven by growing demand from data centers, with two new data center agreements expected to support nearly $9 billion in grid upgrades funded by large-load customers.

NiSource

In April, NiSource announced a data center agreement with a subsidiary of Alphabet and expanded an existing agreement with Amazon. Under the NIPSCO Generation LLC (GenCo) model, NiSource customers will receive a total of $1.4 billion in savings. The GenCo model ensures residential customers are not impacted by large load customers' new generation and that tech companies pay their fair share of the cost.

“As data center demand continues to grow across our service territory, we are helping to ensure that new large-load customers support the infrastructure needed to serve them while existing customers benefit through bill credits as those customers ramp,” said NiSource President and CEO Lloyd Yates in a statement. “We are proud to support Indiana’s economic development momentum through a model that advances affordability, reliability and long-term growth.”

Southern Company

Georgia Power and Alabama Power announced plans to freeze customer rates due to their work with data centers and large load customers. Alabama Power’s freeze lasts until 2027, while Georgia Power’s freeze runs through 2028.

Investing in Communities

Beyond customer savings, data center partnerships are generating direct, measurable benefits for the communities that host them.

Dominion Energy

In Henrico County, Va., Dominion Energy has collaborated with Virginia’s Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC) to create the Solar Access Henrico program. This new model helps low-income households install solar systems and lower their electricity bills through a $5 million contribution from the QTS data center.

Since launching in 2025, the program has already helped 96 homeowners in five communities across Virginia install solar systems. Over the next 30 years, these households are expected to save more than $5 million thanks to the solar system.

“County leaders worked with the data center, the developer and the power company on a strategy to allay fears and reduce expenses for residents,” said Executive Director of LISC Virginia Jame Ferrara in a statement. “It helps people protect their homes while also creating more local jobs.”

To qualify, households must earn 80 percent or less of the area median income, or up to $90,800 for a family of four in the greater Richmond area that includes Henrico County. Installation runs approximately $20,000 per home and includes a 20-year warranty.

Entergy

Entergy’s recent partnership with Meta is expected to deliver $2 billion in savings to Entergy Louisiana customers over the next 20 years, while also giving back to local educators. Increased tax revenues from Meta’s data center project have recently enabled Richland Parish teachers to receive annual bonuses of up to $50,000. The annual bonuses are 400% higher than the previous year.

“It’s life-altering for our teachers and their families, and it’s transforming our schools,” said Superintendent of the Richland Parish School District Sheldon Jones in a statement. “Meta’s investment has made Richland Parish a destination for education as well as industry,” Jones explained.

Bringing Jobs

Data centers also create new opportunities for workers, local businesses, and regional economies.

Dominion Energy

Through the partnership among QTS data centers, Dominion Energy, and LISC, the solar panel model is not only designed to reduce utility costs, but also to support local jobs. These jobs include local solar installations and clean-energy opportunities.

“This program is offering proof of concept for the larger idea that solar and efficiency funding can address the larger housing and energy affordability challenges, while also creating jobs in partnership with utilities and major data firms,” said LISC Senior Vice President John Moon in a statement.

Duke Energy

Duke Energy has partnered with Amazon to power the AWS data center in Richmond County, NC. Amazon’s data center brings 2,000 temporary jobs to the area and 500 permanent roles. Additionally, Amazon has partnered with Richmond Community College to provide students with information about data center careers and pathways to enter the field. This initiative is designed to help local residents gain the skills and qualifications needed to secure higher-paying jobs within the data center sector.

Entergy

Meta’s partnership with Entergy Louisiana will create 1,000 jobs in a community of 20,000 people once operational. Louisiana Delta Community College is receiving a $5 million donation from Meta to create scholarships to train residents for data center jobs. Additional benefits include Louisiana local businesses receiving over $1.6 billion in contracts from Meta since construction began in 2024.

Meta also provides training to local small businesses in Louisiana and invests in programs connecting businesses and workers to opportunities at the data center site. This includes developing subcontracting partnerships that support workforce development opportunities through local colleges and universities.

Furthermore, thanks to the increased bonuses for teachers in Richland Parish, Superintendent Jones says this is the first time in his 30-year career that every teacher who interviewed was fully certified. Higher bonuses attract better educators, and Jones is confident that if the Richland Parish School District attracts the best teachers, they will become the best school district in the region.

Research Shows Data Centers Benefit Communities

An increasing number of studies, including those from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Charles River Associates, reach a similar conclusion about data centers. Research suggests that data centers typically exert downward pressure on electricity rates and benefit existing customers.

For example, a study conducted by EPRI found that the increase in the number of data centers from 2015 to 2024 led to a 4 percent decline in retail electricity prices. In addition, the Lawrence Berkeley study found that state-level load growth was associated with a decline in average retail electricity prices across most states from 2019 to 2025.

This system will only work if “fair share agreements,” or large-load tariffs, ensure that new customers on the grid pay their full cost of service. Across our member companies, large customer partnerships are being established to deliver real, quantifiable benefits back to existing customers.

STEP at 20: Showing the Industry’s Strength Through Preparation

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 21:01:37 +0200

Mutual assistance has long been part of the electric power industry’s DNA.

As electric companies, our strength is collective, and our culture of continuous improvement means we are constantly looking to improve safety, reliability, and service to customers.

While our mutual assistance work is commonly associated with storm response, our companies support one another in several other areas, including physical and cybersecurity initiatives. Amid a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, these collaborative resilience efforts are especially important today as our industry works to strengthen and safeguard America’s critical energy infrastructure.

Twenty years ago, we broadened our mutual assistance footprint by launching the Spare Transformer Equipment Program (STEP), ensuring we could coordinate and respond quickly following a direct attack on critical American infrastructure.

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, changed so much for so many. As an industry central to the safety and security of the nation, we knew we needed to be part of the solution and, as we always do, have plans in place for worst-case scenarios.

In the years that followed the attacks, I was proud to be part of an industrywide effort to safeguard our grid against bad actors through the founding of STEP. The program provides participating companies with access to a large pool of hard-to-replace assets when, for example, a terrorist attack destroys a substation with large power transformers and causes a significant transmission outage. Members—consisting of investor-owned electric companies, public power utilities, and federal power marketing administrations—maintain a supply of spare transformers and other hard-to-replace assets that fellow members can readily access—and are required to share—in the event of an attack.

Unfortunately, electric companies know too well the long lead times associated with purchasing new transformers and new grid equipment in the event that existing assets are damaged—which is magnified during an attack or crisis event when every moment without power counts. STEP mitigates these lead times and helps ensure its members can respond quickly and efficiently.

Thankfully, in its 20 years, STEP has never seen a terrorist event cause a significant transmission outage. Even so, its members collaborate regularly and have used the STEP framework to support one another in other emergency situations. The continued strength of the program, and the robust, trusted community of industry peers that it has fostered, speaks to one of our superpowers as an industry: our commitment to preparation and collaboration.

We know that our companies and our industry power our customers’ lives and the broader U.S. economy. And, we know that, time and again, bad actors are targeting the grid to inflict maximum impact on the American people.

That means we must constantly remain on the front foot. What secures the grid and keeps our customers safe today will not remain static, and it is through programs like STEP that we plan and prepare for evolving threats to our grid and our national security.

I am proud that, 20 years after its founding, STEP remains a critical tool in our industry’s emergency response toolbox—a tool that, while we hope to never need it, is sharp and ready if we do.

Mike Innocenzo is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Exelon and Interim President and CEO, PECO

Powering Growth, Protecting Customers in the Gulf South

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 20:14:30 +0200

Electric companies drive economic development, grid investments, and customer benefits across the country, thanks in large part to the win-wins they create for communities through their work with hyperscalers, large manufacturers, and data center developers.

Last week, EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney moderated a discussion between EEI Vice Chairs Drew Marsh, chair and CEO of Entergy; and Chris Womack, chairman, president, and CEO of Southern Company, during a Gulf South Business Roundtable event in Washington, D.C.

The group discussed the importance of industry-government coordination, electric companies’ commitment to protecting and serving customers, and the opportunities that are being unlocked in the Gulf South by hyperscaler investments.

“We’re seeing this region lead on affordability initiatives, on smart data center development, and on community engagement, with projects that benefit everyone,” Maloney said. “We’ve seen study after study show that grid-connected data centers can drive down prices and deliver meaningful benefits to customers. Entergy and Southern Company are case studies and role models for the rest of the country for the work they are doing in the Gulf South.”

Key Takeaways:

Hyperscalers Are Paying Their Fair Share – And Then Some

Context: Fair share agreements ensure tech companies and data center developers pay for the energy infrastructure they need – projects that benefit all customers by spreading fixed costs, creating jobs, and unlocking new streams of tax revenue to support schools, roads, bridges, and fire departments.

Entergy’s Fair Share Plus pledge ensures data centers pay their own way – and ultimately drive benefits to existing customers. In Louisiana, for example, school teachers in Richland Parish went from being among the lowest paid in the state to some of the highest paid thanks to increased tax revenues from an Entergy-powered Meta data center project.

Electric Perspectives:

“Our Fair Share Plus pledge lines up with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge that several hyperscalers signed in Washington a few months ago. … These projects are adding to schools and paying for new fire engines, libraries, and roads that help our communities.” - Entergy’s Drew Marsh
“These projects are incredible economic engines for many of our communities. … Because of how we structure these projects and negotiate these contracts, we’re making sure they’re not only paying their fair share: They’re paying a premium that allows us to hold rates flat, or you’re seeing rates decline.” - Southern Company’s Chris Womack

Electric Companies Put Customers First

Context: Independent studies from EPRI, Columbia University, and The Brattle Group conclude that data centers and large customers put downward pressure on rates when connected to the grid. Previous research from Charles River Associates and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory also found that customers outside of the PJM region have largely been shielded from cost increases related to data centers and benefit from new large loads.

Entergy’s work with data center developers, for example, is driving $7 billion in savings to the company’s 2.3 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Meanwhile, Georgia Power’s data center work allowed regulators to lower customer rates by approximately $50 per year – following last year’s approval of a multi-year rate freeze thanks to Georgia Power’s work with data centers and large load customers. Similar freezes have been approved in Alabama thanks to Southern Company’s work.

Electric Perspectives:

“If you look at the history of electricity and what our industry has done for more than 100 years, a cornerstone of our work has been a commitment to reliability, to service, and to our communities. That community focus has been tied to economic development and how we grow our communities, grow our tax base, and make communities better.” - Southern Company’s Chris Womack
“We start by putting the customer at the center of everything we do. All of our decision making cascades from there. … Our communities, collectively, are very supportive of these opportunities because of how much these projects support our existing customers.” - Entergy’s Drew Marsh

New Infrastructure Is Efficient, Resilient, and Ready to Meet Demand

Context: Electric companies ensure the new infrastructure built to support data centers is new, modern, efficient, and beneficial to all customers.

Southern Company is developing or upgrading more than 1,300 miles of transmission and distribution lines across Georgia and Alabama. In Louisiana, Entergy estimates its work with Meta alone will lead to a 10 percent reduction in storm recovery and grid resilience costs to its customer base.

Grid-connected data centers enhance the resilience of the broader system, give tech companies the reliability their facilities need to operate, and subsidize the construction of new energy infrastructure and upgrades to existing assets.

Electric Perspectives:

“My expectation is we will continue to have large-scale customer growth. That will be the engine that remakes the transmission and distribution grid. It will make rebuilding existing infrastructure more affordable for our customers. That’s what I’m excited about. There will be benefits for new customers coming in and all of our existing customers, as well.” - Entergy’s Drew Marsh
“We’re going to meet this new demand, but we’re going to continue to make the right investments to make sure we strengthen the grid for our existing customers. That’s the responsibility that we have. We’re going to uphold that responsibility and execute around it.” - Southern Company’s Chris Womack

Celebrating the Essential Role of America’s Lineworkers

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:05:25 +0200

Industry leaders, labor representatives, and members of Congress and their staff gathered for the National Lineworker Appreciation Day Reception on July 14 to recognize the dedication, skill, and sacrifice of the men and women who work every day to keep America's energy grid running.

Hosted by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), the event celebrated lineworkers as essential members of the nation’s energy workforce.

EEI Chief Advocacy Officer Kiel Weaver thanked IBEW and NECA for their partnership, as well as the members of Congress who co-sponsored resolutions to honor America's lineworkers on July 10 in the U.S. House and Senate.

“Most important, thank you to the lineworkers themselves. You are the face of this industry and the reason the lights stay on,” Weaver said.

“America’s lineworkers are true heroes, through the wind and the hail, through bitter heat and cold, hurricanes, floods, and every kind of natural disaster you can imagine,” said IBEW International Secretary-Treasurer Paul Noble. “They do this for one reason—to keep the power going for our schools, our hospitals, our businesses, and our homes.”

Noble also highlighted the importance of collaboration across the industry, recognizing the strong labor-management partnership between electric companies, workers, and contractors that improves safety and strengthens the electric power industry.

NECA District 10 Executive Director Robbie Foxen emphasized that reliable electricity depends on the expertise and dedication of lineworkers.

“Reliability doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because of the skill, dedication, and commitment of our nation’s lineworkers,” Foxen said. “Lineworkers are the first responders of the energy industry.”

Foxen added that as America enters a new era of electrification and energy growth, lineworkers will play an increasingly important role in building, maintaining, and enhancing the electric grid.

Congressman Donald Norcross (D-NJ), an electrician by trade and an active IBEW member, recognized the training and teamwork required to restore power during emergencies.

“When the lights go out, when the storm comes in, we have a core group of well-trained individuals who know how to do it as part of a team,” Norcross said.

He also acknowledged the risks lineworkers take to serve their communities.

“The idea of putting your hands around the wire—15,000 volts—with only that glove protecting you, and going up heights of several hundred feet—this is what they do day in and day out,” Norcross said.

The National Lineworker Reception served as a reminder that behind every light switch is a dedicated workforce committed to keeping communities powered, safe, and connected. As electric companies continue to deliver the energy of every day, lineworkers will remain essential to building and maintaining the infrastructure that powers America.

SDG&E to Deploy New Wildfire, Extreme Weather AI System

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 22:05:35 +0200

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is deploying AI technology that will give it “near-instant insights” into potential wildfire and extreme weather risks, in partnership with Qualcomm Technologies and the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The new Edge Alert Sentinel (EAS) will integrate environmental sensors, AI technologies, edge computing, and atmospheric science from wind, weather, and environmental data. One of its biggest draws is its “edge” capabilities, meaning it will be able to process data at the point of collection rather than relying on cloud computing that can introduce delays.

In Southern California’s complex weather environment, where Santa Ana winds, droughts, and terrain variability complicate traditional forecasting efforts, EAS will be able to deliver guidance in seconds rather than minutes – which can make a real difference to wildfire mitigation work.

“For nearly two decades, our region has avoided a catastrophic electrically caused wildfire because we chose to lead early and never stop looking ahead,” SDG&E President Scott Crider said in a statement. “EAS reflects that same mindset. By working with Qualcomm Technologies and UC San Diego, we’re bringing world-class technology and science together, so intelligence lives where the risk lives – on the front lines – and communities are safer because of it.”

A pilot is being set up on Mt. Palomar, about 70 miles north of San Diego. SDG&E and its partners are planning for a wider rollout in 2027.

The tool is SDG&E’s latest designed to keep customers safe from wildfires and extreme weather. Over the past decade, SDG&E has invested nearly $6 billion to prevent catastrophic wildfires.

The company’s Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center integrates cutting-edge fire science, weather forecasting, and supercomputer modeling into the team’s wildfire mitigation work, helping SDG&E respond to real-time threats while building a more resilient system to respond to longer-term threats.

DOE, AEP Texas Announce $3.26B Package Supporting Energy Affordability, Reliability

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:06:01 +0200

In July, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the closure of a $3.26 billion loan that will support AEP Texas in its work to lower customer costs and enhance energy grid reliability and resilience.

More than 1 million AEP Texas customers will save $685 million in electricity costs during the next 30 years as a result of the loan, which will help fund 100 AEP Texas transmission projects, including the construction of 2,800 miles of new transmission lines.

“Texas is poised for incredible growth over the next five years. AEP Texas is committed to enabling this opportunity while leveraging resources to deliver future savings for our customers,” AEP Texas President and COO Adrian Rodriguez said in a statement. “This loan supports critical updates to our transmission infrastructure to strengthen reliability, connect new load and generation resources, and manage affordability.”

The loan will also support up to 41 gigawatts of new load growth by 2030, as AEP Texas invests in the grid to meet energy demand while maintaining reliability and affordability for current customers.

“This investment will modernize Texas’ electric grid, support the energy needed for AI, advanced manufacturing, the Permian Basin, and help keep electricity costs down for Texans,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement.

The loan is the third significant package to be announced by DOE in recent months as the government supports electric companies’ efforts to maintain a reliable and resilient grid and deliver reliable, affordable energy to customers.

In June, DOE and DTE Energy announced a similar $1.6-billion loan package that will deliver more than $700 million in cost savings to Michigan customers. In February, DOE issued its largest-ever loan guarantee to Southern Company, supporting $26.5 billion in energy projects in Alabama and Georgia.

“These loans will help lower the cost of investments in our grid that will enhance reliability and resilience for the benefit of our customers,” Chris Womack, chairman, president and CEO of Southern Company, said in a statement at the time.

DOE’s Gregory Beard appeared on a recent episode of the Electric Perspectives podcast to discuss the department’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing and how it is supporting the work that electric companies do in their communities every day. Listen here.

Avangrid Announces New Battery Storage Project in Oregon

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 22:22:00 +0200

In June, Avangrid announced plans to build a new 82 megawatt-hour battery storage facility in Gilliam County, Ore. – bolstering reliability in the region while supporting Avangrid’s efforts to balance electricity supply and demand in the Pacific Northwest in real time.

A single discharge from the Shutler Energy Storage system will be able to power approximately 3,000 homes in the sparsely-populated county. The facility will come online in 2027, and its construction will create 35 local union jobs.

“Shutler Energy Storage gives us another tool to effectively manage our regional portfolio, improving how we coordinate across our generating assets and make better use of our existing infrastructure,” Avangrid Power CEO Sy Oytan said in a statement. “This added flexibility will allow us to respond quickly to changing grid conditions and operate our fleet more efficiently every day.”

Additionally, Avangrid announced plans to donate $110,000 annually to Condon Early Learning Center and Arlington Childcare Center, two local nonprofits supporting early childhood education and childcare.

"This generous investment by Avangrid will provide vital support not only for our organization, but more importantly for the families, children, and future of Arlington,” said Arlington Childcare Center Board President Mark Moore. “This kind of community partnership provides working families with greater security, allows local businesses to thrive, and ensures that our community’s children have access to quality early learning experiences for years to come.”

NextEra Energy Transmission Completes 137-Mile Transmission Line

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 19:19:00 +0200

In June, NextEra Energy Transmission and the New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission Authority announced the completion of the 137-mile, 345-kilovolt Crossroads-Hobbs-Roadrunner Transmission Line near the state’s eastern border with Texas.

The line was completed ahead of schedule and is projected to reduce residential customers’ bills in the surrounding area by $13 per month.

“The Crossroads project demonstrates New Mexico's leadership in building the infrastructure that drives economic development and affordability for everyday New Mexicans,” New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “Together, we are building energy, transmission and jobs that will power our workforce and economy, reliably and affordably, for generations to come.”

The project is one of several that America’s investor-owned electric companies are spearheading to deliver reliable, affordable energy to customers. EEI members will invest $1.4 trillion through 2030 to strengthen the grid and support the communities that depend on them.

“At a time when America needs more electricity, needs it affordably, and needs it now, this project shows what's possible when transmission developers, strong collaboration, community engagement and disciplined execution come together,” said NextEra Energy Transmission President Matt Valle. “This is speed-to-power at its finest and the kind of infrastructure that will power communities well into the future.”

New Study: Fair Share Agreements in Iowa, Wisconsin Support Customer Affordability

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:26:00 +0200

Fair share agreements with large load customers “place downward pressure on average prices” for all customers when implemented correctly, according to a new analysis from The Brattle Group.

The study, commissioned for Alliant Energy, looked at large load demand in Iowa and Wisconsin. It found that tariffs and contracts that ensure hyperscalers and large customers pay their fair share not only protect existing customers from cost increases - they help ease price pressures by paying for grid upgrades and spreading fixed costs across a larger base.

As of June, regulators in 24 states - including in Iowa and Wisconsin - had approved at least one large load tariff, which electric companies use to ensure residential customers don’t subsidize energy infrastructure needed to serve data centers. Decisions are pending in an additional four states.

“Our analysis shows that affordability outcomes will depend significantly on how utilities structure rates, contracts, and cost allocation mechanisms,” Brattle Principal Ryan Hledik, a coauthor of the report, said in a statement. “When incremental revenues from large customers meet or exceed the costs they impose on the system, existing customers can be protected while communities still benefit from economic development and infrastructure investment.”

The study noted that states experiencing the fastest electricity demand growth have historically seen the largest declines in inflation-adjusted electricity prices. Its findings add to a growing pool of research suggesting data centers and large load customers do not drive up electricity prices for customers when electric companies implement tariffs and other specialized contracts to protect customers.

A separate recent analysis from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and The Brattle Group found that “state-level load growth was linked to declining all-sector average retail prices in recent decades, including from 2019 to 2025, in most states.” And, earlier this year, a Charles River Associates study similarly found that electricity rates have remained broadly stable in most states and have generally tracked inflation over time. Outside the PJM Interconnection region, it found that customers have largely been shielded from cost increases related to data centers.

Alliant Energy is in the midst of a five-year rate freeze in its Iowa service territory that was made possible by data center and large load investments in the grid. Similar rate freezes have been approved in Alabama and proposed in Michigan, Wisconsin, and other states.

An Alliant Energy-supported data center project in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and the benefits it has provided to the surrounding community were the focus of a recent episode of the Electric Perspectives podcast. Learn more at electricperspectives.com/podcast.

Podcast: The Lineworkers Behind the Energy of Every Day

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:05:00 +0200

In recognition of National Lineworker Appreciation Day, EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney hosted a recent episode of the Electric Perspectives podcast, joined by lineworkers Greg McQuiggan and Ryan Murray of National Grid and Leland Overstreet of Alabama Power.

Following is an abbreviated transcript, lightly edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full episode and catch up with other recent interviews, visit electricperspectives.com/podcast.

Drew Maloney (DM): How did each of you get started as a lineworker?

Ryan Murray (RM): I had some buddies who got in the field, and I took interest in it. They brought me aside and showed me some stuff. I always wanted to work outside, and I always had interest in electricity.

Greg McQuiggan (GM): I'm third generation. My grandfather was a line mechanic. My father was on the management side of things.

I played sports up until I was 23. And when I was done with that, my grandfather, when I was younger, said, "What are you going to do when you're older?" I said, "I'm going to play sports." He goes, "Yeah, when that doesn't work out, what are you going to do?"

We were standing in his backyard, he pointed up and he goes, "You ever think about working on those?" I didn't pay much attention to it. When sports ended, I signed up for the Southeast Lineman Training Center in Georgia. Went through the Georgia Line School, did a whole bunch of interviews, and, fortunately, ended up at National Grid. This has been my career since.

Previously, I had a bunch of odd jobs trying things out on my dad's side. I knew I couldn't do management stuff. I can't sit in an office. I can't sit still. When I got into other things outside, I really enjoyed it, and this has been an unbelievable profession at this point.

Leland Overstreet (LO): My dad, he worked at Ingles Markets. I think he worked there for 28 years. He just retired last year. He was an electrician. I always thought it was cool – rubbing your socks against a carpet and shocking yourself, you're like, "Hmm, how did that come about? "

At the same time, I thought it was a really good career. I like transmission more than distribution. I just like the bigger stuff. I've seen that they use more equipment and stuff like that.

It has been a really fulfilling job. I enjoy every day of it. When we get to use a dozer or a skid steer or something, mechanized equipment, I feel like a kid again. It's just living a dream.

DM: The culture of safety is so huge for all lineworkers. Leland, how do you keep yourself safe every day, and how do you train newer workers coming onboard?

LO: We follow our procedures and rules and stuff like that. Before we even get to a job site, or when we're at the job site, we'll have a job safety brief. Everybody will have an idea of what they're going to do for that day.

We'll just make sure we're safe, make sure we're just cautious about everything, and make sure, at the end of the day, we're having fun and just getting the work done.

DM: Greg and Ryan, you guys are out in the truck right now. You have a thunderstorm coming in. What does a normal day look like for you all?

GM: Ryan and I are fortunate to work together quite often. Our bosses put together a board with the job description of what we're doing on a specific day. We'll gather up with our crew. We'll go through the job jacket. We'll gather a plan and get material going for the morning.

From there, we'll meet at the job, where we go over a job brief, discuss our job, who's doing aerial work, who's doing groundwork, where our points of protection might be, how we're going to protect ourselves. Then, we'll just go through it. We usually break for lunch sometime around 12:00 or 12:30 and take about a half hour. Then we get back to it. Usually, we'll leave something easy for the end of the day.

RM: It's interesting with this job, because even though we report to the same place every day, every day is unique in its own way. Every job is a little bit different from the day before.

DM: And with storms coming in, you never know. You have to pre-position. You just don't know where you might end up that day, right?

GM: Right. Storms are actually my favorite part of the whole job. I love trouble. I love the storms. I love all that activity with that. That's where you really have to be dialed in, especially with the guys you work with.

The guy who trained me did a really good job always teaching me, do things consistently, do things always the same way, over and over. I'm trying to push that to Ryan as he's coming through, as well.

The storm situations are amazing. Like Ryan said, it could be different. I could go to a broken arm job, cross arm job, run off to go up, and replace something like that. Then the next call could be three sections of primary down, which requires switching to get customers restored before we can fix stuff.

It's actually a lot of fun. The hours start to get aggressive at times, and that's when you really start leaning on the guy you're working with to be a part of your day-to-day, make sure you guys are all on the same page.

DM: For Winter Storm Fern – the big snowstorm and ice storm that I know, Leland, you were involved with –America got to see mutual assistance in action. You had 65,000 line workers from 44 different states help work through that storm. Leland, how did you think about preparing for that storm, and what was involved?

LO: We knew it was icy. It's cold. So we just came up with a good game plan, made sure that we had all the equipment that we needed, because it's really dangerous dealing with winter storms, especially down here in Mobile. That's pretty rare. You have people on the highway slipping and sliding, and you’re trying to avoid them.

We just tried to just make sure we had all of our equipment, made sure that all of our men were pretty well aware and well-equipped for what they’re doing. This is an unusual phenomenon in Mobile, but we just got it done and followed our procedures and safety rules. And we got the lights back on.

DM: Greg, Ryan, I assume that's the same outside of Buffalo. You guys get crushed with snow and all kinds of different types of challenges up there. How often are you called in to help other utilities in the area? How often do you have to travel when you have a major storm challenge?

GM: That's a really cool perk of this job: You do end up in spots throughout New York State. The Northeast, for me, I would never normally go to otherwise. When I first started, I'd say the first 10 years of my career, I was fortunate to go to a bunch of great spots, different locations, and help different utilities. That was cool, because like Ryan said, every day is the same, but not every system's the same. We have different wire sizes, different styles of construction, different ways of doing things. And it's cool to learn as a line mechanic, to make your own style based on everything you can see by going and doing assistance. That's one of my favorite parts of the whole job.

DM: Leland, everything you all do depends on your partner and the rest of the crew. What makes a strong lineworker, team, and crew?

LO: Whenever I think of the team, I think of everyone doing their part. Everyone's in a good mood. Everyone just has a main purpose of getting a job done safely and wanting to come home safely. And it's good when you have a really good group of guys. Everybody understands each other all the time. You can obviously joke and stuff like that, but, at the same time, you can multitask and get the work done way more efficiently.

DM: Greg, Ryan, how do you think about teamwork in your crew?

RM: Communication is one of the biggest things about this job. You got to be able to ask a question and trust the guy, and you got to be able to maybe critique him if he's not doing things safely. At the end of the day, like Leland's spoken to, you want to go home safe. That's the No. 1 goal every day.

GM: It's important, too, that you get to know the guy you work with on a regular basis. I know Ryan's wife, I know his child. I know these things about him. He knows my wife. He knows my children. That gives you an added element of brotherhood and camaraderie, which is massive for me and him.

You can joke around and have a blast. But, at the same time, I can tell him when things go wrong or vice versa. "Hey man, I don't know what you're doing up there with that. What are you doing?" You have to end up having that relationship. That is so important to the everyday activity of this job.

DM: You mentioned brotherhood. You are all in your local IBEW union. How important is that brotherhood to what you all do?

LO: I think it's really important. I just know our IBEW down here in Mobile is really good. They just reached out to me, about two weeks ago, to discuss what's going on with the crew and stuff like that, making sure that everybody's good.

If there's anything that we need, or there’s something that we need to be representative for, they're there in a flash. It's good to have another group of guys that does the same thing that you do every day have your back and understand, knowing where you're coming from, when you get into certain situations.

RM: Yeah, it's cool to have that mutual respect, because, in some way, shape, or form, we all do the same work. Having each other's backs is super important. It helps you day-to-day. We spend so much time together, a lot of times more than with our own families. You have to be there for each other, and that's what it all boils down to.

DM: Leland, what advice would you give to someone interested in lineworking as a career and how impactful this could be to their future?

LO: Make sure you have a can-do attitude. Make sure you come in level-headed. You don’t have to be the other guy’s best friend, but come in and have a passion about what you do.

I like to see the younger guys under me. I'm only 23, but I know a few guys coming under me, and they're in line school like, "I'm having a blast." I'm like, "Well, it gets really fun after the fact, but at the same time, it's just really good."

GM: I'd say come in eyes wide open, ears wide open, and mouth partially shut. I don't mean that in a bad way. If you have a question, obviously ask. It's a harder industry. I'll never deny that, but you can learn a ton. There's some incredible human beings who do this job. It's extremely rewarding in terms of your day-to-day. You get to move, work your body.

And when you're doing those storms, man, watching the lights turn on after you just did incredible amounts of work is insane. I have an awesome story about Christmastime. I was working on Christmas Eve on a broken pole outage. Watching all the lights pop on around everyone's homes was just awesome.

It's an extremely rewarding career. It's physically demanding, for sure. Come ready to learn and work. It's an unbelievable career if you come in with the right mentality.

RM: Try and be better each day. Be better than you were yesterday. Never get complacent. That's one of the most dangerous things you can do here. You can learn from anyone.

DM: You raise a good point. I think we all take for granted that, when we go home and flip the light switch, it always comes on. You guys are the ones responsible for keeping those lights on, and, oftentimes, people don't appreciate all the work that goes into that. As we come up on National Lineworker Appreciation Day, what does appreciation from your communities and your customers mean to each of you personally?

LO: Like Ryan said, it's a really good feeling when the lights come on. It makes me feel good that I'm able to provide a service for my community and be a provider. It’s not like everyone can do this line of work. I'm more than willing to make the sacrifice for my community so they can do their day-to-day activities, they can go to school, go to work. It’s just a really good feeling.

GM: It is a job. I understand my life pushed me in this direction. That's why I'm here. Just remember – when you're sitting at home as a customer, and there’s a thunderstorm, and you're inside with your air conditioning running; or in the middle of winter, when there’s a blizzard and your heat's on and your stove's working and you can eat – that if your power does go out, and you see us or any line mechanic show up, we're probably in our 16th hour, our fourth or fifth day working, and we didn't purposefully decide to come to your house when we did. We aren't purposely delaying. We're working as safe and as fast as we can, so please have a good attitude towards us, because we probably haven't seen our families in four days.

RM: It is a good feeling. You see a lot of different stuff and talk to a lot of different people. I've had people bring us coffee and food, or younger kids will make a card for us, and that just kind of keeps you going during those long days.

DM: I often say to policymakers here in Washington that the most critical engine in America is the electrical grid. When the grid's not working, America's not working. You guys are at the heart of keeping this economy, the local communities, everything going. We really appreciate it and appreciate your time. We wish you all the best and look forward to celebrating National Lineworker Appreciation Day.

Duke Energy Florida Implements Third Rate Reduction of 2026

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 22:07:00 +0200

In May, Duke Energy Florida announced its third rate reduction of the year, as the company lowered customer bills by 25 percent per 1,000 kilowatt-hours when compared to January.

“We know it feels like every bill is higher right now – from housing to groceries to power – and that can put a strain on families. We also understand that our customers depend on us to provide safe, reliable energy, day in and day out, at the lowest possible price," Duke Energy Florida State President Melissa Seixas said in a statement. “This is the third rate reduction for our customers this year, supporting our commitment to delivering positive outcomes that have a real, tangible impact on their wallets and in their lives.”

The reduction reflects the difference between anticipated storm cost recovery related to hurricanes Debby, Helene, and Milton, and what the company actually incurred. Rates were reduced for a similar reason in February. Duke Energy Florida also cut rates in March, as it does every year, to support customers during a period when energy use is typically higher.

Additionally, Duke Energy Florida estimates its customers will save more than $1 billion from infrastructure investments the company made last year to expand its generation portfolio, upgrade natural gas plants, make infrastructure more weather-resilient, and deploy self-healing grid technologies.

Across the country, EEI member companies will invest more than $1.4 trillion during the next five years to make the grid stronger, more resilient, and more efficient – allowing them to meet rising energy demand while continuing to deliver the reliable, affordable energy that customers count on. They will invest more than $238 billion this year alone.

Many, like Duke Energy Florida, are also freezing or reducing rates. In March, Pacific Gas and Electric Company lowered electric rates for the fifth time since 2024. In May, Georgia’s public service commission approved a plan to lower rates by roughly $50 per year for the typical residential customer after previously instituting a multi-year rate freeze, thanks in part to Georgia Power’s work with data center developers. Similar rate freezes have been approved in Alabama and Iowa and proposed in Michigan.

A recent study from Concentric Energy Advisors (CEA) identified the grid’s 22,000 generators, 55,000 substations, 642,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, and 6.3 million miles of distribution infrastructure as “the enabling platform for economic and national security,” delivering “reliable power to all sectors of the economy, including essential services such as defense, emergency response, water systems, and communication.”

Alliant Energy and QTS: Powering Growth for Every Customer

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:51:14 +0200

Alliant Energy Chief Strategy Officer Raja Sundararajan and QTS Data Centers Executive Vice President of Government Relations Todd Malan recently joined EEI Chief Legal Officer Rachael Marsh on an episode of the Electric Perspectives podcast to discuss data centers, community engagement, and collaboration between electric companies and hyperscalers.

Following is an abbreviated transcript, lightly edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full episode and catch up with other recent interviews, visit electricperspectives.com/podcast.

Rachael Marsh (RM): Raja, let’s kick off with you. What can you tell us about Alliant Energy’s work with QTS in Iowa? Why was this the right fit for your company and the communities you serve?

Raja Sundararajan (RS): Thanks, Rachael. We serve around a million electric customers and half-a-million gas customers in Iowa and Wisconsin. Our philosophy is to bring on large loads that create “win-win-wins” for our customers. When I say win-win-wins, that’s for existing customers, new customers, and the community that the large load serves.

As part of that, Alliant Energy took the proactive step of investing in land near areas of significant transmission capacity, which we call Big Cedar Industrial Park. That’s where the Cedar Rapids data center that QTS is building is located. This will be the largest economic development project in the history of Iowa.

While we have an obligation to serve, what makes this collaboration successful is the DNA and culture at QTS, where they lead with communities first and are flexible with respect to the timing and issues that require us to serve the large load that QTS has.

The QTS relationship has always been about making growth happen in a way that respects communities and is responsive. That’s the single largest differentiator that we saw with this effort. We have the largest economic development project in Iowa right now, and we have not faced any significant issues with respect to communities. That’s how they do business – effectively investing in large projects while addressing community issues. That speaks volumes of QTS culture and how they serve communities.

RM: Todd, you have many choices and options for where to locate a project. What makes a partner like Alliant Energy attractive?

Todd Malan (TM): QTS has been building data centers and data infrastructure for more than 25 years. We are in a new phase of data infrastructure, where you have these larger campuses for AI workloads.

At the same time, we have built a strong relationship with Alliant Energy. We have an energy partner and a utility partner that believes in the exact same things we do: core principles about how to build capacity and recognize communities. You have to be a good listener, and you need to be able to adjust to what a community’s priorities are. You need to be able to stand in the public square and answer questions and be transparent. That’s a hallmark of how Alliant Energy builds their energy infrastructure, so they have been a good match for how QTS wants to build data infrastructure.

At any given time, QTS has 40,000 contractors at a QTS site. We’re building six large-scale data center campuses in the United States, on top of the 75 that we own and operate now. We’re very aware that there are concerns in communities. It’s really about how you respond to that. That’s a hallmark of Alliant Energy and QTS.

In Cedar Rapids, the other ingredient is we had strong elected leadership in Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell, who sat down with us and said, “Great, you want to build a data center here? Here’s what’s important to Cedar Rapids. These are the things you have to do to be part of our community.” That’s exactly what we want.

Alliant Energy also did the work of finding the land and getting it zoned as industrial land. There was an easier pathway for us to do this in Cedar Rapids.

RM: Raja, when a developer like QTS comes to your service territory and makes such a long-term commitment, how does that affect your company’s long-term planning for the future for all customers?

RS: It obviously requires planning in terms of serving that large load. We have grid investments that need to be made. Fortunately, the land already had transmission access readily available. The biggest component was the generation needed to serve this large load. That’s where we took more of a long-term view. When you have this large load, that allows us to appropriately size the amount of generation. They're paying their fair share for both generation and transmission investments, but, on the other hand, we want to make sure they’re actually providing benefit to existing customers.

That's the key ingredient. We are trying to navigate not just paying their fair share, but also how that can protect existing customers.

We were able to navigate and achieve a five-year “stay out,” or rate freeze. That’s unique, and that’s enabled by the large load that's coming in and providing benefits. That’s the biggest change that you can see, where utilities are navigating these win-win-win scenarios. We are not only trying to make sure that the existing customers are seeing lesser rate increases, but actually, in fact, in our case, no rate increase for five years."

If the large load leaves after 15 or 30 years, that generation can be used to displace other, existing generation assets that would be getting old and would be retired. There are a multitude of benefits that these customers bring in, and that allows us to do more holistic long-term planning.

TM: I’d add that this is a complex area, with some complicated economics in terms of planning, in terms of what would otherwise have been borne by customers in terms of improving infrastructure in the region.

If a large load customer can come in and take down the lion’s share of that cost, what it does is help stabilize rates for all the other customers in that area. That's a fairly complex thing to explain. What I love about what Raja and Alliant Energy President and CEO Lisa Barton were able to do is that, when we made the announcement of this data center, they had a very simple message for customers: These data center investments are going to allow us to keep your rates flat for five years. That was an on-the-record statement right out of the box, and it was a simple reassurance to people. Your rates aren't going up because QTS is here.

There’s an old saying in politics: “If you're explaining, you're losing.” I like how Alliant Energy was able to just cut to the chase and say, "We're guaranteeing your rates won't go up for five years."

RM: I understand Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited to discuss the project and highlight the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which sounds aligned with everything you all have described. Todd, tell us more about the Ratepayer Protection Pledge and how it connects to your work.

TM: We think that the Ratepayer Protection Pledge is really an important assurance to individual ratepayers that are worried about affordability and energy cost – and rightly so. This historic investment in data infrastructure that we all need for our everyday lives.

By the way, this isn't just for AI. It's for if you use MyChart to schedule your kids' pediatrician appointment, if you are working with your kids' teachers online – that is all running through a data center.

The Ratepayer Protection Pledge is an important way for utilities, the large load data infrastructure, and AI companies to reassure people that we are going to pay for our own additions to energy infrastructure. In fact, we will be picking up the tab that would've normally gone to the other customers.

You're seeing quite a few governors who are putting out guidelines that are saying, “If you're going to build infrastructure in our state, you're going to meet these requirements.” That means transparency about water, or you're going to do a community benefit agreement. And I think that's really healthy – to actually have these elected officials who have to represent their constituents going out there and saying, “Yes, we need this. Yes, we have to stay ahead of China in terms of energy infrastructure and the creation and use of AI, but if you're going to do this in my state, you're going to meet these minimum requirements.”

The Ratepayer Protection Pledge and these other sort of standards and guidelines are important ways for people that have legitimate concerns to feel like they're heard and somebody is doing something about it.

RM: Raja, tell us more about how Alliant Energy structured its agreements to ensure the right balance of protecting reliability and affordability for existing customers while moving with speed to serve QTS and other large loads.

RS: Back in 2023, we were already having conversations with QTS and the Googles of the world that we serve in Cedar Rapids. We told regulators, “If you approve us working with these large loads and serving in a more efficient manner, that will effectively enable us to freeze rates for five years.” That’s what started off this conversation. It was very open and transparent. We showed various forecasting scenarios – what it would mean to bring in 500 megawatts to a gigawatt.

As part of that rate review, we created the ability for agreements to be made with large load customers, in our case, where the commission approves within 90 days. That addresses the speed-to-market issue. As part of the filing, we show revenues coming from large loads more than cover the incremental cost to serve large loads.

You need to effectively make a demonstration to not only our commission, but other key stakeholders like consumer advocates and industrial groups, to show the marginal revenues coming from this customer far exceed the marginal cost to serve them.

We have promised that we will not file a rate case until the end of the decade. To the extent we’re successful with additional opportunities, we might be able to extend our rate freeze. It’s a great way to showcase a win-win-win.

RM: Let’s shift gears: We’ve talked about affordability, but we’re also hearing about the speed part of the equation from data centers. Raja, how do you align that desire to bring projects online quickly given that we’re talking about long-lead-time infrastructure projects?

RS: Speed-to-market is the name of the game, and we have to address customers’ needs. What we have done historically is that developers purchase land in a favorable location to build a data center. Then, they come to us and say, “What will it take to power this data center?”

We have a great relationship with ITC Holdings. ITC has built a lot of transmission over the last decade or so that has enabled us to tap into existing transmission capacity across our footprint. There are pockets where it requires a not-significant transmission upgrade to enable a large load. We direct hyperscalers and developers to these locations to address speed-to-market.

On the generation side, we say, “Can you live with non-firm conditions? Can you live with the ability to curtail under critical times before a gas plant or other resource comes online?” That’s another shift in conversations, where developers and hyperscalers are OK with a bridge period. They’re OK with creative solutions to address speed-to-market. Utility infrastructure can take time to build.

This is where the collaboration and real-time conversation between the utility and developers like QTS effectively enables an objective to be met in a timely manner while making sure we don’t rush the development of generation that has community impacts. There are a lot of things you need to respect and address around public concerns and building generation.

That’s the conversation that allows us to navigate both the speed-to-market issues and the natural timelines of building utility-scale generation. This has been a great collaboration, and it’s a testament to the Cedar Rapids data center and the future data centers that we intend to build with QTS.

TM: There’s tension between speed and making sure you’re doing things the right way. It helps to have partners like Alliant Energy that have done a lot of the work. They’ve worked with the community.

It’s important for us to think about the contrast in China. One of the reasons China has been able to scale up their energy infrastructure and their data center infrastructure so fast, at such scale, is because they don’t have to follow the same rules. It’s basically government fiat that this data center is going to go in here.

RM: What is QTS doing to ensure communities benefit from these projects?

TM: We made a commitment to communities that's pretty holistic across the board. It's up on our website, so we're accountable for the principles that we've laid out there – and it starts with the ratepayer protection type of commitments around energy infrastructure and paying our own way and being transparent about that.

It extends to water and making sure people understand we are committed to using new technology we pioneered in 2018 that utilizes closed loop water systems. We take water into that system, use it, and it can go back into the municipal water system and be treated like any other input from an industrial operation. It’s not a net loss of water for the system in the region.

It extends to community benefit agreements, making sure we’re supporting communities based on listening to them and what they want and need. That may be different in Ohio than it is in Arizona. We’ve tried to learn from our 25-year history. In a lot of communities, QTS is thought of highly, as a good neighbor and a responsible part of the business community. We put a lot of resources and time and effort into listening and learning, taking action against what we’re hearing from the communities that we want to operate in.

RM: We’ve seen some communities really throw open the doors and welcome this infrastructure and investment. We’ve seen others with concerns about transparency, local impacts, energy use. What do you view as best practices for doing community engagement right?

RS: The first thing is to be open and transparent. We need to talk about what we are actually building. This era of non-disclosure agreements and agreements done in secrecy builds a lot of distrust in communities.

Any infrastructure that needs to be built requires a decent amount of public input and public involvement. We need to be open and transparent – and showcase that we have multiple projects to show what this means to a community. There are a lot of misconceptions out there.

We have to be much more proactive and open and transparent in terms of what projects are and how they affect communities. Without that, you quickly lose trust within a community.

We are seeing the economic development benefits of this construction project in Cedar Rapids in real time. You’re talking about 8,000-plus construction workers. You’re talking about meaningful impact to communities, and these are not temporary jobs. A significant amount of permanent jobs are created, also. There are a lot of misconceptions out there that need to be openly promoted and debated. As long as the community makes an informed judgment knowing all the facts, we respect each community’s decisions. I think being open and transparent goes a long way.

TM: The key is starting off with a level of trust and being able and willing to stand in the public square and say, “Here’s who we are. These are our values. This is how we operate. This is what we think could be built in your area that’s going to help society benefit from the tools of the digital economy.”

In Louisa County, Va., earlier this year, they announced that they’re lowering everybody’s property taxes because of data center tax payments in their county. Meta just announced a cool program around training in skilled trades for young people. There are a lot of strong examples around best practices that a lot of different companies are engaged in.

Big Ideas, Real Impacts: EEI 2026

Thu, 28 May 2026 11:44:00 +0200

Investor-owned electric companies power the lives of nearly 250 million people—nearly 3 in 4 Americans. Every day, they connect more than 3,200 new households and more than 200 new businesses to the grid. They account for 5 percent of U.S. GDP and power the other 95 percent.

It’s no surprise, then, that hundreds of electric company CEOs and senior executives, policymakers and regulators, and technology leaders and innovators traveled to Las Vegas in June for EEI 2026, the industry’s premier conference and thought leadership forum.

At a time when affordability, grid reliability, and rapidly rising demand are dominating policy debates in Washington and across the country, EEI 2026 convened a diverse mix of attendees and leaders to discuss how electric companies are powering the energy of every day while keeping electricity reliable and as affordable as possible.

Happenings in The Hub

From fireside chats to panel discussions and tech talks, The Hub was EEI’s center for networking and technology-driven content. Among the topics on the agenda this year:

Powering the Energy of Every Day: Sessions will cover how the industry is delivering customer value and innovating to meet demand growth.
Generation Landscape: Speakers will discuss America’s generation mix, the role of nuclear technologies, and the potential of virtual power plants.
Resilience and Reliability: Topics will include grid flexibility, balancing reliability and affordability, and lessons learned from storm seasons past.
AI+: AI technologies are driving energy demand while reshaping how electric companies serve customers and power the economy.
Grid-Enhancing Technologies: Panels will focus on innovations that are driving grid intelligence and making the most of existing infrastructure.

Congratulations to Duke Energy, Winners of the 2026 Edison Award!

EEI awarded Duke Energy with the 98th Edison Award for its DeBary Hydrogen Production and Storage System. Presented annually and selected by a panel of former energy industry executives, the Edison Award is the electric power industry’s highest honor. The award was presented in Las Vegas during EEI 2026, the institute’s annual conference and thought leadership forum.

“On behalf of EEI and our member companies, I am proud to congratulate Duke Energy for winning this year’s Edison Award,” said EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney. “By transforming Florida sunshine into stored, on-demand power, this hydrogen project is advancing what’s possible for clean energy storage and helping Duke Energy meet rapidly increasing energy demand while keeping customer costs as low as possible.”

Baltimore Gas & Electric and The AES Corporation were named finalists for the award.

Learn more about this year's winner and finalists.

EEI Data: Electric Companies to Invest $1.4T to Support Customers, Power Growth

Wed, 27 May 2026 17:05:51 +0200

Investor-owned electric companies will invest $1.4 trillion through 2030 to strengthen America’s energy infrastructure, increase grid resilience, and ensure reliable and affordable service to their nearly 250 million customers, according to a new capital expenditures projection released by EEI.

The data, primarily compiled from EEI member company announcements and financial statements, also shows that the industry’s annual capital expenditures hit a record $204.1 billion last year—a 14th-consecutive year of record-high investment. In 2026, capital expenditures are projected to jump 17 percent to $238.8 billion and continue climbing for the foreseeable future.

“America’s electric companies work every day to get more steel in the ground and electrons on the grid, improving reliability for customers and ensuring the United States is home to the industries, technologies, and jobs of tomorrow,” said EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney. “The grid is the most important engine in America, and these investments show our industry’s commitment to powering the U.S. economy and the lives of our customers.”

Independent studies, including recent analyses from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Charles River Associates, have found that rising energy demand can lower prices for customers by putting more electrons on the grid and spreading fixed costs across a broader base.

EEI maintains a running snapshot of $900 billion in data center and large-customer investments supported by member companies, representing more than 55 gigawatts of connected load. These investments are being supported with customers in mind, with tariffs and fair share agreements protecting American households from higher bills as a result of data centers. At the same time, these investments support reliability, resilience, and economic development opportunities in communities across the country.

The $1.4 trillion that investor-owned electric companies will invest in the grid between 2026 and 2030 is an increase from the previous projection of $1.1 trillion to be invested between 2025 and 2029. Rising energy demand driven by electrification, industrialization, the onshoring of manufacturing activity, and data centers and AI technologies are creating a need for new energy infrastructure of all kinds.

Review more of the industry’s latest financial statistics at eei.org/data.

EEI’s Drew Maloney Talks Grid Innovation, Affordability, Mutual Assistance on 'The Deciders' Podcast

Wed, 27 May 2026 16:03:13 +0200

On a new episode of The Deciders podcast, EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney joined Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Brody Mullins and veteran D.C. strategist Lisa Camooso Miller to discuss rising electricity demand, responsible data center growth, grid innovation, and challenges facing customers in the PJM Interconnection market.

The following is edited for length and clarity:

Brody Mullins (BM): Drew, your career has spanned Capitol Hill, the Treasury, private equity, and now the Edison Electric Institute. Tell us about your journey.

Drew Maloney (DM): I grew up talking about political issues with my family. My mom worked on Capitol Hill. She was a staffer. My parents were introduced on a blind date by Senator Chris Dodd. I had an uncle that worked for Hubert Humphrey's campaign.

We always talked politics, and I knew, at some point, I wanted to get involved in politics. After college, I went down to Williamsburg, Va., and I ran a state senate campaign. It was the best experience that I had. You had to learn to make quick decisions, drive a message, and build a coalition at 22 years old.

From there, I came to Capitol Hill and got to work for some great members. Senator Roger Wicker, who was in the House at the time. Congressman Tom DeLay. What I really learned from them is how to put together coalitions.

Congressman DeLay was the Whip at the time, and he would often have Congressman John Murtha, a big Democrat at the time, and Congressman John Dingle in his office. They were trying to figure out how they could piece things together—how they could get things passed. Watching how they maneuvered and counted votes was instrumental in figuring out how to be an advocate here in Washington.

That had a natural progression toward advocacy. I was fortunate enough to go into the U.S. Treasury during the tax reform process, and then I worked in private-equity advocacy and am now here at EEI, which is the top trade association for electric utilities in the country.

It’s been a great ride. I’ve had great experience, and I love doing what I do.

BM: You worked at the Treasury Department during the first Trump Administration, and you mentioned the tax reform bill. Tell us about that journey.

DM: Looking back at 2017, you had Speaker Paul Ryan, who had probably started to think about tax reform when he was in kindergarten. You had Representative Kevin Brady, and then you had the Senate and Senator Mitch McConnell.

For 30 years, we hadn't had tax reform. You had to go back to 1986 before there was major tax reform. There was a lot of work that went into the thought process around tax reform coming into 2016-17.

You finally had in the White House a willing partner, a businessman who had been elected who understood the importance of tax reform and the economic growth that it can provide. It was a fantastic time to be part of something that was very unique. It really was a great partnership to have between House, Senate, and the White House.

Lisa Camooso Miller (LCM): Let’s talk more about your members, specifically, and what issues they’re focused on.

DM: EEI represents 63 different utilities. We have members in every state around the country, and we provide energy to 250 million Americans—75 percent of Americans get their electricity from us. There’s enormous growth, and we are there to meet that growth. That’s why we’re investing. We’re providing reliable and affordable energy.

This is an inflection point right now for the industry.

BM: Two of your biggest members recently announced a merger: NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy. Why is there consolidation in the industry right now?

DM: It's all about scale. In order to be able affordability and build out the grid to provide um a resilient system—a reliable system—you need as many resources as you can as you can capture. That’s one of the goals of the merger: You get that scale, and the beneficiary will ultimately be the customer. You can capture that and put downward pressure on rates over the long term.

LCM: What would you say is the biggest misconception about the electric utilities?

DM: The biggest misconception is that we really are innovators. If you think about the grid, it was first built about 150 years ago. It's probably the most critical economic and national security engine that we have, but it takes a lot of investment to maintain. That's why you see us investing more than a trillion dollars over the next four years in building out the grid.

What people don't see is all the innovation and technology behind the grid. We're constantly putting out new technologies that can determine whether the grid can handle more capacity so it can deliver more power to people's houses.

If you go into one of our control centers, it's like a starship inside. You can see your entire grid and know what's happening in one town versus another. If you have cold weather here and warmer weather there, you can keep moving things around to make the system as efficient as possible. You probably couldn't do that 20 years ago. It's an amazing amount of investment to make the system work better and be more resilient, more reliable for our customers

We are making the customer experience better by including information in bills that lets you figure out that it’s better to run your washer and dryer at night, or it’s better to plug in your car at night, charge your phone at night, because the electricity rate is cheaper when people are using less electricity.

One of the things that's really been critical over time is, now that we have more severe storms, whether it’s winter storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, or wildfires, we are developing these sensor technologies that can tell us when a tree is getting too close to a wire that may trigger a fire.

We can reroute systems when a line goes down so we can provide power and go around the downed line. There's so many of these technologies and so much innovation in our industry that people don't see every day.

LCM: Affordability is one thing that both parties are talking about right now. What are some of the things your members are doing to address that particular issue?

DM: I think the challenge right now is that we’re in this affordability debate where people are struggling—whether it’s groceries, food, health care, or energy prices. Every company is dealing with this and addressing it with their customers. We have programs that help customers who can’t pay their bills, that can stretch out payments. Every single company is wrestling with this issue.

But I think what we have to do is keep reminding people of the value that we provide. If you think about your home, there are about 21 connected devices right now—your smartphones, your computers, your televisions—and on top of that, there are probably another 75 things that get plugged in… your hair dryer, your water heater, your electric toothbrush. All of this requires power. What our job during this time period is to remind people of that value—that for basically the cost of a box of cereal every day, all of those devices work. And that’s really an incredible feat.

LCM: Tell us about Energy of Every Day. What’s the message? What’s the goal of the campaign?

DM: We started this campaign about six months ago. The idea is to remind people of the value of what we provide. There's so much that happens in your daily life, from when you wake up to when you go to work to when you come home, that electricity drives.

You think about how transformational this has been over time. Thomas Edison builds his first power station in lower Manhattan to power Wall Street 150 years ago. Today, we have this enormous grid, this grid that's powering economic activity throughout the world. It's an amazing story, and that's what the Energy of Every Day campaign is telling. It's reminding them that everything they do in their lives is powered by us, and we do it as reliably and affordably as possible.

BM: We’re coming up on EEI 2026. Tell us about it.

DM: This is the leading conference for electricity leadership throughout the United States. We're going to have leaders of our companies in Las Vegas, along with leaders of tech companies, our partnerships, and government officials. It's a great opportunity to highlight some of these innovative technologies that we're using that are making the grid more reliable, safer, and keeping costs down—it's really the place to be if you're in electricity.

BM: There's a feeling that AI and data centers are really going to drive up demand for electricity and therefore increase customer bills. Is that true?

DM: It's not. A group called E3 put out a study that highlights the fact that data centers are not driving up costs. It's another one of these inflection points in the U.S. that, if you do this right, data centers can actually put downward pressure on rates.

There have been 23 states that have these large load agreements right now. If you look at those states and what happens after these data centers have been announced, you've had rate freezes in Alabama and Georgia. You've had cost reductions in Louisiana, Indiana, and Michigan. All of these states announcing these future data centers are going to see some downward pressure on their rate.

BM: And is that because the companies are paying back into the system? Where does the downward pressure come from?

DM: It's like if you have a bus, and the bus costs $100. If you have 10 people on that bus, it's $10 a person. But if you add 10 more people on that bus, it's suddenly $5 a person. The grid is a fixed-cost system. When you add a large payer on that system, it helps drive cost down for everyone on the system. It also allows for more investment so the system becomes more reliable over time.

LCM: You mentioned AI data centers. That’s a hot topic. What about these discussions do you think is misleading?

DM: If you take a step back on data centers, we currently have over 4,000 data centers in the U.S. already operating. So much of our daily life involves data centers that we don’t see—online shopping, posting memes on the internet, online banking, health records.

All these activities happen in AI data centers. I think it’s overcoming that natural aversion to data centers. What we have to do is talk about the benefits to customers and dispel the myths that electricity rates are going up because of data centers — because they’re not.

LCM: Who is paying for the new infrastructure to build and maintain the data centers?

DM: The data center companies are paying for it. It’s pure and simple. They’re bringing their own power by paying for that. They’re paying for the interconnection. They’re paying for the grid upgrades. That’s why you see most of this regulated at the state level.

You’ve seen these 23 states and another handful of states pending these large-load agreements which require these data centers to pay their fair share. There’s no free ride that they’re getting. That’s a big myth. You also can’t engage early enough. I think one of the challenges we’re seeing is you have to be transparent about what you’re doing as an AI data center in a community, and you have to engage early.

We've had a history of more than 100 years in most of these communities providing power. We know what it takes to have that customer relationship, and they need to do that as well. They can partner with us in a lot of cases.

BM: Does permitting reform have a chance of passing this year?

DM: It’s the one issue Congress can actually work on that can affect the affordability debate. It takes up to a decade or longer to build transmission lines or generation facilities because of the permitting process. You’ve got to get multiple permits from multiple agencies. The agencies don’t talk to each other. This is an opportunity to fix that.

And the cost of that delay can be up to 25 percent of a project. If Congress wants to do something about affordability with electricity prices, this is a great first step.

I’m really optimistic. I’ve been here about 30 years. I have never seen an effort so focused on trying to get permitting reform done. The number of groups, the resources being put into this, the bipartisan energy trying to get this done—I’m optimistic.

Whether it gets done between now and November or now and December, I don’t know. But I feel like now is the time to do it. There’s a lot of interest on both sides of the aisle and a recognition that we do have to do something.

It’s been too long and these regulations have become too burdensome.

LCM: When you think about regulators and how they plan for short-term and long-term, how do regulators and electric utilities balance investment in long-term infrastructure versus near-term need?

DM: The good news with the utility industry is we plan over a 30- to 50-year process.

We build power plants, transmission lines, distribution systems meant to last 30 to 50 years.

That means we can spread the cost out over that amount of time, which is really better for the customer over the long term.

BM: Charles River Associates recently did a study on your industry. What did they conclude?

DM: They highlighted the fact that data centers are not driving cost for customers.

They also highlighted that about 34 states have kept their average electricity rates below the national average. The whole debate on electricity cost is different region by region. The Southeast has maintained lower rates. California has had higher rates largely because of wildfire mitigation. They’ve had to bury lines and do more to protect wires against fires. That costs money and is ultimately borne by the customer.

In PJM and the New England area, there’s just a lack of generation. It’s a deregulated market, and in a high-growth time period when you can’t control the generation build, the customer is suffering in those marketplaces.

BM: You mentioned deregulation. It sounds like after 20 years they’ve learned some things in the Northeast. Talk about that.

DM: I think the problem is the deregulated market in PJM is broken, and customers are paying the price. The power generators—which can be 50 percent or more of your bill in these markets—are unregulated. That has to get fixed. The states have no real control over them, but they have control over us.

The people getting utility bills get them from us, but more than half of the bill in PJM is not imposed by us. Everyone—including the White House—has acknowledged that the PJM market is not working and that it has to get fixed. We need more steel in the ground. We don't really care who builds it. We'll build it. They can build it. But somebody needs to start building.

If nobody’s building, the generators are going to keep making more money and customers are going to keep paying.

BM: For my entire life Republicans have said deregulation is good and leads to lower prices. Now you’re saying, in this particular case, deregulation is bad and led to higher prices.

DM: I think this is a unique time period. We’re in a very high-growth period. You need a lot of planning, and in this deregulated marketplace it’s tough to match those up.

The generators will say they’re not getting a big enough price to build more. If you think about our obligation to serve, we have to provide power to everybody. That’s why it’s historically been a regulated business. You want everybody treated equally across the system.

If you leave it to a totally deregulated model, everybody flocks to urban areas and rural areas get left behind, because it costs more money to string a wire to fewer people. It’s a model that has worked for 150 years, and we’re very proud of it and committed to our customers.

LCM: You mentioned storm response earlier. Talk about that process and where you’re seeing the greatest impact.

DM: My first experience with a storm at EEI was Winter Storm Fern, which was a huge ice storm that started in Texas and worked its way across the Mid-Atlantic and ended up here with “snowcrete.”

It was a significant event that ended up having about a million homes out of power on Day 1. Ninety percent of those homes were back up within days.

What people don't understand about our industry is we have this huge mutual assistance program. Days before the storm, we get on calls with our government partners in Washington, in states and localities, and all of our other utilities in unaffected states. We mobilized 65,000 line workers from 44 states, working 24/7 in really tough conditions. If there's a line down in a particular county, we know and we send the crew out there. It’s an enormous collective effort where everybody shares.

Not only do they share line workers and personnel, but they share equipment. If you need a transformer in Alabama and there’s one sitting in Idaho, we’ll get it down there. It’s an amazing collective effort to keep the lights on.

LCM: It’s amazing. They’re these unsung heroes that nobody realizes. They’re traveling often from three or four states over to come in and get the line back up and running.

BM: You worked in the first Trump Administration. You worked in the transition going into his second term putting many officials in place. How would you describe your work with the Administration?

DM: We’ve worked very well with the Trump Administration on energy policy issues and find the working relationship to be good. Like a lot of things, you play the long game with any Administration.

We maintain a good working relationship. There are things we don’t always agree on, but, nonetheless, we keep pursuing what we want to do, which is provide more reliable and affordable power.

BM: What decision from the past year are you most proud of?

DM: Hiring a great team. We had a great team at EEI. We built an even stronger team and integrated that team to really deliver the results in this modern-day advocacy environment. That’s been my proudest moment.

BM: What’s one thing you’d like to do over?

DM: If you look back at the year, I was so focused on dealing with everything inside EEI.

I really want to spend next year going out in the field, visiting plant facilities, going to more operations, seeing the line workers and how they actually repair lines. That’s my next-year goal: to get out there and do more in the field and get out of the Washington bubble.

BM: What’s something people in Washington are not thinking about but should be?

DM: I think right now it’s a time period where you don’t have to swat at every fly.

You have to be very calculated in what you’re going to do and you have to play a longer game. Don’t get caught up in the emotion. There’s going to be a negative tweet by somebody. There’s going to be an op-ed you don’t like. There’s going to be a quote in a story you don’t like. But don’t overreact.

You have to have a long game. You have to stay focused and don’t get knocked off it. Most Americans are not paying attention to all the little tweets, op-eds, comments, and papers.

Stay focused on your long game.

EEI’s Drew Maloney Discusses Demand Growth, PJM Strain, and Grid Investment Needs

Tue, 19 May 2026 16:06:20 +0200

In a new interview on The Energy Gang podcast, EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney discussed rising electricity demand and the need for new generation, permitting reform, and responsible data center growth.

Listen to full episode here.

Managing Data Center Growth Responsibly:

“The goal is clear: we don’t want existing ratepayers to bear the burden of new data centers,” Maloney said. “When it’s done right, these investments can actually put downward pressure on rates.”

He pointed to the increasing number of large-load agreements and the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, designed to ensure data centers and other large customers pay their fair share and help reduce costs for local families and businesses.

Historic Electricity Demand and Grid Investment:

“When you look back at America’s history, the transformational infrastructure investments were railroads, the interstate highway system, and the electric grid,” Maloney said. “Today, we are once again investing in the most critical engine of our economy—the electric grid.”

“In the last two years, we’ve seen demand growth double, and it will likely continue,” he added. “At the end of the day we need more generation and more steel in the ground.”

Affordability and Reliability:

“Americans are feeling cost pressures across the board—food, health care, housing, and energy,” Maloney said.

He noted that electricity prices vary by region, but data show about 34 states have kept rates below average over the past five years.

“When Americans flip a light switch, turn on their heat or air conditioning, or plug in their phones, they expect it to work,” he said. “That’s our commitment—to deliver reliable and affordable power every day.”

PJM and the Need for New Generation:

Maloney also addressed ongoing challenges in the PJM Interconnection region, highlighting concerns about rising costs and a lack of new generation in the region.

“There’s bipartisan frustration—from FERC, the White House, and governors—because this is not sustainable,” he said.

Permitting Reform and Building Infrastructure Faster:

“We’re seeing momentum around solutions, including permitting reform, which is critical to getting projects built on time and at lower cost,” Maloney said.

“It can take a decade or longer to build transmission in the United States,” he added. “That delay can increase project costs significantly—and those costs are ultimately borne by customers.”

Convening Energy and Technology Leaders at EEI 2026 in Las Vegas (June 2-4):

“At EEI 2026 in Las Vegas, we’ll bring together one of the largest gatherings of electricity experts and thought leaders,” Maloney said. “We’re looking forward to hearing from leaders across the energy and technology sectors as we work together to power America’s future.”

Key Takeaways From House Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing on Permitting Transmission for Reliable, Affordable Power

Thu, 14 May 2026 16:30:59 +0200

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill put America’s transmission infrastructure front and center Wednesday during a House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing.

Policymakers and industry experts focused on permitting for, investing in, and upgrading one of the energy grid’s central pillars: the transmission network integral to moving electrons from power plants to homes, businesses, and government facilities across the country.

Southern Company Senior Vice President of System Planning Clay Rikard represented America’s investor-owned electric companies during the hearing.

Rikard stressed to lawmakers that “we are experiencing unprecedented load growth, and our electric utilities are moving with speed to provide power to our customers that is both reliable and affordable.”

Read on for highlights and key takeaways from Rikard and the other energy leaders testifying before the panel:

America’s Electric Companies are Protecting Customers Amid Data Center Buildouts

Transmission Is the Backbone of the Energy Grid

The Federal Government Has a Role to Play…

…But State- and Region-Specific Solutions Are Vital

The Regulated Business Model Puts Customers First

Federal Permitting Reform Is a Must

Podcast: Driving Grid Reliability and Innovation

Wed, 13 May 2026 11:48:17 +0200

In this episode of Electric Perspectives, Gregory A. Beard, director of the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF), discusses how the federal government is deploying historic levels of capital to strengthen the energy grid and support long-term reliability. Director Beard outlines EDF’s focus on lowering costs for customers while improving reliability and energy security, including major recent loans to electric companies and a rapid pace of capital deployment.

Following is an abbreviated transcript, lightly edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full episode and catch up with other recent interviews, visit electricperspectives.com/podcast.

Electric Perspectives: How do you align EDF’s financing strategy with grid reliability, security, and customer affordability objectives?

Director Beard: In his first days in office, President Donald Trump declared that we have an energy crisis and an emergency. He chose Secretary Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy because the policies that Secretary Wright is now deploying are making energy more affordable for the U.S., making the grid more reliable, helping us win AI, and that's giving us energy security—which is national security.

We are really the implementation arm inside EDF. We were appropriated under the Working Families Tax Cut Act—$200 billion to deploy into the market on projects that will, in every case, make energy more affordable for Americans and help bolster the grid, help us win AI, help us keep assets online that would otherwise be decommissioned.

We've already deployed about $60 billion since the Administration has started, so we're off to a fast start. I think we will invest the bulk of our capital even in the next 12 months. In every case, we are super focused on affordability. Every dollar will have that be part of the criteria for deployment.

Electric Perspectives: The recent $26.5-billion Southern Company deal was the largest loan that EDF has made to date. What are your goals as you continue this capital deployment?

Director Beard: Not only was the Southern Company loan the largest loan for EDF: It was the largest loan in U.S. history from the government to the private sector outside of a financial crisis. You can't overstate how seriously this Administration—President Trump and Secretary Wright—take this crisis.

We have hundreds of billions of dollars to deploy to help fix it. We've got about $75 billion left to lend to utilities to help with additional generation, to do reconductoring, to help keep assets online that would otherwise need to be decommissioned. And, we expect to have that capital deployed or committed over the next 12 months.

Electric Perspectives: How is DOE using its financing mechanism to support innovative grid technologies that otherwise may be too risky or cost-prohibitive to advance?

Director Beard: If you look at what's most beneficial to customers, to reconductor an asset or a transmission line might allow for more generation to be available on the grid without the expense of actually having to build new generation. We're very focused on technologies that really impact the rate payer affordability. Of course, we're a loan office. We're not a grant office. We don't want to take technology risk that would be viewed as what I would call “venture debt.”

In many cases, we're lending to in the utility space with customers that are investment grade. To the extent that they want to borrow from us to pursue new technologies while committing their investment-grade balance sheet as a supportive credit mechanism, we would be happy to support that. But, we can't—on a one-off, standalone basis—lend to technology ideas that aren't ready for deployment yet.

Electric Perspectives: So you’re looking at proven technologies, and even things like nuclear energy. How are you thinking about nuclear?

Director Beard: The President and Secretary Wright have been vocal about the need for the United States to be a leader in this space. We have the best capital markets in the world. I think we have the best entrepreneurs in the world focused on fixing this problem, which is why we've seen a lot of activity around capital raising and progress in the SMR space.

The technology that is here today that we want to support—and you'll see a lot of support for out of our office—is in the restart of the large-scale reactor program. We will do this through lending for long-lead-time items, as well as for support for the actual construction of these projects.

There are already more than 10 licensed sites in the United States where there are existing reactors licensed to add additional capacity. I think we will begin to see activity.

My suggestion for any potential interested party in this space would be to look at the support that these projects get in the form of investment tax credit (ITC). It's 30-percent to 50-percent ITC—which means, if you invest a dollar, you get 30-50 cents back. And, you don't get that back once it's complete, you can get it back even during construction.

We believe that the hyperscalers will be willing to lend their balance sheets through in the form of long-term power purchase agreements. We think that'll happen at prices that will make this program and these projects economic for equity investors, for the sponsoring utilities, and beneficial to ratepayers. This is a big push that we're embarking on now, and we think we'll have announcements in the coming months.

Electric Perspectives: It sounds like EDF is approaching this with an effort to de-risk some large-scale investments, making them more attractive for other long-term investors for these really big projects.

Director Beard: Absolutely. Obviously, the industry has said in the nuclear space that they're afraid of being alone. If you build just one copy of anything, it's going to be expensive. The reason why we're embarking on the restart of the program is to help drive those costs down, to make it more competitive with other energy generating technologies.

Electric Perspectives: What sort of timeline have you and your team been aiming for to review and get some of these funds out the door?

Director Beard: We're in a hurry. We cannot have an impact without deploying the capital, so take two potential borrowers. The projects that will have an impact, we will grade it.

The reality of the Southern Company projects is that those ratepayers are saving $7 billion over the life of that loan. Anything that will have a measurable impact, as soon as we can, we want to have involvement and get that capital out.

So, come to us with projects that are ready to go, where the capital can be invested in the next three years, where we can actually measure the impact for the ratepayer. We will be quick, and we will work at the pace of the borrower, which means we can have these loans committed in months—not years.

The last Administration averaged about 18 months from first interest to the closing of a conditional commitment. We aspire to get that down to under six months. We will work at the pace of the borrower, and we're, at this point, repeating many of the same sort of loan documents or using many of the same loan documents. This should not be months of negotiation to get to the finish line for these deals.

My advice for potential borrowers is to read the existing loan documents for the Southern Company deal, for example. And, to the extent that you can accept the terms and conditions that others have agreed to, it'll make the process much faster.

U.S. Reps. Bruce Westerman and Scott Peters on Permitting Reform and Wildfire Mitigation

Thu, 07 May 2026 10:46:55 +0200

Permitting reform, energy reliability, and wildfire mitigation are top priorities for Congress and America's electric companies.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and Representative Scott Peters (D-CA) recently joined EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney for an episode of the Electric Perspectives podcast. The group discussed America’s energy landscape and the prospects for durable, bipartisan siting and permitting reform—including the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act (SPEED ACT) and changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Following is an abbreviated transcript, lightly edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full episode and catch up with other recent interviews, visit electricperspectives.com/podcast.

Drew Maloney (DM): Permitting reform is a big topic for everyone. It takes China one or two years to build a transmission line or new generation, and it can take us in the United States more than a decade to do the same. Chairman Westerman, what can you share about the SPEED Act, your permitting reform efforts, and how important this issue is?

Bruce Westerman (BW): It takes a long time to build things here in America. We have things that we need to build in the energy sector, but also in transportation and infrastructure.

Permitting affects so many different parts of our lives. And, to most people, it's out of sight and out of mind—but it adds cost to things. There’s a way we can do this, keep our environmental standards not only in place, but have even higher environmental standards—and build things again.

That's what the SPEED Act's all about. I'm glad to be leading the charge on it—in the House, at least.

DM: Congressman Peters, you’ve been a big advocate for NEPA reform. Tell us about how this issue fits into the larger permitting reform discussion.

Scott Peters (SP): First, Bruce brought the SPEED Act really far. The thing I give him credit for is that he will listen to folks on the other side to see where we can bridge the gap, where we can bring as many people in as possible. In this context, if you want to get 60 votes in the Senate to get something done that’s durable, it’s got to be bipartisan.

The SPEED Act is a very aggressive reform of NEPA. I think it’s one we need now, and, speaking from an environmental perspective, I see that the market wants to bring on a lot of renewables. We’re looking at an environmental law that’s actually getting in the way of us building renewables. I don’t think that’s what it was intended to do.

Back in the 1970s, the idea was to stop bad things from happening, and NEPA was passed even before the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act provided substantive protections against the emissions of pollutants into the environment. Today, it’s the most-litigated environmental law. It creates a lot of delays.

Getting NEPA out of the way is really fundamental to environmental protection. It’s hard for folks to let go of it. Modernizing NEPA means building stuff faster. I think people, gradually, on the Democratic side, are starting to understand that, as well.

DM: Mr. Chairman, how optimistic are you that permitting reform can get done this year?

BW: I'm pretty bullish about it, and it really needs to happen this year. It needed to have happened years ago. There was an effort at the end of the last Congress to do some permitting reform, and it just wasn't ready for prime time. I think it's ready for prime time now.

Getting the SPEED Act out of the House was a good milestone. I know the Senate's working on it in a bipartisan fashion. I know the Administration wants permitting reform, and it would be a real shame if we don't deliver for the American people during this Congress.

I wish I had a crystal ball. A reporter asked me the other day if I thought the SPEED Act could ride on the Surface Transportation Bill, which is one of the rumors out there. I said, "I don't know, maybe the Surface Transportation Bill could ride on the SPEED Act, because I've actually got more confidence in the SPEED Act passing than the Surface Transportation Bill right now."

The good thing is there's so much interest in it. People are coming to Washington to talk to their members of Congress like I've never seen before on this issue.

DM: In my role at EEI, I've never seen an effort so involved in trying to get permitting reform done. When it takes you longer than a decade to build a transmission line or a generation facility, that's just unacceptable. Permitting delay costs add about 25 percent onto a project. We can't tolerate that.

BW: Energy is so important—so foundational to our economy—but it affects other things, too. In the reconciliation bill we passed last summer, there was $12 billion in there to upgrade control towers. The Secretary of Transportation told me their problem was they couldn't get through the NEPA reviews to get fiber-optic cables run to control towers. It's just stuff that's nonsensical. We need to put common sense back into the equation and let America build again.

DM: Congressman Peters, we're in this AI data center race while at the same time managing increased electrification, industrialization, and the reshoring of manufacturing activity. How important is permitting reform to those different areas and their connection to reliability and affordability?

SP: I agree with Bruce. This is something that has to happen this year. And we have got all the right players in place. We've got good products in the pipeline. And I heard all these same statistics about how delays cost people money, and every election I've seen has been about affordability. I think that's what people are concerned about. We need to get this done.

We have to do some work on the transmission side, too. To get a bill out of the Senate among Democrats, I think we're going to need some real transmission reforms, and we're having fits and starts in the House. We’re watching the Senate have conversations, and we had the Energy Permitting Reform Act. That was a great start.

It’s going kind of slow over here, but it’s got to happen this year.

DM: We totally agree on that. Chairman Westerman, in Arkansas, Entergy announced a Google data center project that will bring $1.1 billion in net benefits to customers. I know you're very focused on critical mineral production. Talk to us about the significance of that.

BW: We had a recent hearing in the Natural Resources Committee on copper—a whole congressional hearing on copper. It's amazing. Some people say we need to mine more copper between now and 2050 than we've mined in the history of the world. It's a global demand for copper.

Fortunately, we have a lot of copper in the ground here in the United States, but it's not helping us build transmission lines or electrical equipment if we can't get it out of the ground. Mining can take 20 or 30 years to get a permit, and we can't compete in the speed of the global economy if we're waiting 20 or 30 years to mine copper and all the other things that go into computers and electronics.

Arkansas is being pretty aggressive on building new generating power as it's needed—and on recruiting industry and recruiting data centers to the state. What people miss is that, if you're an electric company, a data center is your ideal customer. It's a big, consistent, heavy load that makes your generating equipment operate at a higher utilization rate, which means you can produce electricity at a lower cost for commercial and residential and industrial consumers.

And the data center can actually be a huge benefit to your grid operation and to your reliability and cost structure. I hope all the other states keep saying we don't want data centers and they all come to Arkansas and we're able to take advantage of the benefits of having them there.

DM: The states doing it right on data centers are seeing downward pressure on rates for their customers because of the point you just made. It's a fixed-cost system. If you have a large customer and the state has approved a large load tariff agreement, it's a big win for the grid in the state and the customers.

BW: The other part of that is the data companies are willing to pay for the investments if you need additional generating or transmission capacity. They're even saying they can set their data centers up so, if there's a peak load, they can throttle back their data center so you can meet the demands other places, which helps you even more on the grid.

SP: Right. There's a remarkable consensus that data centers should pay for their costs and assume their risk, because you don't want stranded assets and so forth. They have a lot of money that they're willing to invest. They're talking about how they can actually enhance the grid around a community, because it's in their interest to have that kind of reliability.

The other thing, in California, we notice is that a big part of our rates are the infrastructure that's been built. If you can serve a lot of energy, now you're spreading that cost along fewer and fewer units of energy. If you have more energy on there, more people paying, it actually could have a resulting benefit for customers.

DM: We're going to look back on this period and how we built a much more robust, more resilient grid based on all this data center investment. We're very excited about it. Switching topics, Chairman Westerman, you may be the only forester in Congress. What more needs to be done with forest management as it relates to wildfires?

BW: It's just a matter of doing the right thing. The way Scott and my relationship really started working together on legislation goes out to the Giant Sequoias that only grow in California. There was a two-year period when we lost 20 percent of those trees—the most iconic trees on the planet.

Trees are living history books, because you can go back and measure fire scars, you can count rings. When we had that two-year period, it goes back to the way these groves were being managed. After the gold rush in California, Native Americans quit burning, and we created federal agencies that put all the fires out. You had these slow-growing trees grow up in the understory that would have been taken out by fires that normally occurred every two or three years. They went 120 years without fires.

You had these white fur trees that got up in the lower crowns of the Sequoias. The fire came through, ran up the white fur—which we call it ladder fuel—got in the crown of the Sequoia, and wiped the whole grove out.

Poor Scott went on a CODEL, and I had him cornered on an airplane for hours, pulling out research papers, saying, “Look, this is what the researchers say is happening to the Giant Sequoias.” To his credit, he didn't just brush me off. The next thing you know, we're on a field trip out there looking at these burned up trees. We're working together on a bill called the Save Our Sequoias Act. And when I first got here in 2015, we could barely get any kind of forestry management bill passed out of the House. The Save Our Sequoias Act passed unanimously.

Then we went from there to the Fix Our Forest Act saying, "If this can work for the Sequoias, let's do it on a broad scale." Scott and I worked hours and hours together, and we came up with something we could both agree on.

I say this all the time: There's nothing we can do that's more proactive and better for the environment than to have a healthy forest. If we can't even keep our forest healthy, we've got problems. Our environmental laws aren't about protecting the environment when we can't keep our forests healthy. They're the lungs of the earth, as Teddy Roosevelt said. They're also the kidneys of the earth, because most of the drinking water in this country comes from water that falls on forested land.

I love Roosevelt's language. If you denude the landscape, you're taking everything off the landscape that holds the soil in place. You wash it into the streams, you kill fish, and you ruin our water. There's no downside to having a healthy forest, and that's what we're promoting with the Fix Our Forests Act.

SP: I had a guy from Arkansas who went to the Yale School of Forestry sit down and tell me about the Sequoias, which are my California Sequoias, right? No one from California had the expertise that Bruce had to save these trees. It was ironic, I think, that a lot of the pushback at the beginning came from the environmental communities that seemed more concerned to me at the time about not changing NEPA than they were about saving these iconic trees.

I think they were kind of embarrassed by their response to this, a lot of them, and have been much more constructive and have worked with Bruce and me on how to get this right.

We got overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in the House and this has passed and we're hoping the Senate takes it up soon, because I think it will have support in the Senate as well.

DM: The important thing that both of you all have highlighted is the fact that wildfires are not just a California or West Coast issue anymore. We're seeing wildfires in Georgia and Florida. This is a broader problem that we all need to figure out. How do we get the Fix Our Forests Act to the president's desk?

BW: It has two Democrat co-sponsors in the Senate. It's passed the Senate Agriculture Committee. If you take the two Democrat co-sponsors and the Democrats that voted for it in the Committee, it has the votes to pass the Senate. There's just a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and everybody's wanting to put their final mark on it.

It should have been passed long ago, but we work on it every day trying to get it across the finish line.

SP: I mean, I think the California electric bill is about a third wildfire management. San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) did a lot of innovation around meteorology. They found that there are a lot of reasons why things burn. The benefit to my constituents of the Fixed Our Forest Act, in addition to the general environmental benefits of preserving habitat in the forest, is that the federal government will be doing its part. It will be paying its share and won't be in the way of fixing the forest in California, which is costing so much on our utility bills. I don't think people understand that as well, but that's a really critical cost control thing for us on our electric bills in California.

DM: That’s why we believe it's so critical to get this passed this year and get it to the president's desk. Let me focus on one last point: We all talk about the political division in Washington, but you two are a great example of a partnership that works. You work together on permitting reform. You’re working together on wildfires. How does that partnership work? What lessons can be learned so we can have more of these types of partnerships in Washington?

SP: I like solving big problems. I thought there would be more of that here. I thought that would be the natural thing, but some people are only interested in politics, some people are interested in TV, and some people are scared of their own shadow.

What we've learned is, if you see a big problem, you can follow the facts, you can start with the right answer, and you can build the politics around that. We’ve touched a lot of what people thought were third rails on the left, and there's no third rails. People understand that to solve the problem, you come up with the right answer.

That has not hurt me electorally one bit. People like that I work with the other side. Bruce is conservative. I don't want any Arkansans to think he's some sort of left winger. The thing is, we can agree on this kind of stuff, and he's got expertise that I can use.

I think it's fun to solve big problems. I want these bills to get passed, and I will feel like I have made a contribution as part of my congressional career if we do.

BW: I would agree with what Scott said. I served in the Arkansas legislature for a couple of terms before I came to Congress, and my background is engineering and forestry. I always define an engineer as a glorified problem solver. That's what you learn in engineering schools: how to solve problems.

I'm with Scott. I didn't come here to complain about things or to go on TV and make some point. I want to actually solve problems to make the country better. The way you solve problems is you figure out what the problem is. They teach you in engineering school to find the problem or come up with a plan, do the math, and present the answer. That’s really what you do in Congress. What's the problem? Here's the plan to fix it. Do the work. That last part's the hard part: presenting it and getting people to accept it.

You have to have people that you can work in good faith with that want the same objective. Who wants to see our forest burn down? Deep down, we all want to fix that. Who wants to see it take forever to build things in America, and who wants to see us fall behind China in lots of different areas? I don't think there's many people that fall into that category.

[President Ronald] Reagan said, “If you can get 80 percent of what you want, if you can agree on 80 percent of what's in a bill, you've got a tremendous win.” We live in an instant-information society, where you can find some problem with any kind of solution that's out there, and it's a lot easier to make a lot of noise about what was in the 10 percent or 20 percent that you couldn't get from an idealistic standpoint than to talk about the 80 percent that you get.

Showcasing the 98th Edison Award Finalists: Recognizing Innovation and Excellence in Grid Operations

Tue, 05 May 2026 20:51:09 +0200

Since 1922, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) has presented the Edison Award, which annually recognizes a member electric company for leadership in innovation and excellence in grid operations.

An independent panel of reviewers evaluated nominations for the 2026 Edison Award and selected The AES Corporation, Baltimore Gas & Electric, and Duke Energy as finalists.

“This year’s Edison Award finalists exemplify how EEI’s member companies are committed to developing and deploying innovative technologies and solutions that are enhancing grid reliability while lowering operating expenses,” said EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney. “Our members are meeting this critical moment in our industry through smart investments and a continued focus on powering the energy of every day for the customers and communities we serve.”

The winner of the 98^th Edison Award will be selected by a panel of former electric company chief executives and then announced during EEI 2026, the association’s annual conference and thought leadership forum, to be held June 2-4 in Las Vegas.

Read on to learn more about this year’s finalists.

The AES Corporation

Strengthening Workplace Safety With Haven Safety AI

Crew and customer safety is a top priority for the electric power industry, and The AES Corporation has significantly strengthened workplace safety through its partnership with Haven Safety AI.

The new AI tool, which AES co-developed, takes large amounts of safety incident data and turns it into rapid, evidence-based root cause analysis (RCA) findings within hours of an incident occurring. This has reduced the amount of time AES employees spend on RCA investigations by 80 percent.

The platform’s insights also inform proactive, corrective actions across high-risk field work, which have improved the company’s prevention and operational resilience. In addition to providing incident-specific data and analysis, the platform also evaluates the data for leading indicators, emerging risks, and pathways to system-wide corrective actions.

By utilizing Haven Safety AI, AES is spending less time on incident reports and more time in the field advancing safer, smarter, and more efficient energy operations.

Baltimore Gas & Electric

Improving Reliability Through Automatic Restoration Capabilities

Over the past six years, Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) has deployed motor-operated switchgear (MOS) into its auto-restoration system (ARS), expanding the system’s capabilities to underground feeders and addressing a gap in BGE’s distribution automation strategy.

MOS offers a cost-effective solution to automatically restore customers on underground feeders, which make up 66 percent of BGE’s primary distribution lines. Between 2020-2025, BGE installed 144 MOS devices onto its distribution system to monitor the technology’s performance and impact on customer reliability. After a successful field pilot, BGE incorporated the MOS devices into its ARS—a pivotal integration that created customized feeder configurations and automated restoration algorithms. The technology also seamlessly integrates with both new and existing infrastructure.

BGE’s MOS deployment has avoided more than 5,000 service interruptions for customers in the past year, underscoring how BGE has utilized these cost-effective, “self-healing” tools to improve customer reliability.

Duke Energy

DeBary Hydrogen Production and Storage System

Duke Energy’s DeBary Hydrogen Production and Storage System is a first-of-its-kind, end-to-end facility that produces, stores, and combusts up to 100-percent green hydrogen generated from solar energy.

Powered by Duke Energy’s DeBary solar facility, two 1-megawatt (MW) electrolyzers split water into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen is captured and stored on-site—then used as on-demand fuel for a peaking combustion turbine upgraded to run on a natural gas-hydrogen blend today, with the capability for 100-percent hydrogen combustion.

In December 2025, DeBary set a world record—generating 50 MW using 100-percent green hydrogen combustion—proving the technical feasibility of this approach and setting a new benchmark for the industry. By converting excess solar energy into stored hydrogen, Duke Energy’s DeBary system transforms Florida sunshine into on-demand power that strengthens grid reliability and helps keep costs as low as possible for customers.

5 Key Takeaways From House Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing on the Grid and AI

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 17:19:12 +0200

On Wednesday, the House Energy & Commerce Committee held a hearing about rising energy demand, serving data centers and large loads, and prioritizing affordability for customers.

Nelson Peeler, Duke Energy Senior Vice President for Grid Strategy, Planning, and Integration, stressed to lawmakers that “large new electricity customers, if integrated into the grid responsibly, present local economic development opportunities and can limit rate growth by spreading the fixed costs of the grid across a larger base.”

Watch a recording of the hearing, and see below for highlights and key takeaways:

1. The Regulated Business Model Benefits Customers.

Electric Perspectives:

2. Companies and Regulators Are Protecting Customers From Added Costs.

Electric Perspectives:

3. One-Size-Fits-All Data Center Solutions Are Unrealistic.

Electric Perspectives:

4. Grid Investment Will Be Critical to Meeting Demand.

Electric Perspectives:

5. Grid-Enhancing Technologies Are Making the Most of Existing Assets.

Electric Perspectives:

Electric Perspectives: What to Know About Data Centers From EEI-Axios Live

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:30:29 +0200

Data centers and AI were drivers of conversation during a recent EEI-Axios Live event featuring EEI Vice Chair Chris Womack, chairman, president, and CEO of Southern Company; White House National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) Director Peter Lake; and Representatives Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.) and Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.).

4 Takeaways:

1. Industry and Government Agree: Tech Companies Should Pay Their Fair Share.

Context: Electric companies and their government and regulatory partners are aligned on protecting residential customers by ensuring data centers and large loads pay for the infrastructure needed to meet their energy demand.

Many data center developers are also on board, particularly after the White House unveiled its Ratepayer Protection Pledge to ensure tech companies pay their fair share to access the grid.

EEI in March published a snapshot of the data center projects its members are engaged in, detailing 39 gigawatts of projects and $840 billion in investments. These projects are bringing economic development to communities across the country without raising customers’ bills.

Electric Perspectives:

2. Companies Are Protecting Customers.

Context: Twenty states have approved a large load tariff, charging higher, specialized rates to large load customers to ensure they fund the grid upgrades and infrastructure projects needed to meet their energy demand. Nine other states are actively considering them.

Two states where tariffs have been approved are Alabama and Georgia, where Southern Company has implemented multi-year rate freezes thanks to data center and large load development.

A recent report from Charles River Associates (CRA) found that—outside of the PJM region—data centers have not driven up residential rates.

Electric Perspectives:

3. Market Structure Matters.

Context: Vertically integrated companies that own their own generation are among the most closely regulated operations in the country, with rates and investments approved by public service commissions through open and transparent rate reviews.

Electric companies, state regulators, consumer advocates, local officials, customers, environmental groups, and other stakeholders have input on generation, transmission, and distribution decisions—which is beneficial when major investments like data centers are being considered.

Several speakers at the event noted the PJM region lacks vertical integration, exacerbating some of its recent challenges.

Electric Perspectives:

4. Companies Need to Communicate Customer Benefits.

Context: Although public sentiment on data centers is low, EEI members are leading projects that are bringing new jobs, tax revenues, energy infrastructure, and local investments to communities across the country without driving up customer bills.

Womack and Lake indicated there is no shortage of success stories nationally and that industry and government can do a better job communicating benefits directly with customers.

Electric Perspectives:

What’s Next:

Duke President and CEO Harry Sideris will feature in the next EEI-Axios Live event scheduled for September.
The CRA rate analysis has more information about data centers and customer impacts, detailed in a recent Electric Perspectives podcast episode.
A recent Lawrence Berkeley National Lab report indicated growing demand from data centers and businesses can help lower costs for states and communities.
Data centers and rising energy demand will be a key topic of conversation at EEI 2026, to be held June 2-4 at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Register today at eei.org/2026.

Axios Live: Strengthening the Grid for What's Next

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 19:31:43 +0200

The electric grid is the backbone of America’s daily life, enabling everything from economic activity and public safety to communication and innovation. Surging energy demand, extreme weather, emerging technologies, and electrification are impacting the grid and consumer power bills, making today’s decisions matter more than ever.

EEI joined Axios Live in April to host a series of conversations about the grid and the policy, planning, and investment decisions needed to improve and maintain a resilient grid for the decades ahead.

Scroll through for highlights from the event, and watch a full video recording above or at the Axios Live YouTube channel.

Purpose, Connection, and Mutual Respect

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 21:42:05 +0200

Electric Perspectives (EP): What are some of your proudest accomplishments from your 23 years at ITC Holdings and 32 years in the industry?

Linda Apsey (LA): One of my proudest accomplishments was making the decision to join ITC 23 years ago. ITC pioneered the independent transmission company model in the United States, emerging from the divestiture of transmission assets and growing into a leading owner and operator of high‑voltage electric infrastructure. At the time, making that move felt like a significant risk.

Still, I believed deeply in ITC’s vision and in what we were trying to build. I chose to take the risk, fully knowing that failure simply wasn’t an option. That decision not only shaped my career but also instilled a lasting sense of ownership and accountability.

That shared commitment became foundational to ITC’s culture, which is something I am incredibly proud of having had a part in creating.

EP: What are the biggest policy shifts that you have seen during your career?

LA: ITC was born out of one of the most significant policy shifts I’ve seen in my career from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC Order No. 888 required utilities that owned transmission to provide open, non‑discriminatory access to their systems.

At the time, there was a view that vertically integrated utilities could favor their own generation by limiting transmission access. As a result, the policy encouraged functional—and, ultimately, structural—separation between generation and transmission. That shift set the stage for DTE Energy (formerly Detroit Edison) to divest its transmission assets and led to the creation of ITC.

With that singular focus on transmission, ITC had a unique perspective early on. From the beginning, we engaged in public and regulatory policy, helping shape conversations about what the future of transmission should look like. Regulators paid attention.

Many of the policies in place today around transmission planning, cost allocation, and investment incentives were informed by our early leadership and advocacy.

ITC President and CEO Linda Apsey testified before the Senate Budget Committee on July 31, 2023, highlighting the increasing need for infrastructure investment and the role policymakers can play in streamlining permitting and planning.

EP: How do we expand America’s transmission capacity to meet rising energy demand?

LA: Expanding America’s transmission capacity really starts with proactive, long‑term planning. We need to be honest about where demand is headed and make smart investments now in the infrastructure that will give us flexibility and efficiency in the future.

When we try to cut corners or delay those decisions, it doesn’t save money. It almost always pushes costs and constraints on customers down the road—and that’s not acceptable.

Policymakers, regulators, and industry leaders are increasingly recognizing that the best way to address affordability concerns is to invest in more generation and more transmission. That means modernizing the regulatory and permitting process so major transmission projects can move forward more efficiently with greater certainty and fewer delays.

Proactive planning, regulatory certainty, and sustained investment are how we build the grid of the future.

EP: How have you seen the industry’s focus on resilience evolve over the years?

LA: When ITC was first established, we acquired transmission assets that had seen little meaningful investment for 30 to 40 years. They required significant attention. Early on, we made a deliberate decision that if we were going to be a standalone, transmission‑only company, we needed to be exceptional at what we do.

Over decades of sustained investment and maintenance, we significantly improved the performance of those assets. Systems that were once third‑ or fourth‑quartile performers from a reliability standpoint have been transformed into top‑quartile— and, in many cases, top‑decile— performers today. That long‑term commitment to investment ultimately paid off when rebuilt portions of ITC’s 138‑kilovolt transmission lines in northern Michigan withstood the ice storm in spring 2025. The powerful winter system moved across much of northern and parts of south‑central Michigan, bringing severe ice accumulation and widespread outages, marking the most severe system damage in ITC Michigan’s history. Working around the clock, ITC, in coordination with distribution utilities and Michigan’s State Emergency Operations Center, repaired damage to impacted portions of the system. These restoration efforts were most recently recognized by EEI with a 2025 Emergency Response Award.

On December 16, 2023, ITC President and CEO Linda Apsey received an honorary Doctor of Business degree from Michigan State University, where she also delivered the Fall 2023 Commencement Address to graduating students across multiple colleges.

EP: Who or what has been a source of inspiration to you throughout your career?

LA: A major source of inspiration for me was ITC’s founder and first CEO, Joe Welch. Our paths first crossed at Detroit Edison, where he took me under his wing and became a mentor for much of my career. He was a visionary leader whose bold decisions and deep commitment to both the business and our people helped define ITC in its earliest days and shape the company it is today.

I was deeply saddened by his passing in the summer of 2025. Joe’s passion for the critical infrastructure we build and maintain, along with his unwavering focus on our employees, served as a constant guide when I stepped into the role of CEO in 2016. I remain grateful for the time we shared and for the belief he had in me.

EP: What can you say about the culture you've fostered at ITC Holdings Corp.?

LA: During my time at ITC, the thing I’m most proud of is the culture we’ve built, and, just as importantly, how intentional we’ve been about it. Culture doesn’t happen by accident. It takes focus, consistency, and a shared commitment to what really matters.

When I look at our values—being better together, driving value for those we serve, maintaining an unwavering commitment to safety, taking an enterprising approach, and leading with integrity and responsibility—I don’t see them as words on a wall. I see them as something that truly anchors who we are, both collectively as a company and individually. Those values guide how we show up every day, how we treat one another, and how we make decisions, especially as we look to the future.

History has also played an important role in shaping who we are. The elements that defined ITC in its early days like the grit, the sense of purpose, and the willingness to do things differently, are still very much a part of our identity today. We’ve held onto those foundational traits while continuing to evolve and I think that balance has been incredibly important.

One thing I’ve always cared deeply about is fostering a true culture of belonging. I want every employee to feel they can be successful and that they are supported along the way. We are invested in the employee experience, and, in return, our employees are invested in the company. That sense of shared success is incredibly powerful.

As I pass the baton to the next generation of leaders and employees, I hope they take all the best things we’ve created and build on them. If they can hold onto that “secret sauce”—the sense of purpose, connection, and mutual respect—I believe ITC will continue to be a place where people feel motivated, inspired, and proud of the work they do.

On October 14, 2016, ITC Holdings Corp. became a subsidiary of Fortis Inc., and Linda Apsey was named President and CEO, succeeding ITC founder and longtime leader Joe Welch.

Expanding Drone Capabilities for Infrastructure Inspections

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 21:14:59 +0200

Duke Energy recently received a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a single pilot to operate up to four drones beyond visual line of sight—a key designation that will give the company greater flexibility to deploy uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) to protect and maintain the energy grid.

Duke Energy began using drones for storm response in 2015, strategically integrating the technology into its operations. In 2024, drones were used to help reconductor a transmission line in Shelby, N.C., following Hurricane Helene—allowing crews to complete a potentially dangerous and time-consuming task safely and in a matter of hours.

Commercial drone deployment is overseen by the FAA, and certain activities and use cases require specific waivers, including automated, defined flight paths for inspecting infrastructure. Duke Energy already held a waiver allowing its pilots to operate drones beyond visual line of sight—enhancing efficiency and safety and decreasing reliance on ground crews, bucket trucks, and crewed aircraft like helicopters for infrastructure inspections and storm damage assessments. With the company’s new FAA waiver, a single pilot will now be able to operate multiple drones beyond visual line of sight.

Electric companies have increasingly embraced drone technologies to safely and efficiently inspect infrastructure, assist in storm response, and mitigate risks for lineworkers—particularly when high-resolution cameras, light detection ranging sensors, and thermal sensors are implemented.

This is the latest example of an EEI member company utilizing drones to enhance inspections while lowering costs. Dominion Energy is one of several electric companies using a combination of drones and AI to more frequently inspect infrastructure and more quickly make maintenance decisions. The Southwestern Electric Power Company, meanwhile, is using drones to assist in tree trimming and vegetation management efforts in Louisiana and Texas.

Last year, Southern Company received FAA approval for UAS flights beyond visual line of sight to monitor energy infrastructure, assess storm damage, and respond proactively to potential issues with the energy grid.

Florida Power & Light, similarly, began flying its FPLAir One drone in 2022. At the time, it was the first fixed-wing drone of its size to be operated commercially outside of an FAA test site. Xcel Energy was the first to receive FAA approval to utilize UAS technologies to survey transmission lines back in 2018.

America250: A Timeline of Powering Progress Across the United States

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 17:59:29 +0200

America's investor-owned electric companies have powered innovation and economic growth throughout America's 250 years.

Tracing their origins back to Thomas Edison's Pearl Street Station, America's first commercially operated power plant, electric companies have supplied the United States with the reliable, affordable energy needed to power revolutionary inventions like at-home refrigerators, television sets, central heating and air conditioning systems, personal computers, and smart phones.

“Electricity Has Built an Empire in America,” read a headline in The New York Times published June 22, 1930. “In 50 years since the incandescent lamp was invented, it has brought about a revolution of life and industry.”

The growth of electricity was rapid in the United States between 1900 and 1950. By 1908, roughly 10 percent of American households were connected to the grid. That number would expand to 90 percent by 1949.

“Electricity is a modern necessity of life, not a luxury. That necessity ought to be found in every village, in every home, and on every farm in every part of the United States,” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said during an address in 1932.

EEI Briefs Wall Street, Highlights $1.1T Grid Investment

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:59:45 +0100

From left to right: EEI Chief Communications Officer Emily Schillinger, Con Edison Vice President of Communications Carolyn Vadino, Con Edison New York President Matthew Ketschke, EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney, New York Stock Exchange Head of U.S. Listings Tara Dziedzic, EEI Senior Manager of Investor Relations Jacob Moshel, and EEI Executive Director of Government Affairs Kristen Siegele.

EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney, along with other EEI leaders and Con Edison New York President Matthew Ketschke, delivered an energy outlook for Wall Street investors on Thursday after ringing the Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

“America’s investor-owned utilities are powering our nation. We are investing more than $1.1 trillion over the next four years in the energy grid to ensure adequate transmission and generation to meet the needs of America,” said Maloney on the floor of the NYSE ahead of EEI’s Wall Street Briefing. “We’re also seeing demand for more power. We are working closely with state and federal governments to ensure that we provide that power in an affordable and reliable way.”

Maloney and Ketschke were joined by NYSE Head of U.S. Listings Tara Dziedzic, EEI Chief Communications Officer Emily Schillinger, Con Edison Vice President of Communications Carolyn Vadino, and EEI Executive Director of Government Affairs Kristen Siegele as they rung the Opening Bell in celebration of EEI and its member companies delivering the energy of every day, and to recognize the more than 200-year legacy of Con Edison—the longest continuously listed company on the NYSE—serving New York City and the NYSE.

“If you think about the most important engine in America, it’s the electrical grid,” said Maloney. “If the electrical grid is not delivering power, America doesn’t work. We take that responsibility very seriously, and we want to ensure the affordability and reliability of the grid continue for the next 250 years.”

To learn more about how EEI and its member companies are providing the energy of every day and powering American innovation, visit EEI’s website.

Industry Celebrates Management-Organized Labor Partnership at National LAMPAC Conference

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:06:48 +0100

On March 16, leaders of EEI member companies and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) locals convened for the National Labor and Management Public Affairs Committee (LAMPAC) conference in Washington, D.C.

During the conference, officials explored challenges and new opportunities facing the energy industry and its workforce. They also discussed how policies and regulatory support can drive energy infrastructure buildout as electric companies work to meet rising demand and connect large load customers to the grid.

“The partnership between EEI and IBEW is essential to delivering reliable energy to the communities we serve across the nation,” said EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney during his opening remarks. “Ninety percent of EEI member companies’ organized labor are represented by the IBEW, and that partnership is foundational to our success.”

“What an amazing time to be in the industry,” said IBEW Director of the Utility Department and National LAMPAC Co-President Drew Stover. “The buildout and expansion of our infrastructure and workforce ahead of us is like nothing we have seen in decades.”

Powering Partnerships

The first panel, “Powering Leadership and Partnerships in the Industry,” highlighted the top priorities for America’s electric companies and their workforce and reinforced the value of a strong labor-management partnership. Maloney moderated a panel featured EEI Chair and Exelon President and CEO Calvin Butler; Ameren Corporation Chairman, President and CEO Marty Lyons; IBEW International President Kenny Cooper; and IBEW International Secretary-Treasurer Paul Noble.

When Butler was serving as president of Baltimore Gas and Electric, an Exelon subsidiary, he worked on union negotiations with Cooper, who was IBEW Vice President of the Fourth District at that time.

“We wanted the best for our employees, our company, and our communities. When you get through all the noise, that was at the core of what was driving us and has guided our relationship,” Butler said.

“It’s not how we agree that matters; it’s how we disagree,” Cooper said. “Most of the time, we find common ground.”

Lyons applauded IBEW workers’ efforts to help with recovery efforts after a major storm hit communities served by Ameren last year.

“The partnership we had with IBEW is fantastic. Last year, we had a tornado come through downtown St. Louis. When you saw the devastation this tornado left, it looked like a war zone,” Lyons said. “We had 3,000 folks come out to help with recovery. We deployed $100 million over the course of eight days. We got customers restored … at the end of the week, I was truly emotional seeing what our crews were able to do.”

“We’re better together,” Noble agreed, “and we can accomplish a lot more together than if we go alone.”

To learn more about National LAMPAC, visit its website.

2026 LAMPAC Awards

Each year, the John D. Dingell Award and the Edwin D. Hill Award are presented during the LAMPAC Award Ceremony. This year, EEI and the IBEW presented the first Edwin D. Hill Award to Ameren Missouri and IBEW Local 1439 for their partnership to advance economic development in the communities they serve. Learn more about Ameren Missouri and IBEW Local 949’s initiative.

The second Edwin D. Hill Award was presented to Alliant Energy, IBEW Local 949, and IBEW Local 204 for their work to educate voters about a proposed ballot initiative that jeopardized union jobs and energy reliability for customers. Learn more about Alliant Energy and IBEW Locals 949 and 204’s efforts.

The John D. Dingell Award was presented to Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jack Reed (D-RI) in recognition of their steadfast support for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Learn more about Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jack Reed's (D-RI) work to champion LIHEAP.

Scroll through the photo gallery below.

Three Key Partnerships for Cyber Resilience

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:33:20 +0100

More than a decade ago, the attack on Ukraine’s energy grid felt like a surprising watershed, proof that cyber operators could reach through keyboards to shut off the lights. This marked a shift into a new phase of geopolitical conflict: one defined by cyber-attacks manifesting physical world effects, particularly against critical infrastructure. Since 2015, there have been ransomware attacks against major oil systems, healthcare systems, and water systems in the United States and across the globe. Cyber criminals are conducting reconnaissance and pre-positioning for future operations, and are coordinating actions on a larger scale, like the recent cyber-attack against Poland’s energy sector.

Today, the threat to critical infrastructure, particularly in the United States, remains a top priority for industry and government. Adversaries are more patient, better resourced, and increasingly exploring how to enhance their attacks using advanced AI capabilities. Many critical infrastructure operators also are working to integrate AI technologies into their cyber defense plans and operations. The race between defenders and attackers is on and it is unclear what side will win.

One key to successfully protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure is to establish and sustain intra-sector, inter-sector, and public-private partnerships. These distinct partnership types can help organizations operating and supporting critical infrastructure effectively and efficiently prepare for, respond to, and recover from cyber-attacks.

Intra-sector partnerships are perhaps the most efficient and effective approaches given an industry’s relatively shared threat landscape, security tool usage, and operational risks. When organizations within a critical sector share threat intelligence on potential or actual cyber-attacks, the entire industry can strengthen resilience to prevent threat actors from successfully scaling their attacks. Within the electric power sector, the Cyber Mutual Assistance (CMA) Program serves as a decades-long proven model of collective defense. Following the 2015 attack on Ukraine’s electric grid, a group of CEOs within the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC) convened to discuss ways to prevent a similar outage, and CMA was born. Today, CMA is a group of security experts representing more than 210 electric and natural gas entities that stand ready to provide mutual assistance in the event of a significant cyber incident. This kind of support is vital in a shifting threat landscape where it is increasingly difficult for a single organization to defend itself against a growing number of malicious actors.

In addition to mutual assistance, it’s important for organizations within a sector to participate in joint exercises that challenge assumptions, strengthen relationships, and build resilience. For example, the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center hosted its eighth biennial GridEx exercise. This cyber and physical security exercise convened thousands of experts from across the electric power industry and government partners to assess and improve their responses to simulated attacks on the energy grid. GridEx helps to inform organizational planning and budget priorities that can strengthen the overall resilience of the U.S. energy grid.

Inter-sector partnerships are a natural expansion from those within an industry. No critical infrastructure sector has a monopoly on security threats or the experts to help defend against them, and many facets of U.S. critical infrastructure are interconnected and interdependent. As Volt and Salt Typhoon revealed, threat actors aim to burrow into multiple critical sectors with the goal of having the ability to disrupt U.S. economic and national security. Therefore, it’s imperative to work across sectors to better understand how adversaries are targeting critical infrastructure and to better strengthen it.

Another recent example is the 2024 CrowdStrike outage that made computers inoperable in organizations across the transportation, financial, and healthcare sectors.

Finally, critical industries and government must renew their commitment to public-private partnerships. The Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency launched the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative in 2021 to unify public and private sector cyber defenses through real-time, bi-directional intelligence sharing operational planning. Two years later, the Department of Energy piloted the Energy Threat Analysis Center (ETAC) to fuse industry data with government intelligence so cyber defenders can identify, analyze, and mitigate threats together. ETAC experts from public power utilities, electric cooperatives, investor-owned electric companies, and oil and natural gas entities analyze threat intelligence in real time, assess potential impacts to the energy sector, and develop risk mitigations that are broadly shared by Information Sharing and Analysis Centers to energy providers across the country. These examples of public-private partnerships leading to operational collaboration can be extrapolated across other critical sectors.

America’s adversaries are constantly enhancing their cyber-attacks and increasingly looking for ways to compromise critical infrastructure. We must continue to meet these challenges head on by leveraging intra-sector, inter-sector, and public-private partnerships. Cyber resilience is the goal; partnership is how we achieve it.

Electric Companies to Advocate for More LIHEAP Funding

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 21:24:15 +0100

America’s investor-owned electric companies and other advocates of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) will partner on February 25 for LIHEAP Action Day, when industry leaders will engage with policy makers on Capitol Hill to emphasize the importance of this customer support program.

LIHEAP provides federal assistance to qualifying customers to help cover their heating and cooling expenses—as well as other costs associated with home energy bills, energy crises, weatherization, and minor energy-related home improvements.

This event, hosted annually by the National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition (NEUAC), drives important customer-focused policy discussionss.

For more than 40 years, LIHEAP has effectively assisted families and provided consistent benefits that relieve the energy burden on the most vulnerable Americans. America’s electric companies, NEAUC, and other program advocates remain committed to supporting LIHEAP and working with lawmakers to maximize federal funding.

In addition to advocating for LIHEAP funding, electric companies are working at the state level to streamline the process for connecting eligible customers to LIHEAP resources and other assistance programs in their communities.

Five things to know about LIHEAP:

Nearly 6 million households across the United States receive assistance from LIHEAP.
The majority of households that receive LIHEAP support have an annual income below $20,000.
Only 1 in 7 families eligible for LIHEAP aid actually receives it, which is why electric companies work to help customers understand eligibility.
More than 2 in 5 LIHEAP households include a person who is at least 60 years old.
7 in 10 households helped by LIHEAP are home to a child younger than 6 years old, an elderly resident, a veteran, or someone with a disability.

Join us to #ProtectLIHEAP by telling your elected officials in Congress to maximize funding for this critical program.

‘If the Grid Doesn’t Work, America Doesn’t Work’: Resilience Key Focus at NARUC Policy Summit

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:25:40 +0100

Left to right: NARUC President Ann Rendahl, NCTA President and CEO Cory Gardner, EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney, NRECA CEO Jim Matheson, American Water Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Norton, AGA President and CEO Karen Harbert, Florida Commissioner Mike La Rosa.

Industry-government coordination was front and center during the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) Winter Policy Summit in Washington, D.C., in early February.

Only two weeks on from Winter Storm Fern, a historic winter weather event that impacted more than 200 million Americans and prompted the largest mutual assistance activation the United States had seen since Superstorm Sandy, mutual assistance and storm response were fresh on the minds of the of state commissioners, federal officials, electric company leaders, and other stakeholders who attended the annual gathering.

“The effort and the coordination among federal, state, local officials, our members, working across the industry, was amazing,” EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney said during a panel discussion, highlighting the significance of pre-positioning crews and resources “days before the storm hit.”

More than 65,000 workers from America’s electric companies braved frigid and hazardous conditions to restore power to impacted communities. The scale of this effort required regular and close communication with a range of stakeholders, Maloney said, highlighting industry coordination through the CEO-led Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC) and regional mutual assistance groups, which was critical to ensuring a safe and efficient response.

“The grid is the most important engine in America. If the grid doesn’t work, America doesn’t work,” Maloney said, noting that companies are actively investing to make the grid more resilient to threats like winter storms. “Our members will be investing more than $1 trillion in the coming years to make it more reliable, more resilient, and more affordable.”

Industry response to Fern was a driver of conversation throughout the NARUC summit. During a separate keynote, Under Secretary of Energy Alex Fitzsimmons, director of the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, highlighted the federal government’s work through the ESCC to ensure crews and resources deployed to the areas that needed them most.

“The bulk power system held up, and we should be proud of that. We all should be proud of that effort,” Under Secretary Fitzsimmons told the NARUC audience.

‘The Impact From This Storm Cannot Be Overstated’: Industry-Government Partnerships Power Historic Fern Response

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:20:35 +0100

Now two weeks on from a historic winter weather event that blanketed more than 200 million Americans in ice, snow, and frigid temperatures, industry and government leaders have been outspoken about the importance of close and regular communication ahead of and during Winter Storm Fern.

“Before the winter storm began, through the mutual assistance program run through the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC), we had 65,000 utility workers ready to go, not just to make repairs in their own service territories, but across the entire affected area,” Deputy Secretary of Energy James Danly during a recent press briefing.

Deputy Secretary Danly noted that “we had crews moving from state to state offering assistance,” which is why workers were able to respond so quickly to “a peak of just about 1 million outages.”

“The bulk power system held up, and we should be proud of that. We all should be proud of that effort,” Acting Under Secretary of Energy Alex Fitzsimmons, director of the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, said during a keynote address at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) Winter Policy Summit.

Under Secretary Fitzsimmons stressed the “strong partnerships” the federal government maintains through the ESCC that helped facilitate response to a storm that impacted more than 200 million Americans.

““The effort and the coordination among federal, state, local officials, our members, working across the industry, was amazing,” EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney said during a NARUC panel discussion.

Tens of thousands of workers from at least 44 states were active throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic in recent weeks, working through snow and ice to perform damage assessments and begin restoration work when it was safe to do so.

“The impact from this storm cannot be overstated, and the industry’s response in the wake of Fern was extraordinary,” EEI Senior Vice President for Energy Security and Industry Operations Scott Aaronson said during a recent United States Energy Association briefing. “There is a culture of mutual assistance in this industry.”

Aaronson noted that the energy industry was working “in lockstep, from the earliest stages of the storm,” with the federal government and with state and local partners to ensure an efficient restoration process. He stressed that cross-industry partnerships are vital to restoring power to customers.

Aaronson also underscored how EEI member companies’ investments in grid resilience and smart grid technologies—in part to meet growing energy demand from AI, data centers, and the onshoring of manufacturing—enabled a faster restoration process.

“This forward planning has allowed us to better meet growing demand, and also to lessen the impact of and quickly respond to extreme weather events,” he said. “Resilience investments matter.”

EEI's Drew Maloney: America Needs Permitting Reform 'As Soon as Possible'

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 22:00:20 +0100

In a new, wide-ranging, on-camera interview with the Washington Examiner, EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney called on Congress to streamline siting and permitting processes, which he said would “go right at the affordability issue” for customers.

“In order for us to maintain our global competitiveness, we have to be able to build generation and transmission faster than we do today,” Maloney said. “The cost imposed by permitting delays and litigation puts too much on the customer. We need [reform], and we need it as soon as possible.”

Maloney estimates red tape adds up to 25 percent to the cost of building new energy infrastructure. It also inhibits America’s global competitiveness, he said, noting that “China can build a power plant in one to two years, and it takes us more than a decade.”

Maloney also discussed the findings of a new study from Charles River Associates, which analyzed historical government data and found that electricity rates have tracked at or below inflation in 34 states during the past five years. It also found that data centers have not been a driver of rate increases in states outside of the PJM Interconnection in the Mid-Atlantic.

“Data centers really aren't driving the cost. There’s a lot of long-term planning that you see in some states—you've got it in Georgia and Louisiana, Mississippi—where they can save billions of dollars for customers over the time of the investment in the data center,” Maloney said.

Among other topics discussed:

On lowering costs for customers:

“Electric companies every day are working with their customers to identify more efficiencies in the system, whether it's grid-enhancing technologies that lower costs, software development that can ensure power is well balanced in the system.”

On partnerships with data centers:

“What these large load agreements are trying to do is protect customers. They're requiring the data centers to fund their interconnection, fund upgrades to the grid, and ultimately benefit the customer. If you look at a lot of the recent announcements that we've seen, the benefits to customers, the benefits to the local tax base are in the billions of dollars. Over the long term, this is a win-win for the communities, for the electric companies, for the customers, because we're going to get a more resilient grid.”

On permitting reform prospects:

“I think now is the time. There is a recognition that, in order for us to maintain our global competitiveness, we have to be able to build generation and transmission faster than we do today. It's the only way to address the real affordability problem, because the cost imposed by permitting delays and litigation puts too much on the customer.”

On the industry’s commitment to resilience:

“The grid is the most important engine in America. If the grid doesn't work, America doesn't work. And it requires investment. That's why you're going to see America's electric companies invest more than $1 trillion during the next four years—to make sure that the grid is reliable and as affordable as possible every single day.”

On response to Winter Storm Fern:

“You saw 65,000 lineworkers come from around the country to go down to the Southeast to work through two inches of ice to try to get wires back up and running, cut trees down, and work through the night to make sure that people had power back at their houses. That’s what we do in this industry. We pitch in. We ensure that the grid—which is the economic and, I would argue, national security backbone of the country—is always up and running.”

On electricity rate stability:

“What most people don't understand about electricity rates is they are really set at the state level. You have to look at the state averages, and there are some states—on the West Coast, especially California, and also New England and New York—that have disproportionately skewed the national average.”

On the importance of an all-of-the-above energy approach:

"We need all of the above. You look at a state like Iowa—a large percentage of their power comes from wind. Texas has a good mix of wind and solar. You see during a storm like Fern, where we became very reliant on fossil fuel as sort of base load—you need that, too. We need more nuclear. We need it all. We support it all, and, as we say, we need as many electrons on the grid as possible right now."

Podcast: New Analysis Finds U.S. Electricity Rates Largely Tracking Inflation

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 16:05:22 +0100

America’s electric companies are focused on providing customers with the energy of every day. They are prioritizing reliability and affordability as they position America to win the AI race and power the jobs, industries, and technologies of tomorrow.

An independent analysis conducted by Charles River Associates (CRA) recently found that average retail electricity rates have largely tracked inflation during the past several years—and that data centers are not driving up rates for customers throughout much of the United States.

EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney and CRA Energy Practice Vice President Matt DeCourcey joined a recent episode of the Electric Perspectives podcast to discuss the report’s findings, geographic variations, and the role of data centers in America’s energy landscape.

Drew Maloney (DM): I want to start by highlighting one key takeaway: For most U.S. electricity customers, retail rates have generally remained stable and have not outpaced inflation. This new research provides important context for why national average retail rates don't always reflect what customers are seeing at the state level. We're excited to hear more from you today about this, Matt.

EEI's member companies continue to work closely with regulators and policymakers to advocate for policies that keep customer bills as low as possible across the country, and the report highlights that electric companies are doing an effective job managing the cost that they can control.

Matt, can you give us an overview of how Charles River Associates analyzed data for this study?

Matt DeCourcey (MD): We started this process with the idea that we wanted to better understand what's been going on with rates—better understand how that compares to prevailing narratives.

We started with a data set of retail electric rates developed by the Energy Information Administration, giving us national average rates by month for 10 years. We also compiled a whole bunch of state-specific rates, going state-by-state for all the states excluding Alaska and Hawaii and including the District of Columbia.

We also used data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Form 1 filing to give us very detailed financial data, including electric company spending on an account-by-account basis with great granularity. Because companies are regulated on a cost-of-service basis, we can understand how their costs are changing and how rates are changing.

We were able to look company-by-company, year-by-year, to see what’s changing, how that correlates with rates, and answers to questions around where things are happening and why.

The national average rate doesn't really reflect reality for most customers. It's sort of the perils of using averages from the conversation you had in your first-year statistics class. We found that there was a small group of companies that had big rate increases. For most companies and most states, the rates weren't increasing. That was an important finding for us.

We found that companies have been managing their costs well—and, in most places, rates have been pretty stable. That's a testament to cost control. It’s the work of the companies, the result of constructive regulation, and the efforts of policy makers in certain states.

We found that data centers—which a lot of people have pointed to as the culprits behind rate increases—haven't really been pushing up rates. With very, very limited exceptions, we found that the rates were going up for specific reasons that we could identify. Those reasons weren’t related to data centers.

DM: What's causing that national average to go up—which is so commonly cited by newspapers and things that we're reading?

MD: It’s rate increases in the small handful of states where rates have been increasing rapidly.

We looked at rate changes over 5 years and 10 years on a state-by-state basis. In California, rates have been going up dramatically in the last five years. That's because of wildfire spending.

In the Northeast, New England, and New York, rates have been going up because wholesale market prices have been going up. The companies buy electricity on behalf of their customers, and they pass that through in the rates. When the wholesale prices go up, the rates go up.

That puts a lot of upward pressure on that national average—just the nature of the arithmetic that goes into it. For most of the other companies and most of the other states, the rate increases had been very moderate.

The average doesn’t represent most of the states and most of the electric companies. In fact, something like 34 states had changes in their rates that were less than the national average. About half of the states saw rates that had gone up consistent with inflation.

We go from this story of broad-based nationwide affordability concerns to one of very local and specific trends.

DM: You mentioned data centers, which have been a very popular theme here in Washington—data centers and the cost associated with powering them. What did you find in your study?

MD: For starters, most data centers that we’re talking about haven't been built yet. When we look back at the history of rates, in most cases, it’s hard to see how they could have increased prices.

It's important to draw the distinction between the AI-training, mega-data centers that are on the horizon and dominating the news nowadays and the data centers that have always been in Northern Virginia for processing credit card payments and things like that. Those mega centers are the ones that we have concerns about causing rates to increase for retail customers across the board. It just hasn't happened yet, because most of them haven't been built yet.

When we look at rates historically, we see rates going up in California and in the Northeast, which is not where many data centers are planning to go. They're going to other places.

There is no evidence to support the idea that data centers have made rates go up. Where the rates are going up is not where the data centers are.

We found that there is this emerging set of principles in regulation and ratemaking that is designed very specifically to prevent rate increases from data centers from happening. The regulators are going about it in lots of different ways. What they're doing is making rates and setting rules that are going to require data centers to pay their own cost of service where electric companies have to make investments to serve data centers. Those costs are going to flow back to the rates to the data centers, and it's going to hold the existing customers harmless.

One interesting development of late has been some hyperscalers coming out and making very specific statements and very specific commitments that they're going to pay for all the costs to serve them. It's the emerging consensus, and a set of best practices is starting to form.

DM: We've seen more than 25 states either enact large load tariffs or consider agreements that will protect customers and enhance the grid over the long term, right?

MD: Yes. When you look at that universe of rate making, all those tariffs look different. There are a handful of mechanisms that are going to make it so that, if a data center wants to connect to the grid, they have to bring the capital and make commitments

And, you're right, there's potential benefits for existing customers. There are investments to be made on the grid. There's also the potential that data centers reduce the cost of retail service for some customers. If you have a new large load customer show up on the grid, and it is paying its own costs, it's going to absorb some of the shared costs. That's going to benefit the customers that are already there.

DM: If you were advising policy makers, regulators, and other decisionmakers on key takeaways from this report, what would they be?

MD: Everything is local.

If you're a policy maker or a regulator considering intervening in a market, understand the problem that you're intervening in and what the solutions would be to consider. If I am in California, and I wanted to intervene in the market, I'd want to think about how we pay for wildfire costs. How do we think about some of the rooftop solar ratemaking concerns that the California Public Utilities Commission has said is also making rates go up for some customers significantly?

If I was in the Northeast, I'd have a very different set of questions. I'd be asking about how we unlatch ourselves from volatile wholesale markets. Do we make investments? Do we change the rules? Do we let electric companies own generation?

Elsewhere, I might wonder whether I have to intervene. Do I have evidence that there is an affordability crisis within my jurisdiction? If so, what do I do about it? There have been rates that have gone up, but, mostly, the markets and the systems have been working as designed in most places.

My other consideration, if I was a policy maker, would be what the industry's responsibility has been. It seems like, in most places, costs are being managed well. We haven't found any evidence to support the idea that the rates are going up because of mismanagement, poor planning, or because of something that should have been foreseen and wasn't.

We don't have any evidence—and, frankly, we don't think it's the case—that companies are profiting from these increases in the rates. The nature of the increases, in most cases, is they're collecting operating expenses that pass directly through to customers at cost. No markup, no profit for the shareholders. They're highly regulated at the state level.

If I was a regulator or a policy maker, I would be very reluctant to do things like curtail returns or anything that would erode the financial integrity of companies and impose penalties. It's just not warranted, and it wouldn't be appropriate.

DM: Let me ask about affordability. You all looked at Americans’ energy wallet and how that's changed over a 20-year period. What did you see in the data?

MD: Generally, the share of the energy wallet has been declining. We looked at how much of your average household budget is consumed by electricity. It’s not a huge band that we’re looking at.

We had a couple decades of data, and it only moves from 1 percent or 2 percent or 3 percent of total household budget. Over time, it is showing a steady decline downwards, which is to say that, over time, less of the average household’s budget is going to electricity.

That’s driven by a lot of things. That’s driven by costs that are fairly stable and by efficiency programs and efficiency of appliances. Society, as a whole, became more efficient over time. The impact on affordability is that, over time, the industry is requiring fewer dollars every month from your average household. It’s less than 2 percent.

DM: How do you differentiate between bills and rates?

MD: We looked at residential rates, because we think those are going to be of greatest interest to most customers and to policymakers. For your average household, it's the residential rate that sets the total cost of energy every month.

When you multiply total usage by the rate, you get the total bill. The bill is a function of both the rate and energy usage, both of which can change over time.

DM: The White House recently announced an agreement with governors that EEI has broadly supported to make changes to the PJM marketplace. What's your view of that announcement?

MD: It's interesting, and we'll be watching it closely to see where it goes. It actually tells us a lot about how we're going to look at data centers entering the market going forward.

It's not clear what comes of the announcement, specifically, but what it does tell us is that policy makers are going to intervene to protect existing customers from the potential of cost increases due to data centers. It’s one of these emerging principles in the industry that, where large loads and data centers are entering the market, they're not going to be subsidized by existing customers.

DM: Do you see companies getting into the generation business in PJM and other regions as one of the possible solutions here?

MD: It could be. One of the things that differentiates the impact of this most recent PJM capacity auction is that they're much more sharply felt in the states where the companies have divested their generation.

Having generation is a natural hedge against variation in the market. That's axiomatic. This is a variation in the market, so if all else is equal, companies that own generation on behalf of their customers would be better insulated from price shocks like this.

Report: Data Center Development Not Driving Up Electric Bills

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 16:05:06 +0100

Americans’ electric bills have been widely protected from increases related to data center development, according to a new study from Charles River Associates (CRA) that shows average retail electricity rates have largely tracked with inflation during the past 10 years.

The report compiled data from the U.S. Energy Information Association and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and found that while electricity rates vary widely by geographic location, “for most customers, rates have been largely stable.” Where rates did increase, “the timing and location of the rate increases that were observed are not consistent with the timeline of data center development.”

“This analysis underscores the important work America’s electric companies do every day to keep electricity reliable and make bills as low as possible,” said Drew Maloney, EEI President and CEO. “While CRA’s report makes clear that our industry is making good progress for most of the country, we also understand we have more work to do as we serve American families and local businesses.”

Among the report’s key findings:

There is not a broad, national trend toward rising rates, which means some of the data driving national narratives are “misleading or misinterpreted.”
In a handful of locations, rates have risen in recent years, driven by external drivers and operating expenses such as wholesale price increases, wildfire spending, and net energy metering programs.
With the exception of some areas served by the PJM Interconnection, data centers are not driving up rates. New data center tariffs and agreements will insulate existing customers from the costs of serving data centers.

America’s investor-owned electric companies have been working with hyperscalers, regulators, and state and local officials to implement special tariffs that protect residential customers while ensuring large customers pay their fair share to access the grid. To date, 18 states have approved large load tariffs, with decisions pending in another 8 states.

Outside of the PJM Interconnection, customers have largely been protected from cost increases related to data centers. EEI and its member companies have long called for reform to PJM that would improve accountability and transparency, proactive resource planning, and procurement flexibility. EEI supported the January announcement from President Donald Trump and a bipartisan group of governors from states served by PJM calling for an emergency auction to require technology companies to fund new electricity generation needed to serve growing data center demand.

Read the full study here, and learn more about how electric companies are delivering value for customers at eei.org/affordability.

Industry's Round-the-Clock Restoration Critical During Winter Storm Fern

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 16:39:40 +0100

The electric power industry in January activated its largest mutual assistance effort since Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024.

More than 65,000 workers from at least 44 states deployed in response to Winter Storm Fern, according to EEI. The storm brought frigid arctic air, heavy snowfall, and icy conditions to more than 200 million Americans.

Through the CEO-led Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council, EEI and industry leaders coordinated with the highest levels of government, including at the U.S. Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, to ensure unity of effort in responding to the storm and restoring power to impacted communities.

EEI recently joined the American Public Power Association and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in issuing a joint press release highlighting the breadth of industry response, explaining the mutual assistance process, and outlining how electric companies partner during extreme weather to keep customers safe.

Read the full release below, and visit eei.org for the latest updates on Winter Storm Fern.

EEI’s Drew Maloney on Fern: ‘America’s Electric Companies Are Really Well Positioned to Deal With This’

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:33:02 +0100

Winter Storm Fern blanketed more than 200 million Americans in snow, sleet, ice, and frigid temperatures over the weekend, prompting one of the largest mutual assistance responses in the electric power industry’s history.

More than 65,000 workers from 43 states have been mobilized and are assessing damage and restoring power where it is safe to do so. That’s comparable to the historic response and recovery efforts seen during Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024.

“America’s electric companies are really well positioned to deal with this,” EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney said Monday morning on CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange.”

Maloney highlighted the planning that began last week with the highest levels of industry and government, including with senior Administration officials, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, and dozens of state and local leaders, to ensure unity of effort in impacted communities.

“It’s really a unified effort,” Maloney said. “I think it’s really important for everyone to understand the coordination with federal, state, and local officials … to get power up as quickly as possible during this historic ice storm.”

While ice poses unique challenges to restoration, tens of thousands of lineworkers are braving frigid conditions across several states and will continue working around the clock to ensure power is restored to everyone who is able to receive it.

Watch Maloney’s full interview below, and visit the EEI Storm Center for the latest storm updates.

How EEI Members Served Customers, Workers, and Communities in 2025

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 15:20:54 +0100

The investor-owned member electric companies of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) play a critical role in powering the lives of nearly 250 million Americans each day. Throughout 2025, EEI’s member companies showcased how they are working for their communities by helping to lower costs, supporting the nation’s economic growth, strengthening the energy grid, and investing in the future.

See below for some of the ways EEI member companies have showcased their commitment to their communities and workforces. EEI also will be sharing these stories on our social channels as we count down to 2026—find them on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Entergy: Data Center Drives Down Local Rates

As more AI data centers connect to the grid, Entergy showcases how the projects it powers will create direct benefits not just for customers, but for residents of the states it serves for generations to come.

Duke Energy: Significant Progress Restoring the Grid After Hurricane Helene

One year after Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville, N.C., Duke Energy highlights the significant progress made by its lineworkers to restrengthen the grid.

Exelon: Customer Relief Program Benefits Customers and Local Businesses

Exelon’s Customer Relief Fund helps low-income customers, which in turn benefits local businesses in its service territories—including Midnite Confections + Cupcakery in Baltimore, Md.

Puget Sound Energy: Apprenticeships Lead to Full-Time Employment

Puget Sound Energy’s Pathways to Apprenticeship series shares the different apprenticeships offered by the company, and features employees sharing their favorite parts of the job.

Pacific Gas & Electric: Customer Dollars Directly Contribute to Infrastructure Reliability

Through their “Your Energy Dollars at Work” series, Pacific Gas & Electric highlights how customers’ dollars directly contribute to infrastructure projects that keep the energy system safe, reliable, and climate-resilient.

Xcel Energy: Reliable Energy Powers Local Businesses Like Red Wings Shoes

For more than a century, Xcel Energy’s reliable, essential energy has powered the production of Red Wings Shoes’ high-quality leather boots.

American Electric Power: Drones Help Power Reliability for Customers

The integration of drone technology has transformed how AEP Ohio maintains the grid—helping to prevent and shorten outages, improving operational efficiency, and keeping its crews and communities safe.

Arizona Public Service: Employees Provide Live Bill Assistance During Phone Bank

In Summer 2025, Arizona Public Service partnered with local media to host a live phone bank, where employees took customer calls, answered questions, and offered on-the-spot ways to save on energy bills.

Con Edison: Reliable Service Keeps a Favorite Local Business Running

Mamitas, a local favorite in New York, depends on Con Edison’s reliable energy service to keep its equipment running smoothly and its freezers cold, so it can produce its fan-favorite ice pops.

This National Ice Cream Day, we’re honoring Mamita’s Ices — a 25-year NYC family business rooted in Dominican tradition. See how reliable energy keeps their sweet moments refreshingly cool everywhere: https://t.co/xT6MZRlrq7 pic.twitter.com/Py9vKfOrb9
— Con Edison (@ConEdison) July 20, 2025

Ameren – Restoring Customer Power After a Tornado Event

After a tornado hit Ameren’s service territory earlier this year, impacting energy infrastructure and customer homes and businesses, the company deployed 1,900 workers to quickly and safely restore power.

Hawaiian Electric: Employees Are the Fabric of the Community

Hawaiian Electric’s employees make up the fabric of the community and its commitment to its customers—including Mikey Burke and Kaulana Anderson, who were impacted by the Lahaina fires.

ITC Transmission: Restoring Transmission Service After Severe Winter Weather

After severe winter weather swept across Michigan and affected 23 transmission lines and 17 substations, ITC Transmission crews coordinated with local partners and worked around the clock to safely and quickly restore transmission service.

OG&E: A Career Journey in Energy, From Internship to Engineering

Anne and Ayden share their OG&E career journeys from internships to full-time positions in engineering and operations.

Southern Company: Making Significant Investments to Meet Demand Growth

Southern Company highlights the investments made in advanced technologies and renewable energy to meet the significant demand growth in its service territories.

NorthWestern Energy – Osprey Conservation Work Featured in Children’s Book

NorthWestern Energy Content Development Specialist Erin wrote Oliver the Osprey, a children’s book that highlights the osprey conservation work NorthWestern Energy provides to help the company deliver a critical service and maintain reliability.

Data Centers: Costs and Customer Benefits

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:40:48 +0100

America’s electric companies work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to power the American economy and ensure the United States is home to the jobs, industries, and technologies of tomorrow.

They are working with tech companies, hyperscalers, and data centers to power the next wave of American innovation—while delivering clear benefits to the grid and existing customers.

Entergy Mississippi President and CEO Haley Fisackerly and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Head of Energy and Water for the Americas Brandon Oyer joined the Electric Perspectives podcast to discuss data center and electric company partnerships and a new electric rate and tariff study from Energy and Environmental Economics, or E3.

Following is an abbreviated transcript, lightly edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full episode and catch up with other recent interviews, visit electricperspectives.com/podcast.

Electric Perspectives (EP): Brandon, tell us about your role at AWS and how you work with energy partners, including Entergy Mississippi.

Brandon Oyer (BO): As the head of power and water here for the Americas with AWS, I have the distinct privilege of working with a bunch of very bright people around the country and in Canada, Mexico, and South America. We get to work with utility partners to craft rates and contracts that power AWS on time and at a cost that delights our customers, while at the same time making investments into local communities—from the East Coast to the West Coast to the middle part of the country.

I continuously get to see opportunities to innovate and refine how we power data centers responsibly, how we power them reliably, and how we power them in a path to continue being clean.

That's fun. It's a challenging role. The times are exciting, and we're growing. It's fun to see the United States electric grid growing at a high rate in comparison to history.

We like to look around corners and make sure that we're doing the right thing for the communities that we live in. We want to make sure our customers aren't being burdened on their electric rates.

That's why we think this E3 study is important. We took time to dive in and learn here, so I look forward to talking about it a little bit more.

On the economic development impact, in Madison County, Miss., we're investing $10 billion to build two data center campuses, creating at least 1,000 full-time jobs. In Warren County, Miss., we're investing $3 billion—the largest private investment in the county's history. We’re creating another 200 jobs at that data center campus while supporting 300 additional jobs in and around the community.

Combined, these investments will support an estimated 3,000 jobs to bring these data center campuses to life and add $3.9 billion to Mississippi's GDP. These are high-paying jobs, including data center engineers, network specialists, operation managers, and security specialists.

EP: Haley, tell us about Entergy Mississippi’s customers and the communities that you serve?

Haley Fisackerly (HF): Sure. Entergy Mississippi is one of the five operating companies of Entergy Corporation. We serve 460,000 customers in the western part of Mississippi, in 45 of Mississippi's 82 counties. We've been serving the area since 1923.

About 60 percent of our customers are coalesced in what we call the metro area around the capital city of Jackson, Miss. That’s where AWS is making most of their investments.

Most of the 45 counties that we serve are in very rural areas—a lot of agriculture. In Jackson, there's a very diverse mix of businesses, education, some manufacturing. We haven’t historically had a large industrial base in Mississippi like our sister companies in other states. We have more residential and commercial customers, so having a large customer like AWS definitely changes our profile from that standpoint.

EP: Tell us more about the E3 study and its key takeaways.

BO: The No. 1 finding from that study is that Amazon data centers are not being subsidized by their utility customers. There’s no cross-subsidization between a residential customer and a large-load customer, such as an Amazon data center.

We've seen this study after study. If you look at the Joint Legislative and Audit Review Committee, they published similar findings in 2024. If you look at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab report that was released earlier this year, it found the same thing.

We actually find that these investments are enabling companies to make investments for the broader grid. Historically, customers would have to pay for this, but now that large load is coming along, these bigger customers are able to absorb that cost.

We find that data centers generate surplus revenues to the costs of producing and delivering electricity—on the order of about $33,000 per megawatt in 2025, growing to $60,000 per megawatt in 2030.

This surplus revenue enables the electric companies to continue making investments while not causing cross-subsidization. And, these crucial investments in grid infrastructure do everything from meeting immediate needs to supporting local residents to driving commercial growth while improving reliability. It’s a fun time to be a part of this.

EP: Haley, how is your team at Entergy Mississippi working with large customers like Amazon, and how does this work strengthen the grid and deliver value to your customers?

HF: Brandon touched on a good bit of this. If you take a moment to think about our industry, we have extensive infrastructure that we use to serve our customers: power plants, transmission lines, distribution lines, and a lot of these are fixed costs.

At the same time, we are facing aging infrastructure, the need to reinvest, weather risks that are impacting our business, and customer expectations. We are more dependent on electricity to power our lives and to support the way we work than ever before. That means there’s a lot of demand on the grid.

We’ve known that we need to make grid investments. Sadly, without demand growth in our area, the cost of our business was escalating very quickly. More than 20 percent of our customers live below the national poverty level. A large portion are living paycheck to paycheck. Affordability is a No. 1 issue for us.

What we’re able to do with Amazon is bring in this large customer with all the other benefits that Brandon discussed: new jobs and huge capital investments that are allowing us to make meaningful investments and improve the grid serving all of our customers.

We're also seeing them pay the full freight of their costs. We're having to make upgrades to the transmission system that improves import capabilities that benefit everyone, and they're paying those incremental costs. Substations that will have to be built to serve their facilities—they're paying 100 percent of those costs.

What is more exciting about this, and it makes me excited, is that we know we've got to invest to improve reliability. We had a $600 million capital plan already planned just to make the investments to improve our grid. Because of the new revenues coming in from AWS, we're going to be able to increase that by more than 50 percent—spending another $300 million on our reliability plan.

All of this will bring huge value from better service, more reliable service, and at a more affordable rate. In fact, because of AWS, we were able to pull a lot of those investments forward and improve reliability. We have a 50-percent reduction in outages with a 50-percent increase in spending, with no cost to customers. This is exciting, transformative, and it will make a difference in the lives of our customers and the communities we serve.

BO: There is a narrative out there that data centers are driving up costs. Haley, since we first started working together, back in 2023 and 2024, have you seen any shift in our thinking on this? Have you seen a shift since that narrative started to take hold?

HF: I’ve been in this business for 30 years and CEO of this company for 17 years. I’ve negotiated a lot of deals. Amazon and AWS were totally different characters. You were very cognizant of making sure this would not adversely impact customers and communities.

There has been a need for speed to market, service reliability, and recognition that these costs need to be covered.

Of late, there has seemed to be a lot of misinformation and confusion out there about what is driving rates.

In Mississippi, there was legislation passed to make this deal happen. The governor, the Mississippi legislature, and the public service commission were very supportive of the economic opportunity and made it very clear that this cannot harm existing customers. The legislation states specifically that, in my words, AWS is to pay their incremental cost to serve and provide benefits back to customers.

These new investments in the grid, from new generation down to enhanced transmission, are going to improve capabilities that benefit everyone.

EP: Brandon, how is your team working to support communities like those in Warren and Madison counties?

BO: In addition to paying our fair share, I do want to highlight that this isn't something new for us. This has been an operating tenet for Amazon for quite some time. Defining a good rate structure and providing impact to the community has been table stakes for us.

We're making significant investments, and we’re spending time and money to enable the local workforce. That's an important trait when we go and grow our business. We’ve partnered with Mississippi to build a skilled workforce for the future by partnering with Mississippi AI Innovation Hub and the AI Talent Accelerator program.

We’ve invested nearly $400,000 into the Bean Path, which is a Jackson-based AI tech educational nonprofit that's impacted 8,000 Mississippians. We're also proud to have the first cohort completed of the Infrastructure Pre-Apprenticeship Program in Holmes Community College.

These programs represent a commitment towards creating direct pathways from education to employment. We’ve also launched the Amazon Warren County Community Fund and invested an initial $150,000 to be managed by a non-profit, Change X. That grant supports local initiatives focused on science, technology, engineering, and math education; sustainability and environmental programs; digital skills; cultural and heritage programs; and health and well-being initiatives. It's open to individuals, community groups, schools, and nonprofits all across Warren County.

These are just a couple of the things that we do that impact the customers around us. We just want to have a lasting, positive impact and be a good partner in the communities where we operate.

EP: Haley, Entergy's long been a leader on workforce development and making sure that you're having positive community impacts. What have you all been seeing, and how does Amazon’s work complement the work that your team is doing?

HF: I'm a fourth-generation Mississippian, and I am so excited by what we're seeing here. We have struggled with brain drain and jobs being lost. Amazon has come in, and we have now brought in a new sector that’s creating new job opportunities for young people.

The $10 billion minimum that Amazon is investing in Madison County is expected to generate an incremental $80 million per year in ad valorem taxes. Half of that goes to the local school district. Think about the young lives that are going to be changed.

The infrastructure improvements, the water system improvements, the road improvements from this mean that local taxes won’t have to be raised for some time because of the revenue coming in here.

More than 55 local businesses have received contract work or work directly at these data centers. These are often small mom-and-pop businesses, though they can also be very large companies.

We have seen manufacturers in Mississippi announce expansions to make the components used by data centers and the electric power industry. More than 2,000 jobs have been created so far, so the ripple effect is like one we've never seen before.

We've worked with a lot of great companies that have come in and made investments, but it's usually been made after they have built out their facilities, and they're up and running.

Amazon came in earlier, started to work with local educational groups, looked at training opportunities, and looked at other partnerships as they’ve been building this out. When you think about all of those different businesses that are benefiting from this, the tax revenue coming in, that has a positive impact on local individuals and families.

EP: Electric companies are always looking to balance affordability with reliability. Haley, how do these projects align with your efforts to deliver both of those things for customers?

HF: I mentioned earlier that we were faced with this dilemma when we knew we had to make a lot of investment in this region, and we were not growing here in Mississippi. What Amazon has allowed us to do is pull those investments forward. For example, we knew we would have to build two new power plants post-2030. We knew that we had an opportunity to deploy more solar renewables and batteries.

The fact that we were able to pull those projects forward means we're saving customers more than $2 billion. These plants are also much cleaner.

They use less water. They also are much cleaner technologies. They will have carbon capture capabilities and the ability to use hydrogen if and when that becomes economic. That alone will save more than $700 million in commodity costs for our customers.

We're also dealing with more storm costs every year. Now, having a large customer like Amazon at the table means we can share in those fixed costs and create rate relief for our customers. It’s a huge value in the sense that a large customer is now helping share in the cost of large investments.

We're doing things right now that we would not have been able to do had this opportunity not come forward with Amazon.

Electric Companies Provide Legal Aid on EmPOWERING Pro Bono Day

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 15:44:05 +0100

November 13 marked the fourth annual EmPOWERING Pro Bono Day, and several members of EEI’s legal team participated by joining the AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly to provide free assistance to community members. These attorneys helped clients sign up for utility and bill assistance services and ensured the clients understood the required paperwork.

“It was great to be able to help and connect with our neighbors. Assisting the community in completing Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and utility assistance applications and public benefits checkups is an important service. We were able to help the participants understand the forms and get them the assistance they needed,” said EEI Attorney for Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Shantel Francis.

During the industry-wide day of service, volunteer attorneys and legal staff from other electric and gas companies also assisted clients in their communities. The program is organized by the Pro Bono Institute (PBI)'s Corporate Pro Bono project and legal teams at Entergy and EEI.

Several EEI member companies participated in providing services, including developing life planning documents for seniors, signing veterans up for wellness services, assisting with applications for public benefits, and more. According to the PBI, this year there were:

25 pro bono events serving underserved clients across 15 states
271 in-house volunteers from 13 in-house legal departments
235 law firm volunteers
Almost 400 clients served

During the workshop at AARP, attorneys from EEI and AARP served 13 clients and assisted with more than 25 applications.

“EEI's commitment to guiding clients through complex benefit applications was inspiring. They helped transform what could have been a stressful process into a hopeful one. We are grateful for the EEI attorneys’ expertise and compassion. Because of your work, families will enter the winter months with greater security and peace of mind,” said AARP Senior Attorney Robyn R. Griffin.

To learn more about EmPOWERing Pro Bono Day, visit PBI’s website.

PPL Corporation's Vince Sorgi: Wired for Intelligence

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 20:00:54 +0100

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:

Improve the reliability and resiliency of our electric and gas networks through system hardening, smart grid technology, and automation.
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).
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.
Empower our customers through digital solutions. There is tremendous potential to improve the customer experience through connected tech and AI.
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.

Georgia Power Grid Emerges Stronger Following Hurricane Helene

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 20:05:00 +0100

One year ago, Georgia Power announced that it had largely completed immediate restoration work following Hurricane Helene with 95 percent of impacted customers restored within 8 days of the most destructive storm in the company’s history. The company mobilized its largest restoration effort ever with more than 20,000 personnel responding at the peak of restoration efforts, and partnering companies from across the country. Intensive restoration efforts were initiated in the hardest-hit areas of the state, including Valdosta, Augusta, and Savannah. Several of these areas were hard to reach and required helicopters, boats, and unmanned aerial vehicles to get responders close enough to restore power.

The company repaired or replaced 11,800+ power poles, 1,500+ miles of power lines, 5,800+ transformers, and addressed 3,200+ trees impacting lines. In some areas, the damage was so severe that crews had to rebuild portions of the power grid from the ground up.

With the approval of the Georgia Public Service Commission, Georgia Power has invested more than $10 billion over the last decade in smart grid technology and grid resiliency. Those investments have reduced the duration and frequency of outages, and made the grid more resilient to extreme weather.

During the height of Hurricane Helene, these advanced systems and automated devices prevented sustained outages for thousands of customers, automatically rerouting power around trouble areas and helping avoid thousands of hours of outage time for storm-ravaged homes, families, and businesses in some of the less-affected areas of the state such as Metro Atlanta and North Georgia. This enabled crews to quickly repair major problems and refocus their efforts on the hardest-hit communities.

In the months following Hurricane Helene, once customers were safely reconnected as quickly as possible, the company took the time to strategically rebuild parts of the grid with smarter technology and stronger infrastructure, which included upgrading power lines, poles, and transformers to enhance reliability and durability for future storms. For example, Georgia Power integrated self-healing grid technologies such as automatic electric-fault detection and automated switches helping to enhance monitoring, reliability, and energy efficiency for all customers.

“We understand the importance of reliable energy for families and businesses and are working every day to plan improvements and align our investments in grid resilience to deliver the best value for customers,” said Georgia Power Vice President of Strategy and Support Josh Stallings. “While this is an ongoing effort that has been underway for years, following Hurricane Helene, we recognized an opportunity to upgrade sections of the grid in impacted areas while we rebuilt from the ground up in many cases, making them stronger and more resilient. We’re proud to continue to be here for Georgia communities every day.”

Examples of work in areas impacted by Hurricane Helene include:

Coastal Georgia: Several basic insulation level and sectionalizing projects have been completed in the last year benefiting more than 10,000 customers.
East Georgia: Many sectionalizing projects in the Augusta area have taken place with more than 90 devices upgraded or added to the system that allows the grid to “self-heal.”
South Georgia: Crews have reconductored circuits in Hahira and East Valdosta with larger wire, including more than a mile of new service lines.

To learn more about Georgia Power’s historic restoration efforts following Hurricane Helene, visit georgiapower.com/helene.

Highlights From EEI's Financial Conference

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 14:15:00 +0100

This year, EEI was thrilled to welcome CNBC Senior National Correspondent Brian Sullivan, co-anchor of “Power Lunch," to EEI's Financial Conference. Sullivan interviewed industry leaders throughout the event, hosted a CEO leadership panel, and brought the event's critical conversations to a national audience.

Scroll through for highlights from EEI member company leaders' interviews with CNBC:

EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney

Pacific Gas & Electric Company CEO Patti Poppe

NextEra Energy Chairman, President, and CEO John Ketchum

Duke Energy President and CEO Harry Sideris

EEI Chair Calvin Butler, President and CEO of Exelon

Edison International President and CEO Pedro J. Pizarro

Why Permitting Reform Matters for America’s Energy Future

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 16:35:00 +0100

As electric companies work to build the transmission lines and infrastructure needed for reliable energy future, they face complex and often lengthy approval processes. Reforming these processes is essential for electric companies to deliver reliable energy while keeping bills as low as possible for customers.

EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney and ITC Holdings Corp. President Krista Tanner joined the Electric Perspectives podcast to discuss permitting reform and how electric companies are meeting rising energy demand while maintaining grid resilience.

Following is an abbreviated transcript, lightly edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full episode and catch up with other recent interviews, visit electricperspectives.com/podcast.

Electric Perspectives (EP): Drew, what is your perspective on permitting reform? How do delays in permitting processes impact projects and increase costs for customers?

Drew Maloney (DM): There's an incredible amount of demand for new energy that we need to meet as quickly as possible, and we need less red tape from Washington and the freedom to build the infrastructure needed to meet this demand.

It can take 6 to 12 years just to get new transmission and generation projects to market. In China, it takes 1 to 3 years. The amount of time these projects take hurts customers and hurts reliability. That's why we're leaning in and supporting permitting reform here.

EP: Krista, what’s your perspective on the permitting challenges that companies are facing today?

Krista Tanner (KT): I couldn't agree more with Drew. We're at a critical time in our country's history. We are in a global race for energy security, AI innovation, and economic development. It takes way too long to build in this country. We had a transmission project take almost 13 years to complete, and that's unacceptable. Drew mentioned China, where they can build by decree. I'm not suggesting we do that. We don't do that in this country. Still, we absolutely can modernize our processes and get this built much faster.

EP: Is the transmission project that you’re referring to the Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line?

KT: Yes. The Cardinal-Hickory Creek project was approved by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) in 2011. It was one of MISO's multi-value projects, which are very aptly named, because they provide economic, reliability, and resilience value. They were groundbreaking at the time.

This project ranged from Dubuque, Iowa to Madison, Wis. It was complex, because we needed approvals from two states and the federal government. It traversed the Upper Mississippi Wildlife Refuge and the Mississippi River.

We had to get 33 permits from 15 different agencies. Some were federal, which required National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) reviews. The NEPA process took seven years. We had 29 public engagement opportunities, and those consisted of public information meetings, open houses, and comment periods. We built a very responsible project that spanned more than 90 percent existing rights of way. It was an environmentally responsible way to build a project, and we received approvals because of the way we went about this.

That's when the litigation began. The project was subject to five different lawsuits and four different injunctions. It extended the process even longer. We ultimately prevailed, but it took 13 years, which is way too long. And, while this process dragged on, customers didn’t benefit and were deprived of low-cost energy and a resilient grid.

There were landowners involved in litigation early in the process. By the end, though, it was environmental groups that were not impacted by or were not adjacent to the refuge. They were using the federal process as a way to stop the project.

EP: Drew, you recently wrote a letter to Congressional leadership advocating for permitting reform. What are you advocating for, and why is now the time for Congress to act on this issue?

DM: Krista’s story highlights the challenge that we're facing in America. A project like hers took 13 years, and many other projects throughout the country are having the same results. That is unacceptable today. We will never be able to meet the needs of our customers if this continues.

That's why we sent our letter to Congress, and we called out for several items. One is to streamline NEPA to ensure we don't have this endless litigation.

Two, we need to strengthen and extend the nationwide permitting under the Clean Water Act Section 404, which already is working. We need to codify that and expedite state water quality certifications under the Clean Water Act.

Three, we need to right-size the National Historic Preservation Act, so you can properly balance preservation goals and the deployment of new energy infrastructure.

And, we need to fully fund the U.S. National Laboratories as we work with them to develop new and emerging technologies that provide value across the grid.

The “why now” is very simple: These basic reforms will do several things. They will keep costs to customers as low as possible, they will increase reliability, and they will support the building of new generation and transmission infrastructure that we need to power manufacturing activity, expand small businesses, and develop the technologies that are so critical to the United States.

If you think about a project that was supposed to be completed in 3 years and it takes 13 years, your whole supply chain costs are going to go up. The fact that customers aren't going to receive the benefits for 10 more years means additional costs to them. People don't appreciate how much the delays and litigation impact customers, who get stuck with paying the price for all of this over the long haul.

We are thrilled to know that Secretary Wright actually concurred with the overarching recommendations that we put forward. He has committed to developing an energy workforce strategy that enables effective workforce planning and supports the development of a highly skilled workforce. We're excited to see what comes out of that and we're expecting it to be published this fall.

KT: It’s also very expensive to mobilize and then demobilize crews. And, when you're building a transmission line in sensitive areas, sometimes you can only build during certain times of the year because of environmental habitats. If you get an injunction and then it gets lifted, you still might have to wait months and months before you can start. The issue really compounds upon itself.

EP: From ITC’s perspective, what opportunities do you see to enhance, improve, or streamline the process?

KT: At a high level, we need guardrails around what needs to be reviewed in the NEPA process. Projects that don't cross federal lands are a good place to start. We can narrow the scope of what's reviewed and how we conduct those reviews.

We would also advocate for a “super venue,” or a court that's specialized and understands these processes and can review cases quickly and raise the standard for injunction. Cardinal-Hickory Creek was enjoined four times, yet we ultimately prevailed on the merits. It should not have been stopped at those junctures.

I want to be clear: No one's advocating for the absence of a judicial review. Everyone deserves their day in court. We want to do this the right way. We want to do right by the environment and the communities that we serve. We can do that and modernize and streamline our current system.

EP: Drew, in thinking about permitting reform, how important is it to approach members of Congress and their staff with solutions, not just with problems?

DM: You don't win in Washington without solutions. Our members understand that the most critical thing we can do is provide affordable and reliable power to our customers.

Not only are we working closely with the Administration and with policymakers in state governments and the federal government on permitting reform—we're working on mutual assistance programs, cybersecurity issues, and supply chain challenges. We are offering solutions to all these issues in order to improve the customer experience.

EP: Krista, how do you approach community engagement around a major infrastructure project?

KT: We try to go above and beyond, and we try to engage stakeholders very early in the process to make sure that the route we're selecting has minimal impact. We engage landowners, we engage environmental groups to avoid environmentally sensitive areas, and we engage community leaders, because they're going to hear about the project from their constituents. We don't want them to be surprised.

We also engage our employees and our organized labor friends who are building the projects, because they live and work in these communities, and they're really the trusted resources that their neighbors are going to consult. We try to bring everyone—from employees, to our landowners, to community leaders—on board.

EP: I imagine these projects also have more direct community impacts, in addition to the grid reliability and affordability benefits?

KT: Absolutely. There’s economic development, property taxes, and so many great stories about individuals.

I recently heard a story about a local diner in Montfort, Wis. Like a lot of restaurants post-pandemic, it was slow coming back. But, because of the infusion of the workers who were working on the Cardinal-Hickory Creek line, the diner went from a very slow lunch period to only serving one menu item a day because they couldn't handle the crowd. To go from wondering if your business is going to make it to having so much work that you almost can't handle it is a really great story.

We sometimes forget about the real people and communities who are impacted by this influx of work. The workers may be temporary in some cases, but then you still have a resilient, reliable grid that's going to enable economic development and new projects in your community.

EP: Drew, how do you think about workforce development as you’re engaging here in Washington?

DM: Our industry supports more than 7 million jobs. During the next decade, it's expected that we're going to have to add 30 million new energy workers to our communities. We have partnered with the Center for Energy Workforce Development to raise awareness of this need for skilled workers.

We're working with high schools and colleges to develop curriculums, to educate people, and to highlight the needs that we're going to have. We’ll need everything from lineworkers, to cybersecurity experts, to people who can implement AI technologies, to accountants. We are focused on meeting that need and letting everyone know that our industry provides rewarding and well-paying jobs.

EP: Are you all optimistic about where we are as an industry and the progress that you’re seeing?

DM: I am. We are at a very unique inflection point. We are poised to win the AI race, to bring back more manufacturing jobs to the United States, and to maintain affordability for our customers.

There’s recognition that we must reform our permitting processes, and we’ve seen bipartisan support building on Capitol Hill to address these issues. I'm very optimistic that at some point during the next 12 months, we are going to see progress and hopefully a bill gets passed and makes it to the president's desk.

KT: I agree. This is just too important to get wrong, and we're at a critical time in our history. We've got to win the AI race. We've got to reshore more manufacturing activity. We've got to support all these American jobs, and we can't do it without permitting reform.

I think our leaders know that. As tough as some bipartisan agreements can be, I'm confident that our leaders will rise to the occasion.

EEI Award Recognizes Companies for Corporate Citizenship

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 17:23:12 +0100

In late October, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) announced the winners of this year’s Corporate Citizenship Award during its Powering Engagement conference. Presented annually and selected by a panel of executives, the award recognizes EEI member companies for innovative programs that support the growth and development of the communities they serve.

This award highlights exceptional projects across three categories: Economic Development, Volunteerism, and Workforce Development.

“Our member companies don’t just power American homes and businesses—they empower communities,” said EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney. “This year’s award winners reflect our industry’s deep commitment to improving customers’ lives and ensuring the local communities we serve thrive. I’m proud to recognize their extraordinary efforts.”

Duquesne Light Company (DLC) received the award in the Economic Development category for its Community Impact Grants (CIG) program. The company provides microgrants of up to $10,000 to small nonprofits serving the Pittsburgh region—targeting those that may have otherwise been left out of traditional funding streams due to their size. Since 2021, CIG has awarded more than $1 million to more than 130 organizations addressing needs like food insecurity, housing, education, and resilience.

“We believe the path to a clean energy future for all includes listening to those closest to the challenges and empowering them with the tools and resources needed to drive change,” said Duquesne Light Company President and CEO Kevin Walker. “The success of our Community Impact Grants reflects the dedication of DLC employees who thoughtfully administer the program and the leadership of the nonprofits doing the work on the ground."

Entergy received the award in the Volunteerism category for its efforts to create a more sustainable Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans. Entergy and its employees partnered with Grounds Krewe to reduce the more than 2.6 million pounds of waste generated during the annual festivities every year. The initiative has helped recycle more than 50,000 pounds of waste annually and provided nearly 800,000 throws to Mardi Gras organizers last year, which helps to reduce environmental impacts on the city and surrounding communities.

“We are grateful to be named the 2025 EEI Corporate Citizenship Award winner for volunteerism. Our partnership with Grounds Krewe to create a more sustainable carnival celebration reflects Entergy’s dedication to fostering the growth, development, and well-being of the communities we serve," said Entergy Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility Patty Riddlebarger. "By embracing initiatives that honor tradition and promote environmental awareness, we are proudly preserving the vibrant spirit of Mardi Gras while reducing the environmental impact.”

Exelon received the award in the Workforce Development category for its STEM Academy program. Recognizing the need to inspire and support the next generation of talent in the energy sector, the Exelon Foundation launched the STEM Academy in 2018 to introduce teen girls to careers in science, technology, engineering, and math and expanded the effort in 2024 to include boys. To date, 1,240 young women and 60 young men have participated in these free, week-long summer programs, and the foundation has awarded full-ride scholarships to 34 students.

“We are proud to share this wonderful recognition from EEI with the 1,700 students who have participated in the Exelon Foundation’s STEM Academies so far,” said Exelon Vice President of Corporate Relations and Exelon Foundation President Paula Conrad. “The EEI Corporate Citizenship Award is a celebration of their curiosity, drive, and promising futures. We’re privileged to help open doors and empower the next generation of leaders and innovators in the energy industry within the communities we serve.”

Learn more about the winning companies and all of the Corporate Citizenship Award finalists at eei.org.

Competition and Camaraderie: Highlights From the 41st International Lineman’s Rodeo

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 16:44:29 +0200

Standing in a field surrounded by dozens of 40-foot power poles, hundreds of lineworkers, and thousands of spectators, Eversource Energy linemen Bob Michaud and Jason Henley looked and spoke as if they’d just wrapped another day at the office.

In some sense, they had.

“We did pretty well this year,” said Michaud, underselling his and Henley’s ability to scale power poles to retrieve eggs, place them in their mouths, and descend without cracking them more quickly than any of the roughly 300 teams they competed against in mid-October at the 41st International Linemans’ Rodeo.

The annual gathering in Bonner Springs, Kan., celebrates the lineworking trade and the more than 100,000 brave men and women who build and maintain America’s energy grid as electrical lineworkers. A group of 19 investor-owned electric companies sponsored this year’s event, and they and many others regularly send their best crews.

Teams of lineworkers compete in a series of skills challenges—including the pole climb, or “egg climb,” and the hurtman rescue, in which lineworkers retrieve suspended manikins to simulate assisting an injured crewmember. Contestants also compete in a series of mystery events that aren’t revealed until the night before the rodeo.

“The weather played in our favor. It was a nice warm day, maybe a little too hot,” Michaud said following his and Henley’s first-place finish in the pole climb. “Thank God it didn’t rain. We’ve had that in the past. We’ve had freezing cold weather. That all plays a part.”

Michaud and Henley have 42 years of collective experience between them maintaining energy grid infrastructure and 30 trips down to Kansas for the International Lineman’s Rodeo. They were far from the most senior lineworkers competing for bragging rights and recognition at the annual post-rodeo banquet. But, they were hardly the youngest, either, with apprentice linemen in their 20s also testing their mettle against peers from across the United States and Canada.

“This rodeo is a celebration of a craft that many would never venture into,” Virgil White, a distribution line construction supervisor at Evergy, said to rodeo participants during the opening ceremony. “Life literally is energized by the work provided by each one of you.”

‘We Do This Work Every Single Day’

Adam Beene, a restoration field operations manager with Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), competed in his 12th rodeo over the weekend. He and many other participants attended company-specific or regional rodeos earlier in the year to qualify for the International Lineman’s Rodeo. Interest in competing is high among lineworkers, competition is fierce, and team spots are limited.

Although there’s some practice associated with individual events, Beene stressed that there isn’t much competitors see at the rodeo that they don’t see out on the job.

“What we do every day is great training. We do this work every single day as linemen building and maintaining powerlines,” Beene said.

Beene joined PG&E 24 years ago, describing lineworking as a “great trade that’s been really good for me and my family.”

“My grandpa was a lineman. My dad was a lineman. My brother is a foreman. Combined, we have something like 150 years total service in the field as linemen working for PG&E,” Beene says. “It’s a lifesaving service that we do. We keep society going.”

Those familial ties are common among lineworkers, adding to the sense of pride and tradition associated with the job.

“My father-in-law worked on a line crew. I found it very interesting, because I like working outside and working in the elements,” says Sandy Barnhill, a 37-year lineworking veteran and distribution engineering manager at Duke Energy. “If you love helping people, helping your community, and being an integral part of your community, this is a great career.”

Barnhill and others note that, although the rodeo is meant to be a fun and informative display of skill, the work is not easy, and the risk of injury is ever-present.

“Anybody that gets into this trade, if you have a passion for linework, you’ll excel. But, make sure you have the passion for it. This is a deadly job,” says Eversource Energy’s Michaud.

To drive home the emphasis on safety, judges at the rodeo watch contestants closely and deduct points if they perform maneuvers deemed to be unsafe.

“What makes anyone good at this job is safety. That is the most important thing,” says Chad Guthrie, director of distribution construction operations at OG&E. “There are years of training, and it’s not just training that happens one time early in your career. It happens constantly throughout your career.”

‘Today, We Have Focused on Today’

Barnhill, whose Duke Energy team placed first in the 45-and-up senior division this year, first attended the rodeo in 2001 but hasn’t made it every year. Based out of Fuquay-Varina, N.C., near Raleigh, Barnhill and his colleagues are regularly called when storms strike the East Coast, which isn’t uncommon this time of year.

That was the case in 2024, when Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated portions of Duke Energy’s service territory and the broader East Coast. Instead of traveling to Kansas, Barnhill and his colleagues were focused on recovery and restoration, particularly in western North Carolina, where storm damage was catastrophic.

“We worked all in the mountain zone, around Spruce Pine, Burnsville, Asheville, back towards Black Mountain. The devastation that was there was mind blowing—something like I had never seen,” says Barnhill, who grew up in the Asheville area. “I’ve worked storms my whole career, going all the way back to Hurricane Hugo in 1989. This one was more impactful than anything I had ever seen.”

An army of more than 50,000 workers from all over the United States and Canada deployed to the Southeastern United States last year to assist the response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Crews spent weeks—in some cases months—helping communities rebuild following the storms. Those efforts and the devastation those crews worked through was still top of mind for many in Kansas.

“Today, we have focused on today. We have been ecstatic over the course the hurricanes and storms have taken this year,” says Barnhill, noting that this has been a quieter storm season on the East Coast.

Mutual assistance work is a hallmark of the lineworking trade, and, although they work in dangerous and difficult conditions, many lineworkers develop friendships over the years that they’re able to spark up again at events like the rodeo.

“You get all the companies out here that you go to work with during storms and hurricanes. There might be times you meet people during storms or at other events, so there’s a lot of camaraderie here,” says Chris Bristol, an OG&E manager of distribution construction. “There’s a little bit of trash talking that goes on. But, it’s all camaraderie.”

‘It’s a Big Family’

Todd Scheitel, a MidAmerican Energy transmission and distribution construction manager from Council Bluffs, Iowa, pulled into the parking lot of the rodeo grounds at 4:15 a.m. the day of the competition.

“We started cooking breakfast to get meals ready for all the competitors, the support staff, the family members,” said Scheitel, stepping away from the grill he would later use to cook a lunch of hamburgers and bratwurst for the MidAmerican Energy group and the broader team from parent company Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

Scheitel is a former rodeo competitor who attended his first event in 2003. He’s now one of hundreds who travels to Kansas each year in a support role, helping handle food and logistics for lineworkers competing in what many of them consider to be their Super Bowl.

“My favorite part of this rodeo is the camaraderie, the family, the friends. There are some guys who I only get to see this time of year,” he said. “To see the guys I used to work with, climb poles with, do transmission and distribution work with, it’s fun. It’s a big family.”

It’s a big family event, to be sure. Many companies encourage lineworkers to bring their loved ones to join in the festivities and get a front-row seat to what they do on the job. There are hayrides, bucket truck lifts, and children's events throughout the day to keep what could be the next generation of lineworkers interested and entertained.

“A good part of the rodeo is that you get to show the skills you learn on the job. The best part of the rodeo is that your families get to see what you do every day,” says OG&E’s Bristol. “There’s such a family atmosphere here. You’re competing to show that you’re better than everyone else. But, your family gets to see it, as well. That’s the best thing for me.”

As rodeo competitors, judges, support crews, families, and spectators began packing up for the day, Eversource Energy’s Henley stood in front of the poles he and Michaud had successfully scaled earlier that day.

Henley speaks with humility—until asked about his son, a 21-year-old overhead lineman apprentice in his first year on the job.

“Every day he comes home, it’s great conversation. We get to talk about what he did, and it brings me back to when I was an apprentice,” Henley says.

Henley’s son was not at the International Lineman's Rodeo this year but has recently competed in smaller rodeos. “I think I was more nervous than him” during his first event, Henley says. “He did a great job.”

“I just want to put my stuff on and go climbing with him. He’s doing his thing and working his way up, and I hope he does just as well or better than me,” he says.

Podcast Highlights: Industry Leaders on Building America’s Workforce

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:41:29 +0200

The electric power industry is a key economic driver for the United States, accounting for 1 in 20 American jobs and 5 percent of U.S. GDP. Workforce development is a top priority for electric companies as they expand and strengthen the grid and power the jobs and industries of the future.

FirstEnergy Pennsylvania President John Hawkins and Center for Energy Workforce Development (CEWD) Executive Director Missy Henriksen recently joined an episode of the Electric Perspectives podcast to share their thoughts on attracting, retaining, and developing a skilled energy workforce. The episode was hosted by EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney.

Following is an abbreviated transcript, lightly edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full episode and catch up with other recent interviews, visit electricperspectives.com/podcast.

Drew Maloney (DM): Missy, can you give us a snapshot of the current energy workforce and the role that it plays in supporting our economy?

Missy Henriksen (MH): Absolutely. The U.S. Energy and Employment report that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently published found that there were 8.5 million people working directly in energy jobs in 2024.

We often talk about the electric power industry being 5 percent of the GDP—the first 5 percent, of course, because nothing works without energy. That holds true on the human capital side, as well. We account for 5 percent of the jobs in this country, keeping the lights on and keeping things moving for the nation.

DM: John, you lead one of the largest electric companies in Pennsylvania. What does a highly skilled workforce mean for ensuring reliability and serving your customers?

John Hawkins (JH): Our communities rely on a resilient and reliable electric grid, so we have to have a workforce that has advanced skills and expertise to deliver on those expectations—especially during this period of rapid industry transformation.

At FirstEnergy, we serve 6 million-plus customers in six states. We're investing $28 billion across our footprint through 2029. In Pennsylvania, that includes $15 billion in infrastructure enhancements, people, processes, and facilities—and the key word there is “people.”

We have to have a highly skilled workforce to complete this work safely and efficiently, allowing us to meet those expectations of our customers and communities.

DM: Missy, let me turn back to you. CEWD regularly publishes reports about the energy workforce. What trends are you seeing, and what do they mean for the next generation of energy professionals?

MH: We’re really seeing employers looking at their hiring practices with a great deal of innovation as they think about workforce development differently. It’s no longer, “Hey, HR, we need to hire some people,” but it’s an increasing commitment to the long game and attracting talent.

We’re seeing companies work together more closely in these efforts so that a rising tide will lift all boats. We're seeing, increasingly, a commitment to sector solutions and working together on major workforce opportunities and challenges, instead of every company looking at moving mountains on their own.

About 50 percent of the workforce is expected to retire in the next 5 to 10 years, which is evoking a need to focus on knowledge transfer and making sure we've got a strong talent pipeline to follow those exiting the workforce.

We're also seeing major conversation around the increasing reliance on digital skills and what that means for pre-employment training and upskilling the existing workforce. These are just some of the conversations driving significant industry action.

DM: You also were the former chair of the 21st Century Energy Workforce Advisory Board (EWAB), helping to shape the future energy workforce from the federal level. Can you share more about your work with EWAB and how you worked with DOE on workforce development strategies?

MH: Absolutely. EWAB was formed under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to advise the U.S. Secretary of Energy on developing a skilled energy workforce to meet current and future labor needs.

We were thrilled to be called on early in the current Administration’s transition to support Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his team with recommendations to develop and implement workforce strategy. We worked really closely with the Office of Energy Jobs within DOE, and they were tremendous thought and action partners in our work.

Our recommendations to Secretary Wright included providing significant support to scale pathways for well-paying, high-quality energy jobs. We focused on new ways to get people into energy roles, including through career and technical education, apprenticeships, and other earn-and-learn models.

The Administration is focusing a lot of emphasis on the importance of registered apprenticeship programs, so we're also making recommendations on the importance of increasing awareness and excitement around energy careers—for career-ready adults and for students.

Also, our recommendations focused on positioning DOE as a leader for innovative, effective, non-siloed solutions to support the development of the workforce as a sector. I think DOE is really making the commitment that they're not just focusing on the technology side of the industry—but, certainly, the people side, as well.

DM: John, coming back to you, FirstEnergy has been recognized for its workforce development and apprenticeship programs, including your Power Systems Institute. Can you tell us how these programs work and what makes them successful?

JH: At FirstEnergy, we are growing and investing in our team, which we know to be the heart of operating a modern grid. We have more than 11,500 FirstEnergy employees dedicated to safety, reliability, and operational excellence.

Through our Power Systems Institute, we've trained nearly 2,600 line and substation workers. This model was unpaid, because we were paying for workers’ education to understand the theory part of the equation. During the summer, enrollees would get paid on-the-job training.

What we found with that model is that it was challenging for some who had families. So, in 2023, we transitioned to a paid apprenticeship model, more in-step with today's competitive labor market. Now, candidates are hired at the onset of the apprenticeship program, so that makes it more accessible to a lot more individuals.

We’re also targeting our hiring to keep workers in areas where they want to be, which helps minimize turnover. We have a lot of opportunities here. Our apprentices can obtain a college degree with financial assistance that we provide. We are working to get our program certified by the Department of Labor, which will make it nationally recognized and increase the appeal to candidates. It will also allow us to access funding and incentives and build union confidence, which is really critical to a successful program.

DM: Missy, CEWD supports programs across the country that help companies replicate successful workforce models like what John’s describing at FirstEnergy. What guidance would you give to electric companies that are working on building their own workforce pipelines?

MH: The first answer would be to call John and his team. You all are doing some incredible work up there. I really appreciate hearing more about the focus you've put on apprenticeships and now DOL-registered apprenticeship programs. I think that will be a game changer as we move forward in the industry.

I also can't stress enough the importance of partnerships. There's a lot of work to be done—a lot of opportunities for the industry to attract a highly skilled energy workforce—that is best done through partnerships.

Community outreach and engagement is important, because workforce development is a long game. The more we build effective partnerships—effective relationships with community-based organizations, community colleges, technical schools, workforce boards, and workforce systems and communities—those efforts will go a long way in making sure that there's fruit on those trees as we get down the road.

The other thing that is a game changer for workforce development is the introduction of the new Energy and Natural Resources Career Cluster, which is providing the first opportunity the industry has had in 25 years to more easily get energy curriculum into classrooms.

As companies are preparing for their future workforce strategies, perhaps putting the fine print on what they'll be doing in 2026, I can't stress enough the importance of the opportunities that are being enabled by that Career Cluster.

DM: John, is there any advice you would give to your energy company colleagues out there on how to pursue programs like this?

JH: I think Missy and I are reading from the same playbook. One of the keys to making this possible is the partnerships, and one of our industry’s most important partnerships is with our partners in organized labor.

When we set out on developing our new apprenticeship program, we engaged and partnered with both our International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Utility Workers Union of America partners. The entire way, they were part of building a curriculum, the evaluation process, the interviews to ensure that together we are aligned on the candidates who will lead us forward. These aren't just jobs. These are careers, and we felt this wouldn't have been possible without our union partners. We're extremely grateful for their partnership.

DM: John, as we look to the future, new technologies are creating new kinds of energy jobs. What are some of the emerging opportunities that you’re seeing?

JH: Technology really has the potential to reduce manual and hazardous tasks, so we can allow folks to focus on high-value activities, especially with a focus on improving safety and job satisfaction. Using drones, for example, has been impactful, helping us with aerial inspections during storms or during day-to-day work.

When you think about our service territory in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, we’ve got mountains. Drones help speed our bias for action when we have events, and we're using some AI-driven advanced analytics when it comes to vegetation.

We have a lot of poles, we have a lot of wires, and we also have a lot of trees. We know how impactful trees can be to our electric service quality, so we have an advanced vegetation analytics tool that we've designed to predict and reduce tree-related outages before they occur. Through machine learning and taking internal data; external data on soil, weather, outage records, and geographical topography; and aerial photos, we can identify problematic trees so to minimize outages and manage our crews more effectively.

DM: For each of you, what do you believe will make the biggest impact on strengthening America's energy workforce in the next several years?

JH: Two words: Act now. It takes four to five years to develop a certified lineworker. Based on the level of demand growth we're seeing, we can't waste another moment in ensuring that we're prepared to deliver on the needs of our customers and communities.

And, it's not just lineworkers. There are a lot of important positions to fill in this space. As we're thinking about the future, we need to consider how we can best be positioned to lead on technology and AI.

MH: Prioritizing workforce development is a Page One issue. You also need to engage not just on your own, but through sector strategies—working with others at the state and national level. And, get involved with the Energy and Natural Resources Career Cluster. Just make sure, as John said, to act now. Make workforce development a priority.