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

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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

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:

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.

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.

Electric Perspectives (EP):

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

In October, EEI published new data detailing capital expenditures that America’s investor-owned electric companies are expected to make in 2025.

“America’s electric companies are working every day to help lower costs and improve reliability for their customers,” said EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney. “Our new data shows how our industry is strengthening the energy grid with real investments—in jobs, critical infrastructure, and communities across the nation. These long-term investments will benefit customers, drive economic growth, and help America achieve energy dominance.”

Key findings include:

• EEI member companies are projected to invest nearly $208 billion in 2025 to make the energy grid smarter, stronger, more efficient, and more secure.
• 91 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity is currently under construction, and 488 GW is planned or has been proposed for the next five years.
• As the economy electrifies and more power flows through the grid, EEI member companies’ investments will be distributed across a larger customer base, driving down costs for American families and businesses while fueling sustained economic growth and prosperity.

Scroll to read the full report, and visit eei.org/data for more industry research and statistics.

The CenterPoint Energy Foundation in August donated $1 million to the Salvation Army to support emergency response in the Greater Houston area—part of investor-owned electric companies’ broader efforts to build and support crisis-response frameworks in the communities they serve.

“The CenterPoint Energy Foundation believes in the power of collaboration to build stronger, more resilient communities,” CenterPoint Energy's Executive Vice President and General Counsel Monica Karuturi said in a statement. “We know that these emergency situations can happen at any time.”

The five-year grant will help the Salvation Army serve vulnerable populations, including families, youth, seniors, and the unsheltered during crises and extreme weather events.

It’s the foundation’s latest effort to foster resilience across CenterPoint Energy’s service territory. Earlier this year, the CenterPoint Energy Foundation facilitated the donation of more than 20 backup generators to strategically significant locations throughout Houston and the surrounding counties. The foundation worked with state and local officials and Texas Offices of Emergency Management to ensure these generators would support the distribution of essential services like medical care, water, and food during emergencies.

EEI member companies invest heavily in the energy grid, building and fortifying critical energy infrastructure to withstand threats of all kinds. Additionally, lineworkers from EEI member companies are on the front lines during storms and other disasters, working to quickly restore power and hope when Mother Nature is at her worst. EEI issued its annual Emergency Response Awards in September, recognizing more than two dozen member companies that put forth outstanding efforts to safely and efficiently restore service to the public following a storm or natural disaster.

Behind the scenes, however, CenterPoint Energy is one of many electric companies investing heavily in their communities. During National Preparedness Month in September and throughout the year, EEI member companies are critical to crisis planning and community resilience projects, supporting local response networks and first responders.

The Duke Energy Foundation in June announced plans to commit $1.5 million through the 2025 Helping Emergency Response Organizations (HERO) grant program to boost community readiness and resilience, supporting local agencies and the American Red Cross throughout the company’s service territory in North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, and Kentucky.

The grants will support first responder training and the purchase of lifesaving equipment and technology to help during weather-related disaster planning and response.

“These grants are an investment in the resilience of our communities,” said Duke Energy Foundation President Amy Strecker. “When the unexpected strikes, our partners on the front lines need resources they can rely on—and we’re proud to help power their efforts.”

In September, Black Hills Energy issued $135,000 in Funds for Firefighters safety grants across Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The grants are designed to help local fire departments purchase protective equipment, specialized tools, and other first responder essentials.

“At Black Hills Energy, we believe that when we invest in those who protect our communities, we’re building a stronger, safer future for everyone,” Kevin Jarosz, vice president of Black Hills Energy Nebraska and Iowa operations, said in a statement.

Similarly, the We Energies Foundation announced in August that it would issue grants totaling $100,000 to help local first responders purchase lifesaving equipment and strengthen public safety. Since 2020, the We Energies Foundation has donated $500,000 to help police, fire, and emergency medical services agencies improve public safety across Wisconsin and Michigan.

“We are honored to continue our support of public safety agencies and the invaluable impact they make every day,” said We Energies Foundation President Beth Straka. “The important tools we help provide our first responders—from vital medical devices to heavy-duty equipment—can be critical in keeping people and our communities safe.”

Electric company-led community resilience projects can take many forms. Some come as one-time donations or grants, while others are set up to provide ongoing financial support over a longer period of time. The Portland General Electric Foundation in 2021 established the Responsive Philanthropy Fund to swiftly address community needs following crises. During a winter ice storm last year, the Fund distributed $50,000 to nonprofits that provided warming shelters and basic needs like food, clothing, and housing assistance to impacted customers.

Additionally, 2025 marked the eighth year of an ongoing partnership involving Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the California Fire Foundation. Through the partnership, $950,000 in grants will be issued this year to California-based fire departments and community organizations in support of wildfire safety and preparedness projects. And, PG&E and the PG&E Foundation committed $1.65 million to support the state’s Wildfire Safety and Preparedness Program, which raises public awareness about wildfire safety and delivers resources to underserved communities in high fire-risk areas.

“The projects that these grants fund, such as creating defensible space, enabling fuel-reduction programs, and conducting fire-safety outreach campaigns, are essential across our service area and especially within underserved communities,” PG&E Senior Vice President for Wildfire, Emergency, and Operations Mark Quinlan said in a statement.

EEI member companies know that resilience is a team sport—and that effective and productive partnerships with government officials and local leaders produce better outcomes for customers when disaster strikes.

“These partnerships help ensure an efficient response, using the strengths and resources of both industry and government to restore power quickly and to support storm-affected communities and customers,” Southern Company Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Stan Connally wrote in an article for Electric Perspectives earlier this year. “By working together, we can mitigate the impact of disasters, enhance resilience, and expedite recovery efforts.”

Through their long-standing partnerships with federal, state, and local leaders and their ongoing engagement in mutual assistance, EEI member companies are actively engaged in crisis preparation and response efforts throughout the year. And, their engagement with the CEO-led Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council allows them to coordinate with government partners at the U.S. Departments of Energy and Homeland Security and the National Security Council to ensure industry and government alignment in preparing for and responding to national-level disasters and threats.

Learn more about the industry’s resilience initiatives at eei.org/mutual-assistance.

A pair of proposed Entergy Texas natural gas power plants capable of powering more than 300,000 homes recently received regulatory approval, with plans to have both facilities in service by mid-2028.

The Legend and Lone Star power stations will collectively add more than 1,200 megawatts to the Southeast Texas energy grid and are expected to generate $2.8 billion in economic activity. Construction alone is expected to create more than 9,000 jobs in the Port Arthur and Cleveland areas.

“We’ve heard directly from our customers and communities about the need for more power to support our rapidly growing region, and these facilities will deliver just that,” said Entergy Texas CEO Eliecer Viamontes. “From families and business owners to schools and essential services, these power plants strengthen our ability to serve our customers who count on us every day. It’s also a reflection of the extraordinary expansion in our service area and our continued commitment to meeting that growth head-on.”

The projects are the latest efforts from Entergy Texas to enhance and expand the grid throughout the company’s service territory. Earlier in September, Entergy Texas completed construction on a $110 million reliability project that effectively doubles the power supply in the Bolivar Peninsula region. In June, Entergy Texas proposed two major transmission projects as part of its Southeast Texas Energy Plan—a long-term strategy to power economic growth, strengthen reliability, and support local communities.

Entergy Texas will invest roughly $2.4 billion in the new natural gas facilities—part of investor-owned electric companies’ broader plans to invest more than $1.1 trillion during the next five years to power economic prosperity and build new critical energy infrastructure of all kinds.

Rapid deployment of new energy infrastructure—including generation, transmission, and pipelines—is the lynchpin to providing more energy to our customers, meeting growing energy demand, and winning the AI race.

Learn more about investor-owned electric companies’ plans to invest in the grid at eei.org.

Driven by the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and data centers, industrialization, and electrification across the economy, electricity generation in the United States climbed 3 percent in 2024, reaching 4,303,038 gigawatt hours (GWh), according to EEI’s 2024 Statistical Yearbook.

It was the largest year-over-year jump in electricity generation in five years, according to the report, which EEI publishes annually to track key industry benchmarks. America’s energy demand is expected to continue climbing in the years ahead, as AI and ongoing electrification trends reshape customer needs. By 2030, domestic electricity generation is projected to climb north of 4,500,000 GWh and reach 6,179,000 GWh by 2050.

Fueling that additional generation capacity is a diverse energy mix: Natural gas accounted for 43.3 percent of electricity generated last year, with nuclear energy accounting for 18.2 percent of all generation. Coal (15.2 percent), wind (10.5 percent), hydro (5.5 percent), and solar (5.1 percent) were also important tools in the industry’s energy toolbox.

Investor-owned electric companies have been investing tens of billions of dollars to build new critical energy infrastructure of all kinds and will invest more than $1.1 trillion during the next five years to build out the grid and power prosperity. The U.S. energy grid was powered by more than 1,352 gigawatts (GW) of installed generating capacity at the end of 2024—up nearly 5 percent year over year.

More than 52 GW of generating capacity was added to the grid last year, along with nearly 12 GW of battery storage technologies. Battery storage capacity added last year was up 55 percent from what was added to the grid in 2023.

Looking back an additional year for the most recent data, the report found that industry construction spending on transmission projects was up 12.5 percent in 2023 from the year prior, totaling $30 billion. Distribution expenditures were up 17.8 percent during the same period, totaling $56.7 billion.

To read the report and to view more of the latest industry data, visit eei.org/data.

EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney on Tuesday wrote to Congressional leaders urging them to advance siting and permitting legislation that would “help end needless litigation, ensure reliability at the lowest cost, and fuel economic growth.”

“Electric companies are focused on building new generation and transmission projects quickly and without unnecessary delays and costs,” said Maloney. “Current siting and permitting processes—and the protracted litigation they often entail—can stop projects in their tracks or add years to deployment timelines, saddling customers with needless costs and slowing economic growth.”

Speaking on behalf of America’s investor-owned electric companies, which serve more than 250 million Americans, support more than 7 million jobs across the country, and plan to invest more than $1.1 trillion during the next five years to power economic prosperity, Maloney called on Congress to:

• Streamline the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to ensure speed and certainty for NEPA reviews and set reasonable bounds for legal challenges. Passing the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act introduced by U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and Rep. Jared Goldman (D-ME) is a necessary first step.
• Strengthen and extend nationwide permitting under Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 404/Rivers and Harbors Act Section 10. Codify and expand this already working permit program.
• Speed up and focus state water quality certifications under CWA Section 401. Center these certifications on direct discharges and establish appropriate timelines for state action.
• Right-size the scope of the National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 to both ensure historic preservation and the ability to grow and deploy new infrastructure.

Permitting reform is slated to be a key topic on Capitol Hill in the months ahead, with a U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Environment Subcommittee hearing on permitting reform under the Clean Air Act scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

Reform would “unleash America’s electric companies,” Maloney wrote, voicing support for “bipartisan, common-sense reforms to achieve energy dominance, win the AI race, and allow electric companies to meet increasing energy demand reliably and affordably.”

Scroll down to read Maloney’s full letter to lawmakers.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in recent weeks announced a series of advanced nuclear energy partnerships that are expected to help the company reliably and affordably meet customers’ evolving energy needs in the years ahead.

In August, TVA entered into a power purchase agreement with Google and Kairos Power. Through the agreement, TVA will purchase electricity from Kairos Power’s Hermes 2 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., delivering up to 50 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the TVA grid that powers Google data centers in Tennessee and Alabama.

The deal drew recognition from several Tennessee lawmakers, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who praised the companies involved and touted advanced nuclear technologies as “essential to U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) dominance and energy leadership.”

Unlike traditional nuclear reactors, the Oak Ridge plant will rely on a fluoride salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor. Construction on the facility began late last year, and it is expected to come online by 2030.

“Energy security is national security, and electricity is the strategic commodity that is the building block for AI and our nation’s economic prosperity,” TVA President and CEO Don Moul said in a statement. “The world is looking for American leadership, and this first-of-a-kind agreement is the start of an innovative way of doing business.”

Separately, TVA in September announced an agreement with ENTRA1 Energy to develop a series of small modular reactors (SMRs) capable of delivering up to 6 gigawatts of new nuclear generation to TVA’s service territory. That sort of capacity is projected to power 4.5 million homes or 60 new data centers.

The deal stands as the largest SMR deployment program announced in the United States to date, potentially helping TVA meet rising energy demand driven by data centers and AI, industrialization and the reshoring of manufacturing activity, and the broader electrification of the economy.

"TVA is leading the nation in pursuing new nuclear technologies,” said Moul, noting that the deal “highlights the vital role public-private partnerships play in advancing next-generation nuclear technologies.”

EEI member companies will invest more than $1.1 trillion during the next five years to strengthen America’s energy grid and develop new critical energy infrastructure projects of all kinds. New and existing nuclear technologies play a vital role in America’s diverse energy mix, with advanced nuclear projects touted as a  promising source of reliable, affordable, 24/7 energy.

SMRs and advanced nuclear technologies were popular topics at EEI 2025—the electric power industry’s premier conference and thought leadership forum—in New Orleans earlier this year. Tune into the EEI 2025 Highlights series from the Electric Perspectives podcast to learn more about nuclear energy’s role in powering America’s energy future.

PG&E estimates a residential customer who uses 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month—roughly the average monthly usage for a California customer, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration—will see their bills dip by about $5.

That’s in addition to a biannual $58.23 credit customers will receive in October from the California Climate Credit initiative, part of the state’s effort to support the transition to low-carbon energy generation. PG&E estimates residential electric rates have dropped three times during the past 15 months and that those drops have offset rate increases. The company forecasts rates will fall again in 2026.

“While we continue making progress to stabilize electric prices for our customers, we know there is more work to do,” PG&E Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Chief Sustainability Officer Carla Peterman said in a statement. “Our focus is on making our system safer and more reliable for customers every day, while managing our costs to keep bills as low as possible.”

PG&E maintains a series of no- and low-cost tools to help customers save energy and money, including the PG&E REACH program, which offers eligible customers credits of up to $300 to help pay past-due bills. The PG&E REACH program distributed more than $50 million in financial assistance to customers last year alone. PG&E also maintains a Savings Finder tool to help connect customers with support programs and resources and in July committed $50 million to new and existing financial assistance programs to support eligible customers with past-due energy bills. 

Visit EEI’s Energy Affordability hub for more information about what local resources may be available in your community, including eligibility for the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and for EEI’s guide to more than 100 ways to improve your electric bill, including energy efficiency updates and actions that you can take to help manage your bill. 

Customer affordability has long been a priority for investor-owned electric companies, particularly during summer months when air conditioning and energy use tend to spike, putting upward pressure on energy bills.

As artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers, increased industrialization and the reshoring of manufacturing activity, and the broader electrification of the economy continue to push electricity demand higher, EEI member companies are proactively developing customer support programs and raising awareness of existing federal, state, and company-specific resources to help ensure customers who need financial assistance are able to access it.

Each August, EEI and the National Energy & Utility Affordability Coalition observe Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Action Month, to help raise awareness of and advocate for federal funding for LIHEAP. The program plays a critical role in helping low-income customers manage their energy bills, providing essential heating and cooling assistance to eligible families. EEI is actively engaging with our partners on Capitol Hill to stress the importance of the program.

Additionally, many EEI member companies also are rolling out innovative financial assistance tools and relief programs to help keep customer bills as low as possible.

In June, Exelon Corporation and its local affiliate companies—Atlantic City Electric, BGE, ComEd, Delmarva Power, and Pepco—rolled out a $50-million Customer Relief Fund, partnering with local nonprofits to help limited- and middle-income customers in need of energy bill assistance this summer.

“Exelon understands that high energy bills, caused by increased supply costs, are extremely stressful for low- and middle-income customers—which includes many seniors, small business owners, and families experiencing challenges,” Exelon President and CEO Calvin Butler, who also currently serves as EEI Chair, said in a statement announcing his company’s Customer Relief Fund.

Similarly, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) in July announced it would commit $50 million to new and existing financial assistance programs. It also announced a new dollar-for-dollar matching program up to $1,000 to help eligible customers pay past-due bills. An estimated 400,000 customers are expected to be eligible for the new program based on federal income guidelines.

Exelon and PG&E are among EEI’s largest member companies, but electricity providers of all sizes are shining a spotlight on similar initiatives to support the customers and communities they serve.

Developing Innovative Solutions

Among the new EEI member-led financial support initiatives to launch this summer is the Public Service Electric and Gas Company’s (PSE&G’s) Summer Relief Initiative, designed to protect residential customers from higher energy bills. PSE&G in June received approval from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to issue temporary credits to customers, partially offsetting higher energy prices in the region. The company also issued a Summer Moratorium on disconnections for qualified customers and is waiving reconnection fees.

Many other companies are partnering with local nonprofits and philanthropic organizations to ensure resources flow to the most vulnerable. The Duke Energy Foundation, for example, committed $400,000 in June to its Share the Light Fund, which supports customers facing financial hardship across the six states that Duke Energy serves. Through the Share the Light Fund, Duke Energy works with local nonprofit agencies that can help connect individual customers with the resources and aid for which they qualify. The foundation’s latest contribution builds on the $11 million that Duke Energy, its foundation, its employees, and its customers have committed to such efforts during the past three years.

“We know that behind every request for assistance is a story—a family, a friend, a community member working to get through a tough time,” Duke Energy Foundation President Amy Strecker said in a statement. “Through the Share the Light Fund and our local partners, we’re able to support our neighbors in their moment of need.”

Driving Energy Efficiency

EEI member companies also are working directly with corporate and residential customers to help them improve their energy efficiency, do more with less electricity, and lower their monthly bills. Dominion Energy Senior Policy Director Tonya Byrd wrote in Electric Perspectives earlier this year about her company’s energy efficiency renovation efforts, describing a project that involved upgrading a local senior citizen’s aging HVAC system, heat pump, ducts, and light fixtures.

Similarly, Entergy Texas earlier this year hosted a series of community events in Cleveland and Huntsville to provide no-cost air conditioning tune-ups to eligible customers. Some customers also received free energy efficiency products and home weatherization upgrades.

The air conditioning work is part of the company’s broader CoolSaver program, which provides free HVAC services valued at more than $200 per home. Qualified technicians clean and calibrate the output of existing systems to improve performance and help customers reduce their energy usage.

“We know the Texas summer heat can be relentless, and so can high energy bills if systems aren’t running efficiently,” Entergy Texas Energy Efficiency Program Manager Mark Delavan said in a statement. “These tune-ups can make a big difference in the homes and wallets of our customers.”

Raising Customer Awareness

Six in seven families eligible for LIHEAP assistance are not actively enrolled in the program, largely because they are unfamiliar with the resources available to them. Many EEI member companies see similar barriers to enrollment in state- and company-specific programs and are actively working to educate customers and streamline application processes.

Xcel Energy’s Resources. Education. Delivered. (RED) Truck launched in 2023 to bring information about financial assistance directly to customers. The RED Truck travels to fairs and community events, where bilingual Xcel Energy account representatives can help customers understand the resources available to them and answer questions about their accounts.

“By connecting with our customers where they live, work, and play, the RED Truck ensures their voices are heard and their needs are met, aligning with our mission to deliver safe, reliable, and affordable service,” Xcel Energy—Colorado President Robert Kenney said in a statement. “The RED Truck initiative lets our customers know they can rely on us to be where they need us to answer questions and provide support.”

PNM raises awareness of its Good Neighbor Fund by participating in community resource events across Albuquerque and its wider service territory. The PNM Good Neighbor Fund provides electric bill assistance to low-income and income-qualified customers, including seniors and other vulnerable groups.

The fund, which is distributed through a partnership with the Rio Grande Food Project, helps qualified customers stay connected to electricity during challenging times. PNM hosts several on-site bill assistance events throughout the year to provide customers and community members with direct access to these vital resources. During the events, PNM team members are available to answer questions, review customer eligibility, and help customers with bill assistance applications.

Electricity customers looking for assistance can visit EEI’s Energy Affordability hub for more information about what local resources may be available in their community, including federal LIHEAP eligibility, and for EEI’s guide to more than 100 ways to improve your electric bill, including energy efficiency updates and actions that customers can take to help lower energy bills.

The roughly 1,000 goats are an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional vegetation management work, which often requires crews to scale steep hills and rocky slopes—terrain that goats can more nimbly navigate. Since SDG&E first piloted the goat vegetation management program in 2021, the herd has helped clear thousands of high-risk acres and avoid the need to utilize herbicides and heavy machinery—making it an ideal solution near homes and sensitive environmental habitats.

SDG&E has been working this summer to familiarize customers with its goat herd, featuring them as part of the company’s series of Annual Wildfire Safety Fairs. The safety fairs have been an opportunity to provide customers with emergency preparedness resources and information while also allowing them to feed and interact with the goats. The events are helping SDG&E drive home the critical role that goats play in their local wildfire mitigation. 

"Our goats may be a visible symbol of our wildfire prevention strategy, but they represent just one element of SDG&E's comprehensive, multi-layered approach for community safety and grid resilience," SDG&E Vice President for Wildfire and Climate Science Brian D'Agostino said in a statement. 

In addition to the goats, SDG&E has developed a comprehensive wildfire mitigation program that integrates cutting-edge technology, ecological solutions, and community collaboration to help reduce wildfire risk. The company maintains a wildfire and climate resilience center, which serves as a hub for research, development, and implementation of innovative wildfire prevention and mitigation solutions. 

SDG&E also operates a sophisticated weather network that applies machine learning to help predict weather patterns and better understand fire potential. And, the company has completed more than 315 miles of strategic undergrounding, installed 1,600 fire-resistant poles, and conducted more than 10,000 miles of advanced LiDAR inspections, enhancing reliability and safety for customers. 

SDG&E is far from the only EEI member company to embrace animals as a solution for vegetation management. Rochester Gas & Electric works with a team of rescue goats to control vegetation under its transmission lines. And, Louisville Gas and Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company (LG&E and KU) have tapped a flock of more than 200 sheep to help with similar efforts. Read more about LG&E and KU’s sheep in the Sept./Oct. 2023 issue of Electric Perspectives. 

A National Grid program that helps support commercial and industrial customers in Central New York helped create 165 new jobs last year and contributed to nearly $1 million in energy savings. 

National Grid’s Manufacturing Productivity Program is an economic development initiative that provides financial assistance and sustainable solutions through grants to help eligible companies streamline their manufacturing efforts, increase productivity, and eliminate waste. More than $370,000 in such grants were approved in 2024, helping to support a sector that employs more than 412,000 New Yorkers and that generated more than $90 billion in economic activity last year. 

“National Grid’s priority is to provide our customers with affordable, reliable energy to fuel their businesses,” National Grid External Affairs Director for Central New York Alberto Bianchetti said in a statement. “Our Manufacturing Productivity Program offers valuable resources to companies throughout Central New York looking to increase productivity and expand the capabilities of their workforces while also reducing waste and lowering costs.” 

Since 2003, National Grid’s 18 economic development programs have provided more than $150 million in economic development grant funding in upstate New York, creating or retaining nearly 75,000 jobs and leveraging more than $12 billion in other private and public investments. 

“Our Manufacturing Productivity Program provides tools to help local companies sustainably grow,” said National Grid Director of Economic Development Katie Newcombe. “Finding efficiencies and improving processes ensures our customers become more productive and profitable and contributes to the overall economic wellbeing of the communities we serve.”

Increased industrialization and manufacturing activity are two of the key drivers of electricity demand growth in New York and throughout the United States, alongside artificial intelligence technologies and data center expansion and the electrification of the broader economy. 

National Grid and other EEI member companies have been making substantial infrastructure investments to help support demand growth. Investor-owned electric companies invested a record $178.2 billion to enhance America’s critical energy infrastructure last year and are projected to make more than $1.1 trillion in similar investments between 2025 and 2029, creating millions of jobs and supporting local economies across the country. 

The industry also is embracing AI and innovative technologies to drive efficiency and better serve customers. National Grid Partners, the unregulated corporate venture capital and innovation arm of the company, announced a commitment to investing $100 million into energy-related AI startups during CERAWeek earlier this year. Read more at electricperspectives.com.

The program’s career-readiness curriculum, mentorship opportunities, skills-development components, and connections to industry leadership will help high school students in urban communities prepare for evolving and increasingly technical careers in energy. It is expected to launch in seven communities across the country during its first year, with plans to eventually expand to 40 communities while engaging with 1,000 students annually. 

“As the energy industry grows, we must expand access to its career opportunities for all communities,” CEWD Executive Director Missy Henriksen said in a statement. “The UEASP is our commitment to urban youth, offering them a clear pathway to energy careers—from GED to Ph.D.—and giving them the tools to step directly into impactful, sustainable roles in this dynamic sector.” 

The American Association of Blacks in Energy also is supporting the initiative, which is expected to formally launch in Fall 2026. It is one of several ongoing industry efforts to create new talent pipelines and draw students from a variety of backgrounds to an energy industry that is rapidly changing and often in need of technical, specialized skillsets. 

The Entergy Foundation last year provided a $2-million grant to Jackson State University in Mississippi to establish the Critical Power Grid Network Security Lab —an innovation and skills development hub that will help train the skilled cybersecurity workforce that electric companies will depend on in an increasingly digital economy. 

The Exelon Foundation, similarly, has supported the development of dozens of science, technology, engineering, and math centers across the country to help grade-school students develop valuable workforce skills and introduce them to a potential career in energy. 

CEWD data suggests the industry will need to recruit 32 million workers during the next decade to fill new roles and replace vacancies. 

On August 5, the U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a proposed rule that would streamline the approval process associated with operating commercial uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) beyond visual line of sight.

The proposed rule would set specific criteria for commercial, long-range UAS operations at or below 400 feet, including adherence to certain cybersecurity provisions, safety best practices, and other industry standards. It would apply to companies operating UAS fleets for specific purposes, including package delivery, agriculture, aerial surveillance, and civic interest. A public comment window will remain open for 60 days before potential implementation.

Current regulations require UAS operators to either position staff on the ground to oversee operations within their field of vision or apply for FAA exemptions, which are then reviewed on a case-by-case basis. The newly proposed rule would more uniformly define commercial standards for operating beyond visual line of sight in lieu of the existing waiver process.

If implemented, the rule could expand drone and UAS operations among investor-owned electric companies, many of which are already using these technologies or exploring how they can help maintain critical energy infrastructure, assist with extreme weather preparation and response efforts, and improve safety.

Electric companies have historically relied on ground crews, bucket trucks, and crewed aircraft for inspections and storm damage assessments. The use of drones and UAS technologies can provide a safer, faster, and more cost-effective alternative, particularly when high-resolution cameras, Light Detection Ranging sensors, and thermal sensors are implemented.

Earlier this 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 large-scale drone of its size to be operated commercially outside of an FAA test site. And, back in 2018, Xcel Energy first received FAA approval to utilize UAS technologies to survey transmission lines near Denver.

Learn more about investor-owned electric companies’ reliability, resilience, and emergency response work at eei.org.

EEI on Wednesday published its 2024 Financial Review, a wide-ranging report showcasing investor-owned electric companies’ strong financial footing.

EEI member companies invested a record $178.2 billion last year to make the energy grid smarter, stronger, more dynamic, and more secure, according to the report. This was the 13th-consecutive year of record capital investment for EEI member companies, with more than $30 billion allocated to adaptation, hardening, and resilience projects to strengthen the nation’s transmission and distribution infrastructure for all customers.

“Importantly, EEI member companies are projected to make similar investments of more than $1.1 trillion between 2025 and 2029, creating millions of jobs and supporting local economies across the country,” EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney said in a statement. “As always, we remain committed to keeping customer bills as low as possible as we work to deliver the reliable, secure electricity that is enabling innovation and enhancing the energy leadership of the United States.”

EEI member companies are continuing to invest to support growing electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence and data center expansion, industrialization and the reshoring of manufacturing activity, and the electrification of the broader economy. The sector is the most capital-intensive in the U.S. economy, and these investments support local jobs, empower communities, and drive economic development.

The report also showed that the industry’s average credit rating at the parent company level remained at BBB+ for the 11th-consecutive year, having increased from BBB in 2014, among other financial metrics.

The electric power industry accounts for at least 5 percent of U.S. GDP and supports more than 7 million jobs across the country. Its financial health is critical to unlocking the capital necessary to build new critical energy infrastructure of all kinds.

Visit eei.org to read through the report.

EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney and CEOs from four EEI member companies convened with industry, government, and technology leaders at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh, where it was announced that the Commonwealth will see an influx of more than $90 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) and energy infrastructure investments in the coming years.

Maloney joined President Donald J. Trump, U.S. Senator Dave McCormick, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and other senior officials at the event, which emphasized the essential role electricity plays in powering the nation’s economy and advancing technologies like AI.

“We applaud Senator McCormick for convening today’s event with President Trump and for shining a bright light on the critical role electricity plays in powering innovation and driving economic growth,” said Maloney. “The more than $90 billion in new investments announced today will help fund energy infrastructure projects, connect data centers as quickly as they are built, and create thousands of jobs. These types of investments highlight the commitment of America’s electric companies to delivering the reliable, affordable electricity that makes innovation possible.”

During the summit, EEI member company PPL Corporation announced the formation of a joint venture with Blackstone Infrastructure to build, own, and operate new natural gas-based, combined-cycle generation stations to power data centers under long-term energy services agreements with regulated-like risk profiles that do not expose the companies to merchant energy and capacity price volatility.

“We are committed to developing creative solutions to some of the most pressing challenges we face in today’s changing energy landscape. And in Blackstone Infrastructure, we’ve found a tremendous partner and long-term energy infrastructure investor that not only has deep expertise in data center development and power generation but also shares our passion to deliver America’s AI dominance and to help address resource adequacy concerns within PJM,” PPL President and CEO Vincent Sorgi said in a statement.

As the hometown electric company, Duquesne Light thanked the organizers of the summit and emphasized the company’s economic impact in Pittsburgh and throughout western Pennsylvania.

Five EEI member companies—Duquesne Light, FirstEnergy Corporation, PECO, PPL Electric Utilities, and UGI Utilities—collectively serve more than 5.9 million customers in Pennsylvania. Their investments in grid infrastructure in Pennsylvania are projected to more than double during the next four years to meet customer demand, boosting economic development and job growth in local communities.

Although future projections vary, experts agree that Pennsylvania’s and America’s appetite for electricity is only moving in one direction: up. Nationally, EEI member companies are projected to make more than $202 billion in grid investments this year alone.

“Through 2029, FirstEnergy is investing more than $28 billion in capital systemwide to modernize local distribution systems and strengthen the transmission network. In Pennsylvania, that includes spending $15 billion in the infrastructure enhancements, people, processes, and facilities needed to deliver safe, reliable power,” FirstEnergy Corporation Board Chair, President, and CEO Brian X. Tierney said in a statement. “This year alone, more than 40 new journey-level hires and apprentices will join our Pennsylvania team in well-paying, meaningful careers with long-term growth opportunity.”

Additionally:

• Duquesne Light plans to invest $2.7 billion during the next five years to upgrade the safety, reliability, and resilience of its service and grid infrastructure.
• PECO is investing approximately $9.3 billion during the next five years across its electric and natural gas systems to complete targeted system enhancements and corrective maintenance, invest in new equipment, inspect equipment, and perform enhanced tree trimming and other vegetation management. 
• PPL Electric Utilities, PPL’s regulated utility subsidiary in Pennsylvania, has made more than $13 billion in grid investments since 2013 and plans to invest nearly $7 billion more through 2028.
• Between the company’s 2023 and 2025 fiscal years, capital expenditures for UGI Utilities are projected to reach nearly $1.4 billion.

These investments allow electric companies to meet new and rising demand from data centers and AI technologies, industrialization and the reshoring of manufacturing activity, and the electrification of the transportation sector, among other drivers. Just last month, PECO committed to partnering with Amazon Web Services to support data center development in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Investor-owned electric companies also are increasingly embracing AI-enabled tools to power their operations, drive efficiency, and keep customer bills as low as possible. FirstEnergy is among several EEI member companies to use AI technology to inform its vegetation management strategy to help prevent wildfires and mitigate storm damage. Duquesne Light last year announced it would install an AI-powered system to help make underground grid maintenance safer and more efficient. 

This trend of electric company AI adoption extends well beyond Pennsylvania’s borders. Last month at EEI 2025, Southern California Edison was awarded the 97th Edison Award for its Advanced Waveform Anomaly Recognition system, which uses advanced sensors and AI models to detect faults and reduce the number and length of outages within SCE’s service territory. Learn more about the project and catch up on highlights from EEI’s annual thought leadership forum at eei.org/2025.

PG&E also announced a new dollar-for-dollar matching program up to $1,000 to help low- and moderate-income customers pay past-due bills and prevent service disconnections. An estimated 400,000 customers are expected to be eligible for the new PG&E Match My Payment Program, based on federal income guidelines.

“Our Match My Payment Program is designed to make sure more families receive support when they need it most, especially during the summer months when energy bills can peak,” PG&E Senior Vice President for Customer Experience Vincent Davis said in a statement.

Additional funding for the new program and PG&E’s other bill relief offerings will be monitored throughout the year to ensure resources are appropriately allocated to best meet customers’ evolving needs.

PG&E offers a range of income-based assistance programs for customers who need help with their bills, including the PG&E REACH program, which offers eligible customers credits of up to $300 to help pay past-due bills. The PG&E REACH program distributed more than $50 million in financial assistance to customers last year alone. PG&E also maintains a Savings Finder tool to help connect customers with support programs and resources.

Visit EEI’s Energy Affordability hub for more information about what local resources may be available in your community, including eligibility for the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and for EEI’s guide to more than 100 ways to improve your electric bill, including energy efficiency updates and actions that you can take to help manage your bill.

Atlantic City Electric, BGE, ComEd, Delmarva Power, and Pepco are accepting applications from customers seeking bill relief. PECO customers in the Philadelphia area will be able to apply for assistance beginning in August.

“Exelon understands that high energy bills, caused by increased supply costs, are extremely stressful for low- and middle-income customers—which includes many seniors, small business owners, and families experiencing challenges,” Exelon President and CEO and EEI Chair Calvin Butler said in a statement. “The Customer Relief Fund, in addition to our existing year-round programs supporting customers with energy assistance, once again demonstrates Exelon’s commitment to our communities.”

The $50-million fund has been spread across Exelon’s local energy companies, which are actively assisting customers who want more information about how they can access and apply for assistance.

Last month, Maryland Governor Wes Moore joined officials from BGE, Pepco, Delmarva Power, and nonprofit organizations including the United Way of Central Maryland, the Salvation Army, Harford Community Action Agency, and Shore UP! to announce that $19 million in assistance would be made available to limited- and middle-income customers in Maryland. 

“We need to work together to get them relief—and today, we are taking new actions to achieve exactly that,” Governor Moore said in a statement. “But, while this is an important step forward, it will not be the last.” 

The one-time fund is part of Exelon’s broader efforts to help customers manage their energy bills. Across the country, EEI’s member electric companies are offering energy efficiency programs to help customers reduce their energy use, working with state and local governments to develop new and innovative customer-centric programs, and offering billing assistance and flexible payment options to help customers manage costs. 

Visit EEI’s Energy Affordability hub for more information about what local resources may be available in your community, including eligibility for the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. And, learn about more than 100 ways to improve your electric bill, including energy efficiency updates and actions that you can take to help manage your bill.

Dive into part one of the EEI 2025 highlights series on the latest Electric Perspectives podcast episode, featuring EEI Chair Calvin Butler, president and CEO of Exelon; Entergy Chair and CEO Drew Marsh; and Entergy Louisiana President and CEO Phillip May.

Congratulations to the 2025 Edison Award Winners!

Edison International and Southern California Edison are winners of the domestic Edison Award, and Fortis, Inc. has won the international Edison Award.

During EEI 2025, EEI interim President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn presented the 97th Edison Award, the electric power industry's highest honor.

The award is selected each year by a panel of former energy industry executives in recognition of distinguished leadership, innovation, and contributions to the advancement of the electric power industry. 

Learn more about this year's winners and finalists.

After managing decades of relatively static and predictable energy demand curves, electric companies in recent years have been racing to keep up with once-in-ageneration growth driven by data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) breakthroughs, industrialization and the reshoring of manufacturing activity, and the ongoing electrification of transportation and the broader economy.

Demand projections vary across the country and are regularly revised. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) projected late last year that the U.S. summer demand peak would rise by more than 122 gigawatts (GW) over the course of the next decade—a projection that grew by more than 50 percent in just a year’s time.

Although the precise number of electrons that will be required to meet customer demand 5, 10, and 20 years into the future remains uncertain, experts agree that the world’s appetite for electricity is only moving in one direction: up. That’s forcing electric companies to rethink business as usual.

“Demand growth is at the forefront of every discussion that we have every day with our energy clients,” says Guidehouse Partner and Global Energy Providers Lead Michelle Fay. “If you think about how the industry has traditionally done things like forecasting, planning, and infrastructure development, the methods and approaches that they’ve been using to this point are not really going to be sufficient to meet the escalating demand we're seeing.”

Advisors like Guidehouse are helping EEI member companies navigate this unique moment. Electric companies are making significant investments in America’s critical energy infrastructure, committing $186.4 billion last year alone to make the grid smarter, stronger, cleaner, more resilient, and more secure. That was the 13th-straight year that the industry’s grid investments climbed to record highs, according to EEI’s industry financial records.

Yet, more investment in transmission and distribution infrastructure, grid-enhancing technologies, and generation sources of all kinds will be needed to meet evolving customer needs and power the economy of the future. With AI processes already revamping entire industries on the world stage, America’s global economic competitiveness will depend in part on new technologies’ and data centers’ access to power, largely on compressed timelines.

Guidehouse is helping industry leaders make informed, pragmatic changes to existing operating models, supply chains, workforce development programs, construction management processes, and contractor management practices to better equip them to move and deploy capital more quickly. To meet projected demand growth in their service territories, electric companies must continue to make smart decisions in the coming months and years to ensure the grid is where it needs to be decades into the future.

“We will need to adapt more quickly to market demands, while at the same time handling tremendous pressure to enhance efficiency and reduce costs,” says Fay. “AI and advanced technologies are going to be critical to address these challenges and ensure electric companies can scale effectively and reliably.”

Indeed, the same technologies that are driving companies’ grid optimization and expansion plans may be key to seizing the opportunities before them. A recent IBM study estimated that 74 percent of energy companies had explored the use of AI in some capacity to enhance operations, and experts at Guidehouse consistently advise their industry clients to embrace innovative technologies and solutions as part of their capital deployment strategies.

“It can obviously be overwhelming to navigate. Part of this is balancing short-term needs and long-term implications, really looking at what near-term investments are going to allow for longer-term benefits,” says Fay. “We continue to see resiliency investments, investments that enhance energy security, and investments that leverage technology advancements and reduce risk.”

“Demand growth is at the forefront of every discussion that we have every day with our energy clients.”

—Michelle Fay, Partner and Global Energy Providers Lead, Guidehouse

‘The Potential Is Endless’

Although AI and advanced technologies have practical uses on the grid through advanced line ratings systems, wildfire monitoring programs, and distributed energy resource deployment, one area that stands to significantly benefit from innovation is regulatory compliance. As electric companies grow, integrating new assets and customers, so, too, does their responsibility to comply with hundreds of regulatory mandates. Many compliance standards also vary geographically, so, for large companies that operate in several different jurisdictions, expanding the grid and bringing new assets online comes with a unique set of challenges.

“Since about 2007, electric companies have seen an influx of mandatory regulations pertaining to reliability and security compliance. They’ve thrown everything at these increasing responsibilities, including people, tools, and technology solutions,” says Guidehouse Partner Chris Luras. “The problem with these solutions is that, in some cases, they've been fragmented and uncoordinated, which has led to disparate tools, redundant responsibilities, and just overall inefficient operations.”

Guidehouse is working with several industry clients to help streamline regulatory and compliance work—including helping electric companies navigate Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) compliance, an industry set of standards to help guard against cyber and physical security threats.

CIP compliance is particularly daunting for large, multi-jurisdictional companies that operate in several states and could be audited multiple times each year. Preparing for such audits has historically been an expensive, time-consuming, laborintensive process, often involving tens of thousands of data points.

Guidehouse is helping companies explore how they can develop centralized hubs that can monitor compliance across thousands of company assets in real time. Using an enterprise data warehouse and advanced analytics platform, companies can aggregate data across thousands of miles of infrastructure, distill it, and analyze it without needing to dedicate months of employee bandwidth to audit preparation.

Guidehouse Partner Eduardo Balbis says access to real-time information will be incredibly valuable as companies plan significant infrastructure investments during the next several years. EEI member companies are expected to invest more than $200 billion this year alone to upgrade the grid, with many embarking on long-term, multi-year critical infrastructure projects. Balbis also notes that AI technology can be layered on top of data collection programs to make proactive investment decisions more efficiently rather than simply reacting to compliance concerns.

“All electric companies have these compliance responsibilities, security risks and threats, and a need to quickly consolidate and analyze data,” says Luras. “And, once companies have all of this accurate information, the potential is endless for us to use AI technology to replace human monitoring and auditing.”

“All electric companies have these compliance responsibilities, security risks and threats, and a need to quickly consolidate and analyze data.”

—Chris Luras, Partner, Guidehouse

Articulating the Value of Innovation

An electric company’s ability to access, analyze, and share information quickly through bulk data collection also is critical to engagement with regulators, particularly as companies look to invest in new grid-enhancing technologies and critical energy infrastructure.

“Electric companies are often faced with the need to provide supporting data to inform both regulators and the public how their investments will generate value and ultimately drive better outcomes for customers,” says Guidehouse Partner Aida Hakirevic. “Moreso than ever before, they need to show tangible benefits and how investments mitigate long-term costs to customers when they’re looking to enhance grid resilience, meet demand growth, and even replace old IT systems.”

This was a concern for Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G), New Jersey’s largest electric and natural gas company, after they received approval from the Board of Public Utilities in New Jersey in 2021 to deploy 2.3 million smart meters across their service territory. Aimed at enhancing grid reliability, improving customer service, and enabling more efficient energy usage, PSE&G expected the deployment would cost $775 million to implement advanced 
metering infrastructure (AMI) capabilities.

In an effort to report the success of the program back to regulators as part of the company’s rate review proceeding, PSE&G worked with Guidehouse to track, calculate, and report AMI benefits throughout the project’s rollout. Using the Microsoft Power Platform (MS Power BI) to develop an AMI program dashboard, PSE&G was able to map regulatory commitments to AMI use cases and associated benefits.

Tracing benefits data and the information from prior relevant filings via AMI dashboard provided transparency they could holistically take back to regulators.

“Data visualization is a powerful bridge between advanced metering data and decision-making. It enables leaders to clearly demonstrate how AMI investments are delivering tangible value—improving service reliability, enhancing customer engagement, and driving smarter energy use across our communities. It's not just about collecting data; it's about making it meaningful and measurable,” says PSEG’s Chief Information & Digital Officer Zeeshan Sheikh.

“With technology investments, in general, it can be really difficult to define the value of an ultimate outcome and what a certain investment provides,” Hakirevic says. “Companies are often challenged how to articulate value to regulators and clearly show benefits of their technology investments. There are so many competing priorities for grid assets and IT modernization. We were incredibly proud to be one of PSE&G’s key partners to achieve this as part of their AMI technology investment.”

Hakirevic notes that electric companies' relationship with their regulatory partners is increasingly dependent upon regular and ongoing engagement—and that systems like PSE&G’s AMI benefits tracker can help show ongoing returns on investment.

“It’s one thing to present a great business case but then not follow through to show evidence of return,” Hakirevic says. “Whereas PSE&G did this in real time, with recorded benefits and implemented capabilities reported and found to be prudent by regulators.”

“With technology investments, in general, it can be really difficult to define the value of an ultimate outcome and what a certain investment provides.”

—Aida Hakirevic, Partner, Guidehouse

‘Conditions are Changing Quickly’

Fay says she is encouraged by the industry's embrace of new and innovative technologies to streamline processes, engage more constructively with regulators and industry partners, and accelerate capital deployment. However, she cautions that “we’re no longer in three-year planning cycles” and that “conditions are changing quickly, which means planning processes need to keep up with these accelerated timelines.”

When evaluating technology solutions with clients, Fay points to three key areas of focus:

• What value will this innovation bring in the short and long term, and how can those benefits be measured? “You need to ensure investments are prudent and can withstand regulatory scrutiny and be ready to change course if the project is not going according to plan,” she says.
• What sort of risk is your company willing to take on? “You need to be clear about how much risk tolerance you have. That’s often dependent on the maturity of the solution, particularly in the case of a technology investment,” says Fay.
• Is your company ready to support implementation? “You may have the greatest innovation or technology in the world that has proven to work somewhere else, but is your organization ready, and is your workforce ready, to take this on and realize the benefits?” Fay asks.

Fay says there is no shortage of tools available to help electric companies deliver reliable electricity as affordably as possible to customers—and that honest answers to these sorts of questions can provide clarity during a time of significant change for the industry.

“We're witnessing not just a single type of technology solution emerging, but a significant influx of new technological capabilities that are specifically supporting electric companies in various ways,” she says. “Many companies are making substantial investments, exploring a wide range of vendors and solutions to ensure their needs are effectively met. It's clear that a one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn't apply."

Upgrades and expansions to Entergy Louisiana’s generation and transmission infrastructure will help power a planned $5.8-billion Hyundai Motor Group steel manufacturing facility in Donaldsonville, La.

The facility, announced in late March, will produce 2.7 million metric tons of steel each year and help create an estimated 5,400 new jobs in the area. It also will solidify Hyundai’s vehicle manufacturing footprint within the United States, and the electric arc furnace serving the mill is expected to produce 70 percent fewer emissions than a traditional blast furnace.

“This historic investment will help set up Louisiana for long-term economic success, creating thousands of high-quality jobs and positioning our state as a leader in next-generation, low-carbon steel production,” Entergy Louisiana President and CEO Phillip May said in a statement.

For years, Entergy Louisiana has worked with the Louisiana Public Service Commission and other stakeholders to upgrade its transmission capacity along an area that, to date, has been the largest undeveloped tract of land along the deepwater stretch of the Mississippi River.

Last year, the company installed self-healing grid technology along the border of the surrounding Ascension Parish and East Baton Rouge, making local infrastructure more resilient.

Entergy Louisiana separately announced a $39-million project to fortify nearly 60 miles of power lines in Ascension Parish. Upon completion, the upgrades will help prevent 5.6 million hours of outages and save nearly $140 million in restoration costs during the next five decades. Work on additional transmission projects in the surrounding area also is underway.

Increased industrialization and onshoring of manufacturing activity in the United States is contributing to significant energy demand growth across the country and creating new opportunities for America’s electric companies to collaborate with their industry partners.

“Entergy Louisiana is proud to support Hyundai Steel Company with the reliable, sustainable energy solutions needed to power such an ambitious and forward-thinking facility. Together, we are building a stronger, more sustainable future for our state,” May said.

Days after the Louisiana announcement, Hyundai opened its nearly $7.6-billion mass-production electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid plant in Ellabell, Ga., which is powered in part by nuclear energy generated from Georgia Power’s Vogtle Units 3 and 4. And, last year, AES Ohio unveiled a new $175-million substation, which powers a new Honda-LG Energy Solution EV battery plant in Fayette County, Ohio.

Manufacturing activity is one of several factors driving demand growth projections higher in the years ahead, alongside the electrification of transportation and the buildout of data centers supporting artificial intelligence technologies.

Electric Perspectives (EP): How has customer demand evolved during your three years as Entergy CEO and in the nearly three decades that you have been with the company?

Drew Marsh (DM): The demand growth that’s taking place across the country and in Entergy’s service area is unlike anything we have seen in recent history—and, in some ways, ever.

Not only is the need for electricity at an all-time high, there’s also an explosion of economic activity in the Gulf South that is bringing new opportunities, new industries, and new customers to the region we serve. It is an exciting time to be leading Entergy. We’re in a unique position to respond to several favorable trends—including technological advancement and the buildout of data centers, the onshoring of industrial and manufacturing activity, increased demand for clean energy, and electrification throughout the economy.

I am proud of our work to develop a customer-led plan that will drive continued growth, reliability, and resilience in the years ahead. Through 2028, we plan to invest $37 billion in critical energy infrastructure, including generation, transmission, and distribution. We’re also building new natural gas infrastructure across our service area, with regulatory approval pending on a series of combustion turbine plants in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas that include accommodations for carbon capture technologies. We need to continue to embrace new technologies and to lead with innovation when it comes to powering the lives of our customers.

What has not changed for Entergy is our customer and community focus. For more than 100 years, we have been committed to serving our customers and to keeping their energy costs as low as possible—which is especially important in our region, with 40 percent of our residential customers living at or below the poverty line.

It’s our responsibility to balance building and strengthening the energy grid of the future with the needs and realities in our communities. We do this in a number of ways. Last year, Entergy launched the Leading Energy Affordability for All Task Force, which works with external partners to ensure our customers benefit from the $1.1 billion in grants, rebates, and funds available across our service area, including home energy rebates. While each of our Entergy operating companies has unique regulatory requirements for offering support through energy efficiency and demand response programs, we are united in our efforts to provide reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean energy to the customers and communities we serve.

EP: You mentioned your region’s industrial growth and new data center customers. What do you see as the key drivers of interest and investment in Entergy’s service territory?

DM: There are a number of natural advantages along the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River. We are home to the largest industrial base in the United States. People all over the world are looking at the United States for investment opportunities, and our access to global markets matters for our industrial customers—as does our ease of access to ports, pipelines, rail lines, and domestic markets and supply chains.

Low energy costs and abundant energy transportation have long been drivers of economic activity in our region. They’re part of the reason why Meta is investing $10 billion to build a 1,500-megawatt (MW) data center in Richland Parish, La., why Amazon Web Services is dedicating $16 billion to a 650-MW data center project in Madison County, Miss., and why Hyundai Motor Group is planning to build a $5.8-billion steel manufacturing facility in Donaldsonville, La.

In our conversations with these customers, we discussed how Entergy offers benefits to them through our vertical integration and deep ties to our communities. We’re able to convene diverse groups of stakeholders when speaking with new customers, bringing elected officials, community leaders, and local vendors to the table. This is the power of partnership, and the aligned vision across all parties involved helps bring new jobs and dollars to the states we serve. The economic impact to our communities is significant.

Speed-to-market matters, particularly to our data center customers, and we’re able to collaborate and move quickly and comprehensively to bring new opportunities to our communities. Our customers also benefit from Entergy’s diverse energy mix. Modern natural gas accounted for 43 percent of our generating capacity last year—with carbon-free generation sources, including nuclear energy and a growing portfolio of renewables, accounting for nearly 25 percent.

Entergy has 1,600 MW of renewable capacity in service and brought more than 700 MW of solar online in 2024 alone, with the goal of advancing an additional 5,000 MW through 2028.

Many of our customers have their own emissions reduction goals, and our diversity of generation makes us a valuable partner that can provide reliable and affordable service.

In January, Marsh joined Entergy's executive leadership team to ring the New York Stock Exchange's closing bell.

EP: Building a secure and weather-resilient grid has become one of the industry’s top priorities. How are the hardening and resilience initiatives that you are leading at Entergy helping to protect your customers and communities?

DM: Much of Entergy’s footprint sits along or close to the Gulf Coast. While the geography offers unique advantages, it also makes us susceptible to hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and other severe weather events.

The energy grid we operate today was mostly built decades ago to a different standard and expectation than today’s modern life. That means it’s up to us and our government and regulatory partners to maintain and build a reliable and resilient grid for our customers with current weather patterns in mind.

Last year, Entergy Louisiana launched a five-year, $1.9-billion resilience plan that will see more than 2,100 projects aimed at hardening Louisiana’s energy transmission and distribution infrastructure. In January, Entergy Texas received approval for the first phase of a three-year, $137-million effort to reduce storm-related outages and to harden the Southeast Texas grid. Similar efforts in Arkansas, Mississippi, and throughout our region demonstrate our commitment to ensuring customers have access to power when they need it most.

Across our service area, we have invested more than $10 billion during the past five years to strengthen our transmission and distribution infrastructure, and we plan to make similar investments of $16 billion through 2028 to further support reliability and resilience.

Just last year, we received accelerated resilience approvals from our regulatory partners in Texas, Louisiana, and in New Orleans, specifically, that exceeded $2 billion. That allowed us to move forward with 73 distribution hardening projects and another 11 transmission projects. Some of these projects were in large economic hubs like New Orleans, but others were in more sparsely populated rural and coastal communities.

This work ranges from standard blocking-and-tackling efforts like hardening poles against high winds to integrating self-healing grid technologies that enhance our communication capabilities and allow us to restore power more quickly or to avoid outages altogether. We also ensure that all new substation structures and rebuilt infrastructure along the coast can withstand wind gusts of up to 150 miles per hour, as well as storm surge flooding.

I’m particularly proud of a 230-kilovolt transmission line that we completed in the Greater New Orleans area in 2022 that runs across the Mississippi River. The line and the towers that support it went from development to energization in less than one year—a significant accomplishment—and are capable of withstanding winds of up to 175 miles per hour.

EP: August will mark the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and large swaths of Entergy’s service territory. Entergy spent years leading the rebuilding and restoration efforts. How have you seen the industry’s perspective on extreme weather change over time?

DM: Hurricane Katrina was a defining moment for our industry and our company. An estimated 1.1 million of our customers were impacted by Katrina—effectively one third of our service area. Roughly 90,000 square miles of the Gulf Coast was devastated by the storm, and much of New Orleans was submerged by floodwaters and storm surge that, in some areas, eclipsed 15 feet. More than 1,000 people lost their lives during Katrina, and it remains one of the most catastrophic storms ever recorded.

I’d been with Entergy for seven years prior to the storm, and I vividly remember our employees and crews—many of whom were personally impacted by Katrina—working day and night during and following the storm, first to lead response and recovery efforts and later to support a long and strategic rebuild. It was a true display of human resilience and heroic work in the face of horrific conditions, and it was essential to bringing back our communities by powering schools, grocery stores, gas stations, businesses, and homes.

I take pride in knowing our work helped turn the Gulf Coast into one of the nation’s greatest comeback stories in recent memory, and I know just how much work went into getting us there. Since that time, Entergy has invested billions of dollars into building weather-resilient infrastructure and hardening our grid to withstand Mother Nature’s worst.

Recovery from a storm like Hurricane Katrina does not happen overnight. However, our customers, industries, opportunity, and hope returned to the region, and the Gulf South today is the envy of much of the country and the world.

We’ve been tested plenty of times during recent years, including by Hurricanes Francine and Beryl just last year and by Ike, Harvey, Laura, Zeta, Ida, and many others in years prior. Our team captures lessons learned from every storm and every restoration effort as we work to improve customer outcomes and harden our infrastructure against future threats. We were proud to receive our 50th EEI Emergency Response Award earlier this year, recognizing the dedication and excellence of our power restoration workers during and after Francine.

“I take pride in knowing our work helped turn the Gulf Coast into one of the nation's greatest comeback stories in recent memory…”

EP: Can you discuss the culture that you’ve instilled at Entergy during your time as CEO?

DM: Our vision at Entergy is: “We power life.” That includes, but extends well beyond, the essential power that we provide for our customers and communities. It means we actively pursue economic development opportunities to improve the quality of life in the communities we serve. It also means we provide our employees with competitive compensation, opportunities for professional development, and work that makes a difference. And, it means we support our communities through a variety of philanthropic and advocacy efforts.

We are committed to upholding a system of shared values that guides our interactions with customers, employees, and other stakeholders. These values reflect the acronym STAIR: safety, teamwork, always learning, integrity, and respect. This serves as the backbone of our workplace culture and allows us to deliver long-term, sustainable value for every stakeholder on our path to becoming the premier electric company.

At Entergy, we also adhere to what we call our Code of Entegrity. This isn’t just a set of rules for employees—it’s an embodiment of our collective commitment to ethical conduct, fair business practices, and steadfast integrity. In all our interactions, we prioritize honesty and transparency, and we know that commitment starts from the top down. All our employees, myself included, are expected to demonstrate behaviors like making our customers more successful, continuously seeking improvement, collaborating and sharing knowledge, being accountable for results, and recognizing and rewarding outcomes.

It’s these sorts of commitments that have shaped Entergy into the institution that it is today. Earlier this year, we were honored to be named to Fortune Magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies list and the JUST 100 rankings by JUST Capital and CNBC, recognizing the top 100 companies in the United States for serving customers, employees, communities, the environment, and other stakeholders. It’s validating to receive this recognition, and it’s rewarding to see the impact that a strong culture has on our employees and our communities.

EP: You mentioned service to your communities. Service is foundational to Entergy as a company and to the industry as a whole. Can you share more about your community engagement strategies and how you give back in the areas that you serve?

DM: Giving back to those we serve is in our DNA, and we’ve aligned our corporate social responsibility and philanthropic efforts with the significant needs of our region. I mentioned that 40 percent of those we serve live at or below the poverty line. About half of our 3 million customers have a combined household income below $60,000 per year.

Through strategic partnerships with our community advocates, we implemented a range of initiatives aimed at addressing poverty, promoting education and workforce development, providing financial assistance to vulnerable customers, improving our communities, and caring for the environment.

Since 2018, we’ve delivered more than $100 million annually in economic benefits to our communities through philanthropy, volunteerism, and advocacy. These efforts come through in a number of ways. When temperatures soared last summer, we donated $3 million to help low-income customers become more energy efficient and save money on their bills. Our Beat the Heat program helped our most vulnerable customers receive bill payment assistance, cooling fans, energy efficiency kits, home weatherization improvements, and support from our community partners.

Employee engagement has been critical to our impact as an organization. Entergy employees contributed more than 122,000 volunteer hours last year to a variety of local organizations working to make a meaningful difference and improve the quality of life in our communities. Our legal department alone contributed more than 4,900 hours of community service, collaborating with EEI and the Pro Bono Institute to organize EmPOWERING Pro Bono Day, offering customers pro bono legal assistance on a range of issues.

Additionally, our focus on supporting education and workforce development is critical to our communities—and to our industrial customers, who are bringing new opportunities that demand specialized skillsets. Through our Power of Prosperity program, we support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and students through academic scholarships, facility grants and endowments, workforce development programs, internship opportunities, and access to resources and financial assistance.

Last year, we announced a 10-year, $20-million commitment to elevate and empower HBCUs and their students across Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The Entergy Charitable Foundation also issued a $2-million grant to Jackson State University to develop a cybersecurity workforce training hub, which will help prepare students to fill the critical security positions that will be vital to our industry’s success as we move forward.

EP: You joined Entergy 27 years ago as an associate in strategic planning and special projects and subsequently advanced through the company. What advice would you give young workers today who may aspire to be among the next generation of energy leaders?

DM: It’s an inspiring time to be in the energy industry—electrification is on the rise, new industry demands are becoming a reality, and we’re facing more natural disasters than ever before. Thirty years ago, when I began my career at Entergy, the excitement was different but also there. For those considering a lifelong career at an electric company, I’d say: Never become comfortable in what you do. The environment will always evolve. The job will change, but the criticality of what we deliver requires a steadfast passion. It’s what brings me great joy in coming to work every day—deeply respecting what we do for our customers and communities, and complete admiration for my fellow teammates who show up day after day to keep the machine going.

We believe that a top-performing, highly skilled workforce that draws employees from a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives allows Entergy to build a stronger team and enables us to better serve our customers. By creating a culture where everyone is given the tools, resources, support, and opportunity to contribute and thrive, we will reap the benefits for all our stakeholders of an engaged and empowered workforce—supported by a network of local suppliers—to deliver energy for a better future.

Powering and empowering the people in our region is one of the best ways Entergy can contribute to an improved quality of life in our communities.

“The job will change, but the criticality of what we deliver requires a steadfast passion.”

EP: Throughout your career, where have you looked for advice or inspiration?

DM: I have found advice and inspiration from many diverse places in my career. I have been privileged to have tremendous leaders and peers who taught me about our business, risk, and people. I have drawn inspiration from unconventional sources, like my children’s elementary school teachers on something as simple as how to make meetings more effective or timely.

I have had terrific partners outside of the company who have taught me how to navigate tricky projects or manage transformative initiatives. My family has taught me about the importance of community, how to think about what the community is experiencing, and how it might impact my coworkers.

And, I read a lot, so I pick things up from books, as well. I really value the notion that I can get ideas from anywhere. That gives me the ability, and sometimes the permission, to engage the world while also thinking about what I do professionally.

Committed to Resilience and Reliability

EEI member companies know that a secure, resilient energy grid is our nation’s first line of defense against extreme weather and other threats to America’s energy security. It’s why our members have invested more than $1.3 trillion over the past decade to enhance our critical energy infrastructure—and will commit more than $200 billion this year alone to make the grid stronger, smarter, cleaner, more dynamic, and more secure.

Our industry faces rapid demand growth, a shifting policy and regulatory landscape, evolving customer needs, and a wave of technological innovation that is changing the way we do business. Yet, our commitment to resilience and reliability remains constant. As we reflect on last year’s devastating storm and wildfire seasons, we know that keeping the lights on and our customers and communities safe will be paramount as we head into the summer months.

That’s one of the reasons I find it fitting that our industry’s leaders will be joining government and privatesector partners in New Orleans for EEI 2025, our annual conference and thought leadership forum. New Orleans is a beautiful and vibrant city that exemplifies resilience and knows as well as any the catastrophic potential of Mother Nature.

This upcoming August will mark 20 years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. The magnitude of the storm captured attention the world over, and it prompted electric companies, city planners, federal and state officials, volunteers, charitable organizations, and others to come together to carry out one of the most extensive rebuild and recovery efforts in U.S. history.

As an industry, we take great pride in sharing resources and information. What we learned from Katrina and the storms and events that followed is the power of partnership. It takes all of us working together to strengthen community resilience and to prepare for and respond to the impacts of events that threaten reliability.

It’s why we engage in year-round resilience, restoration, and business continuity planning and why we continue to make strategic and significant investments in new technologies and critical adaptation, hardening, and resilience initiatives. Our customers depend on reliable access to electricity and on safe and swift restorations when outages do occur.

We’ve seen the benefits of these efforts across the country, particularly last year when Hurricanes Helene and Milton tested our industry’s storm response and mutual assistance capabilities. The storms struck two weeks apart along the Gulf Coast of Florida, leaving catastrophic damage in their wake as Helene carved into Georgia, the Carolinas, and beyond and as Milton cut across the Florida peninsula.

The storms collectively caused more than $113 billion in damage, and, yet, we saw that areas that had made significant investments in weather-resilient infrastructure fared better during the storms and had shorter restoration times when outages occurred.

That’s also been true in New Orleans, where Entergy helped lead efforts to build back stronger in the aftermath of Katrina. After the storm cut power to one-third of the company’s service territory, damaging 3,000 miles of transmission lines, 30,000 miles of distribution lines, and 17,400 distribution poles, Entergy made extensive investments to keep the community safe during future extreme weather events. The company worked with regulators and community leaders to develop a plan to enhance grid resilience. 

Those grid hardening efforts continue under Entergy Chair and CEO Drew Marsh and have helped New Orleans build back stronger than ever. They also are helping to increase reliability while helping to keep customer bills as low as possible over the long term, minimizing the repairs needed following storms and mitigating the lost economic activity that results from prolonged outages.

Ready for the Demand Arriving Now

Resilience will be a featured topic of conversation during mainstage keynote discussions, breakout sessions, and programming in The Hub at EEI 2025. I am eager to hear from Occidental President and CEO Vicki Hollub, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, technology thought leader and former AMD President Victor Peng, and the rest of our distinguished lineup of speakers—and for them to learn more about the work underway in our industry.

And, while attending the New Orleans conference will be among my final duties as EEI’s interim President and CEO, I am confident that the industry is well-positioned to deliver an energy grid that is reliable, weather-resilient, responsive, and ready for the demand arriving now.

I am proud to pass the reins to Drew Maloney, who will begin his work as EEI’s new president and CEO on July 1. Drew assumes this mantle at an exciting and critical time for our industry, and I am confident that his proven record of navigating some of the nation’s most complex policy landscapes will be invaluable as our industry works to meet growing demand for electricity and to deliver the reliable, resilient energy future that our customers expect and deserve.

Since 1922, the Edison Award has recognized electric companies for their distinguished leadership, innovation, and contribution to the advancement of the electric industry for the benefit of all. The Edison Award is the most prestigious honor.

In March, an independent panel of reviewers met to evaluate nominations for the 2025 Edison Award and selected projects from The AES Corporation, Duke Energy, Edison International and Southern California Edison (SCE), and Southern Company as domestic finalists. Projects from ATCO Electric and Fortis Inc. were selected as international finalists.

“EEI’s member electric companies continue to drive innovation across their companies by investing in and deploying cutting-edge technologies and solutions that benefit the customers and communities they serve,” said EEI interim President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn. “This year’s Edison Award finalists have demonstrated exceptional leadership and ingenuity, and this recognition is well-deserved.”

The winners of the 97th Edison Award will be selected by a panel of former electric company chief executives and will be announced during EEI 2025, EEI’s annual conference and thought leadership forum, to be held June 2-4 in New Orleans.

Learn more about the Edison Award at eei.org/awards.

Domestic Finalists

The AES Corporation

• Maximo, the AI-Powered Robot

The AES Corporation unveiled Maximo, a first-of-its-kind robot powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and built to install solar panels quickly, precisely, and efficiently, in 2024. The robot works alongside construction crews to automate heavy lifting and precise placement tasks associated with installing solar panels, ultimately making the installation process safer and reducing costs.

Maximo is on track to install more than 100 megawatts of solar panels in 2025 and is slated to be deployed across 5 gigawatts (GW) of projects during the next three years, including the 2 GW Bellefield solar project in Kern County, Cali. That project, under contract with Amazon, is the largest solar-plus-storage project to be permitted in the United States to date.

Using advanced sensors and cameras, an industrial robotic arm, and generative AI to refine exact coordinates and dimensions for placement, Maximo can install solar panels in half the time and at half the cost of traditional crews while also opening the door for new career opportunities. Already, AES crew members have continued to work onsite alongside Maximo when they otherwise would have been sidelined from installation due to unpredictable weather conditions or staff shortages.

Duke Energy

• Setting a New Bar for Climate Resilience and Storm Response

In 2024, Duke Energy advanced its science-based planning to enhance grid resilience and reliability in the face of extreme weather. The company published the first comprehensive assessment of climate risks across generation, transmission, and distribution for a vertically integrated electric company: the Duke Energy Climate Resilience and Adaptation Study. 

Hurricanes Debby, Helene, and Milton impacted customers in all six states served by Duke Energy, leaving catastrophic damage in their wake and demanding a historic coordinated response from across the electric power industry. Duke Energy mobilized more than 20,000 workers in response to Helene and nearly 19,000 following Milton, and Duke Energy Foundation provided more than $2.3 million in grants to 78 organizations for disaster relief and recovery.

Resilience and restoration efforts were aided by the $4 billion Duke Energy invested last year in hardening and modernizing the grid, which included undergrounding lines, upgrading poles to steel and concrete in coastal areas, and installing innovative self-healing grid technology. These investments helped to avoid nearly 550,000 customer outages and saved 7 million hours of total outage time during Debby, Helene, and Milton.

These real-world challenges tested and validated the importance of Duke Energy’s commitment to resilience and system adaptation, solidifying the need for the industry to continue collaborating to further prepare for extreme weather events. Duke Energy is investing $70 billion during the next decade to make the grid smarter, stronger, and more resilient. The resilience and adaptation study also identified future opportunities, like new infrastructure design standards, to accommodate higher temperatures and mitigate impacts from flooding.

Edison International and Southern California Edison (SCE)

• AWARE System

SCE’s Advanced Waveform Anomaly Recognition (AWARE) system supplements advanced sensors and other applications already used by many electric companies with state-of-the-art physics-based AI models and machine learning technologies. The resulting grid anomaly detection and proactive fault management technology can help to identify and locate problematic equipment on SCE’s circuits before a failure occurs, mitigating outages and helping to keep customers and communities safe and energized.

Many smart grid technologies use electric waveforms to detect faults, but the energy grid’s increasing complexity and the rise of customer-sited distributed energy resources can add noise that is difficult for traditional detection programs to sift through.

SCE’s AWARE system uses AI and machine learning to identify the unique waveforms for different kinds of equipment failures. It also can help to pinpoint where failures take place within SCE’s service territory, accelerating restoration times and supporting safer and more targeted restoration efforts.

Southern Company

• Plant Vogtle Unit 4

Plant Vogtle Unit 4 entered commercial operation in April 2024, following the completion of Vogtle Unit 3 the year prior. Each unit can power 500,000 Georgia homes and businesses and will serve communities across the state for decades to come. Collectively, the units have created 800 new good-paying, high-quality permanent jobs while helping to strengthen America’s nuclear energy supply chain and talent pipeline.

Sitting on 3,000 acres of land on the banks of the Savannah River, Plant Vogtle is the largest generator of carbon-free nuclear energy in the United States, capable of producing more than 30 million megawatt-hours of electricity annually.

The nuclear energy produced by Vogtle Units 3 and 4 will prevent an estimated 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, equivalent to planting 165 million trees every year, all while powering Georgia’s economy.

International Finalists

ATCO Electric

• Jasper National Park Wildfire Response

The 2024 wildfire in Jasper National Park was one of the most devastating in Canadian history, destroying nearly a third of the town of Jasper and forcing 25,000 residents to evacuate. Despite extensive damage to more than 800 electric and natural gas assets, ATCO Electric restored power to all properties able to receive it within 16 days of the fire’s outbreak—preventing economic losses while supporting community livelihoods.

The Jasper fire was first reported on July 22, 2024, and spread quickly and aggressively. ATCO Electric employees were among the last to evacuate and first to return as they worked to restore power to impacted communities. Through ATCO Electric’s extensive experience with wildfires in Alberta, the company effectively collaborated with Parks Canada and the Municipality of Jasper to rebuild infrastructure safely and as quickly as possible.

Grid hardening was critical to ATCO Electric’s response and restoration efforts. ATCO Electric undergrounded nearly 8 kilometers (5 miles) of distribution lines near a popular ski hill, replaced cables and converted lines associated with a local sky tram, and installed non-combustible composite poles to protect against future fire risk—highlighting the company’s commitment to supporting the area’s key economic driver and source of jobs.

Fortis Inc.

• Wataynikaneyap Power Transmission System

The approximately $1.9-billion Wataynikaneyap Power Transmission System is Canada’s largest Indigenous-led electricity project. Fortis partnered with Wataynikaneyap Power and 24 First Nations communities to construct the 1,800-kilometer (1,118-mile) transmission line connected to 22 substations. The system connects 17 rural and remote First Nations communities to the Ontario provincial energy grid.

Construction of the system began in 2020 and was completed in May 2024. With 16 of the 22 substations and half of the transmission line accessible only during winter months, construction timelines needed to be compressed, meaning, in some cases, a year’s worth of work needed to be completed in a matter of months.

The new transmission system is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 6.6 million tonnes during the next 40 years and will reduce First Nations communities’ reliance on diesel generation. Construction on new homes, offices, health facilities, fitness centers, and schools has already begun in areas that previously were unable to expand due to lack of access to reliable, affordable energy—underscoring the industry’s critical work to drive communities forward.

The Diablo Canyon facility is California's only nuclear power plant in operation and generates nearly 9 percent of the state's electricity. (Photo: Pacific Gas & Electric Company)

Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) recently launched an on-site generative artificial intelligence (AI) program at its Diablo Canyon Power Plant, marking the first time such technology has been commercially deployed at a U.S. nuclear plant.

The program, developed by technology company Atomic Canyon using Nvidia’s AI platform, is helping facility operators with document search and retrieval, saving time and significant cost while improving operational efficiency. PG&E estimates it maintains billions of pages of technical documentation to adhere to federal and state regulations and that its new AI capabilities will cut search times from hours to seconds.

“Atomic Canyon’s AI solutions will enable faster data retrieval, boosting collaboration and ensuring continued safe, but more efficient, operations,” PG&E Vice President of Business and Technical Services at Diablo Canyon Power Plant Maureen Zawalick said in a statement. “Accessing critical information in seconds will let us focus on what truly matters—delivering reliable clean energy safely and affordably.”

The Diablo Canyon facility opened in 1985 and is California’s only nuclear power plant in operation. It is surrounded by 12,000 acres of coastal terrain between Los Angeles and San Jose. The plant generates nearly 9 percent of the state’s electricity and will be critical to meeting growing customer demand and California’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2045. The California Energy Commission estimates energy demand in the state will increase 43 percent during the next 15 years.

“With skyrocketing energy demands and increased support from tech leaders, we are witnessing the growing excitement and need for nuclear energy in real time,” said Atomic Canyon Founder Trey Lauderdale. “This is the future of nuclear plant operations, and we’re just scratching the surface.”

Nuclear energy has generated attention around the world in recent years as demand for electricity accelerates. Georgia Power made headlines in 2023 and 2024 for completing Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Waynesboro, Ga. They were the first newly constructed nuclear facilities to be built in the United States in more than 30 years. Plant Vogtle Unit 4 was recently named a finalist for the Edison Award, which will be issued at EEI 2025 in New Orleans in June.

AI technologies and the data centers that power them also have been a central focus for the electric power industry—because of their substantial energy needs and their potential to revolutionize how electric companies operate and serve their customers. AES last year launched Maximo, an AI-powered robot designed to help install solar panels. And, Avangrid recently launched a new AI program to help technicians more quickly troubleshoot and resolve issues on wind turbines.

Left to right: Chris Harris, International Representative, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Eliecer Viamontes, President and CEO, Entergy Texas; Harry Sideris, President and CEO, Duke Energy; Michele O'Connell, President and CEO, Orange & Rockland Utilities; EEI Chair Maria Pope, President and CEO, Portland General Electric; and Chris Womack, President and CEO, Southern Company.

In late February, leaders from EEI and America’s investor-owned electric companies joined state regulators, technology leaders, government officials, consumer advocates, and other industry and regulatory stakeholders at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ (NARUC’s) annual Winter Policy Summit in Washington, D.C.

“The purpose of this meeting is to assemble a group of key stakeholders to discuss the opportunities and challenges before us and how we can meet the demand that we are seeing in the electric power sector,” NARUC President and Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tricia Pridemore said during the summit’s opening session.

Throughout the four days of programming, more than 2,100 summit attendees heard about the considerable energy demand being generated by data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies; physical, cyber, and weather-related threats to America’s critical energy infrastructure; and how electric companies are working with the regulatory community to power Americans’ lives and businesses and to keep customer costs as low as possible.

“NARUC was borne out of a noble idea, that the regulatory policies that were taking shape in Washington, D.C., couldn’t effectuate policy over such a large country,” said NARUC Executive Director Tony Clark. “What happens here directly affects affordability and the reliability of our system.”

Diverse Stakeholder Group Joins Demand Roundtable

New to the NARUC agenda this year was a Demand Roundtable discussion. The session convened more than 20 state commissioners, electric company executives, and technology leaders from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Walmart to discuss demand needs and to ensure industry and regulators are moving in lockstep to bring new technologies, generation, and transmission and distribution to the energy grid.

“We need speed, flexibility, and a willingness to be creative to find solutions for our customers,” Exelon Corporation Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Innocenzo said during the discussion, noting the industry’s dual priorities of meeting new customer demand while prioritizing service for existing customers and communities. “We have an obligation to maintain a grid that is safe, reliable, and affordable. We do not want to overburden any segment of our customers.”

To open the session, participants were polled on a series of questions to gauge their near- and long-term concerns about meeting demand growth. Nearly 1 in 3 representatives from electric companies and state commissions said they were very concerned about increasing demand from data centers, while 54 percent said they were somewhat concerned. Nearly 1 in 4 said significant upgrades are needed to existing infrastructure in their service territories to support projected growth.

Participants also were asked to list the biggest challenges that they see related to data center demand, and several common answers emerged: timelines involved with building new infrastructure, supply chain concerns, tariffs and cost allocation, and risks associated with first-of-a-kind technologies.

“There is substantial first-mover risk. Some of the investments we’re talking about are larger than entire companies,” said Duke Energy Senior Vice President for Pricing and Customer Solutions Lon Huber. “You can’t bet your company on these sorts of technologies. You can’t bet your service territory. There has to be some kind of partnership to support these technologies and ensure that electric companies aren’t solely bearing the risk.”

Unity of Effort and Message in Mutual Assistance

The first full day of the summit began with a discussion about mutual assistance and the power of partnership, moderated by Southern Company Chairman, President, and CEO Chris Womack and featuring International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers International Representative Chris Harris; Orange and Rockland President and CEO Michele O’Connell; EEI Chair Maria Pope, president and CEO of Portland General Electric (PGE); Duke Energy President Harry Sideris; and Entergy Texas Chair, President, and CEO Eliecer Viamontes.

“It is so important that we are starting this meeting with a discussion about mutual assistance,” said Womack. “This clearly demonstrates the role of what we do, the value of what we do, and it speaks to the value that we bring to customers and communities.”

Sideris and Viamontes discussed an active 2024 hurricane season, which included Hurricane Beryl’s impacts on Texas and Hurricanes Helene’s and Milton’s devastation to the Southeast. Sideris, whose hometown of Asheville, N.C., saw catastrophic damage from Helene, noted the storms impacted Duke Energy’s service territories across all six states that the company serves. He said the storm “caused the most damage that we’ve ever seen,” and he praised the army of mutual assistance workers who deployed to North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to assist with storm response and recovery.

“There was a tremendous response from the industry, and it’s really in the DNA of our lineworkers and our companies. We had employees who lost homes and family members and came to work the next day to restore power,” Sideris said.

Viamontes stressed the importance of proactive communication with local officials and customers during storm response efforts, noting that Entergy Texas actively engaged with local media and held daily calls with elected officials during Beryl.

O’Connell was one of several on the panel who urged the regulatory community to support efforts to harden the grid and to make it more weather resilient, citing Orange and Rockland’s investments totaling $1 billion during the past 10 years in undergrounding overhead lines and installing submersible equipment.

Pope emphasized that wildfire mutual assistance is in many ways different from traditional storm response efforts but that some principles touted by other panelists still apply. She highlighted the use of early detection AI cameras and the increasing use of public safety power shutoffs in the West as efforts that potentially can mitigate catastrophic wildfires, as well as the need to engage with local officials to promote transparency.

“I never thought I’d know the chiefs of police in as many of our jurisdictions as I do today,” Pope said. “Unity of effort and unity of message are a hallmark of what we do in this industry. Mutual assistance demands leadership and coming together, not pointing fingers.”

‘Power Shifting to the States’

EEI Executive Vice President for Regulatory Affairs and International Programs Phil Moeller spoke during a series of events that EEI hosted on the sidelines of the summit, including at the EEI Women’s Breakfast. Moeller delivered remarks before and after a panel discussion about the industry’s commitment to reducing serious injuries and fatalities, moderated by Con Edison Vice President of Environment, Health, and Safety Venetia Lannon. The panel featured International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Fourth District International Vice President Gina Cooper, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations President Liz Shuler, Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Chair Katie Sieben, and Pepco Holdings Chief Operating Officer Tamla Olivier.

The session featured panelists’ insights on recent trends, strategies to minimize incidents, the introduction of innovative safety metrics, and how a collaborative safety culture can support these efforts. The group discussed how to get at the heart of what causes incidents, how to implement effective reporting structures, and the importance of ongoing workforce training initiatives that help ensure safety.

“Zero incidents for our employees and our contractors, and zero public safety events: That’s always our goal,” Olivier said during the discussion.

Moeller also joined a NARUC Committee on Energy Resources and the Environment session, offering his federal policy predictions for 2025 and beyond.

He saw “an interesting dynamic of power shifting to the states, which we’re seeing through the actions of the Administration and the actions of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Mark Christie.” That power shift, Moeller said, would require states within the same regions to work together more closely to avoid creating patchwork regulatory frameworks.

“That takes time. That takes trust. Putting the effort in to bridge regional differences will be important,” he said.

Moeller also stressed the need for more dynamic rate structures that send better price signals to customers, the importance of customer education and engagement, and the progress that the industry has made on workforce development and skills training initiatives.

“That issue really used to worry me when I served on FERC. I’m more comfortable now that there’s a lot more going on,” he said, highlighting EEI’s work with groups like Veterans in Energy and the Center for Energy Workforce Development.

Left to right: Mark Birk, Chairman and President, Ameren Missouri; EEI Vice Chair Calvin Butler, President and CEO, Exelon Corporation; Steve Fleishman, Managing Director and Senior Analyst, Wolfe Research; Michael Haggarty, Associate Managing Director, Moody's Ratings; Teresa Ho Kim, Managing Director, J.P. Morgan Asset Management; NARUC President Tricia Pridemore, Commissioner, Georgia Public Service Commission.

‘It’s Not Just About Demand Growth’

Several EEI member company CEOs joined NARUC sessions later in the week, including NiSource President and CEO Lloyd Yates, who participated in a fireside chat with Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Chairman Stephen DeFrank. Yates discussed the industry’s emphasis on an all-of-the-above energy strategy and his optimism for hydrogen blending, small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), and other emerging energy solutions.

“This is a huge economic development opportunity for this country. It’s a huge national security issue for this country,” Yates said. “We have to continue to put resources into nuclear and making SMRs work. We have to blend in renewables. Transmission investments are so important. And, we need more natural gas infrastructure. The energy transition looks different in every state, so you need to do the work and bring everyone to the table in every state.”

Later in the week, Ameren Missouri Chairman and President Mark Birk and EEI Vice Chair Calvin Butler, president and CEO of the Exelon Corporation, participated in a conversation about industry access to capital, joining Wolfe Research Senior Analyst Steve Fleishman, Moody’s Ratings Associate Managing Director Michael Haggarty, and J.P. Morgan Asset Management Managing Director Teresa Ho Kim.

Birk highlighted the need for proactive communication with regulators and members of the financial community, noting that Ameren Missouri regularly hosts power plant and facility tours to help stakeholders understand the size and scale of investments needed.

“If you’re able to show that the projects you’re working on directly benefit customers, and you can show the why, it makes it easier to work with regulators and with investors,” he said.

Butler noted that the electric power industry is the most capital-intensive in the country, with grid infrastructure investments totaling tens of billions of dollars each year. He said telling that story can be difficult sometimes because “we’re investing in things we hope you will never feel, like security.”

“It’s not just about demand growth. It’s about providing a system that everyone in this room can come to depend on. We all need to keep our eyes on the ball and stay on top of that,” Butler said.

In late March, Avangrid unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool built to help the company’s field technicians more quickly and efficiently respond to technical issues at its wind plants.

The First Time Right Autopilot generative AI program helps technicians diagnose and resolve possible problems on wind turbines. Technicians engage with the program via voice or text, providing background information on the issue, and the program provides them with step-by-step instructions and documentation through their mobile devices. The program already has been installed at plants in Iowa and New York. Avangrid is planning to deploy it across its fleet later this year.

“By leveraging generative AI to provide real-time, expert-level support, we are empowering our technicians with the tools they need to improve reliability and efficiency within our fleet,” Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra said in a statement. “This is a testament to our commitment to shaping the future of energy through continuous innovation and technological advancement.”

The program is helping Avangrid technicians safely and more quickly identify technical problems, cutting down on the amount of time turbines are taken offline. It is the company’s latest effort to leverage AI capabilities to assist in its operations and better serve its customers. Last year, Avangrid unveiled Ava, a customer-facing AI energy assistant, in certain markets, and it announced a pilot project involving an AI-powered robotic dog to assist with substation inspections. And, in 2023, Avangrid and Iberdrola stood up a data science and analytics team to manage the company’s AI systems that help improve grid reliability and serve customers.

Executives from Eversource and their partners break ground on the Greater Cambridge Energy Program substation project in January. (Photo: Eversource)

In late January, Eversource broke ground on a $1.8-billion project in Cambridge, Mass., that, upon completion, will include the largest underground electrical substation in the United States.

The Greater Cambridge Energy Program substation will occupy 35,000 square feet and feature eight new 115-kilovolt transmission lines, which will span more than 8 miles and power portions of Cambridge, Boston, Somerville, and surrounding communities. The facility will be more than 100 feet underground at the site of a former parking garage and underneath what will be a new public green space.

“By taking a collaborative approach with the community and local leaders, this critical energy infrastructure meets several needs for our customers and the region’s energy supply while helping to enable the clean energy transition,” said Eversource Chairman, President, and CEO Joe Nolan.

By placing the facility underground, Eversource hopes to minimize its footprint within the city while enhancing grid resilience and insulating lines from above-ground threats such as extreme weather. Eversource has spent years designing the facility and conducting community engagement efforts with customers, local leaders, and other stakeholders, having started public outreach efforts in 2019. The company has since partnered with the city of Cambridge, the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, and real estate investment company BXP to bring the project to life.

“This region is experiencing a surge of new residential and commercial development, while at the same time moving away from fossil fuels. This generates a growing demand for a reliable electrical grid,” said Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang. “The Greater Cambridge Energy Program helps address the increased energy needs in the region, enhance the resiliency and reliability of the grid to reliably serve customers in our community, and support the decarbonization goals of both Cambridge and the Commonwealth.”

Eversource designed the substation to help meet the needs of customers now and in the future, particularly as the economy continues to electrify. For example, the company estimates that the substation will allow it to handle all of its East Cambridge residential customers who are converting their traditional heating systems to electric heat pumps while cutting the area’s reliance on natural gas in half.

“The Greater Cambridge Energy Program is a creative solution that helps shape a more sustainable and resilient energy future for our customers,” said Nolan.

The undergrounding of substations is not a new concept in the United States, with the first such project opening in Anaheim, Calif., in 2006. Upon its completion, the Cambridge substation will be more than twice the size of the underground substation in Anaheim.

Eversource anticipates that it will be able to operate at least some of the facility by 2029 and that it will be fully operational by 2031, creating and supporting an estimated 500 full-time jobs.

Pope’s remarks reinforced common themes shared throughout CERAWeek, the annual gathering of thousands of industry, technology, and government leaders from around the world. Demand growth, technological innovation, and evolving policy and regulatory landscapes are changing how electric companies operate, but their focus on serving customers and building out a secure and resilient energy future remains constant.

Each year during CERAWeek, executives from EEI member companies are represented throughout the event’s hundreds of mainstage keynotes, fireside chats, tech talks, panel discussions, and leadership roundtables, and this year was no exception. Pope’s session, and others led by EEI member company leaders, highlighted this pivotal moment for the industry and how electric companies are adapting, innovating, and investing in critical energy infrastructure to better serve customers and keep pace with accelerating demand growth.

“In all my years coming to CERAWeek, I’ve never seen as much excitement around electric power,” S&P Global Commodity Insights Executive Director Douglas Giuffre said during one of the conference’s recap sessions, noting the industry’s and the technology sector’s focus on an “all of the above” energy strategy to meet demand projections fueled by data centers, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, the reshoring of industrial and manufacturing activity, and the continued electrification of transportation and the broader economy.

The theme of this year’s conference was, “Moving ahead: Energy strategies for a complex world,” with programming focused on how major changes in domestic and international policy and the rise of new technologies are reshaping the global energy landscape.

Following are highlights and excerpts from this year’s conference:

‘The Demand Is Here Now’

NextEra Chairman, President, and CEO John Ketchum discusses the importance of a diverse energy mix and his company's planned infrastructure investments during a panel discussion. (Photo: CERAWeek by S&P Global)

In recent years, industry and technology thought leaders often spoke at CERAWeek about demand growth in a forward-looking tone, warning that investments will be needed in the near-term to prepare for what’s to come. However, the sense of urgency was clear this year, as AI-fueled data center construction has taken off across the country.

“It’s important we get this right. The demand is here now,” NextEra Chairman, President, and CEO John Ketchum said during a mainstage discussion on the first day of CERAWeek. “We’re in unprecedented times in our industry. We’re seeing a sixfold demand increase during the next 20 years compared with the previous 20.”

Ketchum emphasized NextEra’s all-of-the-above focus, noting the company’s interest in advanced nuclear technology as the seventh-largest nuclear operator in the world—and that the company just came off a record year in which it signed contracts to build more than 12 gigawatts of renewable generation.

He also stressed the importance of meeting this demand while keeping customer bills as low as possible—and the benefits of tax credits and other supportive public policies in pursuit of affordability.

“The tax credits and transferability provisions are so important to meeting demand in a cost-effective way,” Ketchum said. “If these credits went away, not only would we see a generation crunch, but the average American would see a 12-percent price hike. We need to avoid that.”

Later in the week, Entergy Louisiana President and CEO Phillip May stressed that demand growth is being felt all over the country and in areas that haven’t historically been known for their energy demands. Meta recently announced plans to build a $10-billion data center outside of Shreveport, La., and Entergy has worked in recent years to expand and upgrade infrastructure along the Mississippi River, with a new $5.8-billion Hyundai steel plant expected to open in the coming years.

“Massive investments are going to change the economic trajectory of parts of our state forever. Our state hasn’t always seen that sort of thing,” May said. “As we think about how we serve this load, all options need to be on the table, including assets near the end of their lives. We need to figure out how to squeeze out every last bit of economic juice from them that we can.”

‘Innovation Needs to Be Part of Culture’

National Grid CEO John Pettigrew shares his thoughts on AI and the industry's embrace of grid-enhancing technologies to maximize existing critical energy infrastructure.

This demand growth has forced the industry to scrap the concept of business as usual and has emphasized the need for innovation and a willingness to embrace new energy strategies and technologies. NextEra Energy Resources President and CEO Rebecca Kujawa, who recently announced plans to retire in late May, described solidifying innovation as part of the company’s culture during mainstage keynote remarks.

“We have an annual process where we ask everyone in the company how we can be better, lower costs, and unlock revenue. And, every year, I’m amazed by the creativity and ingenuity that comes out of that process,” Kujawa said. “We’ve created $1 billion in annual revenue and cost savings through doing this every year. Innovation needs to be part of culture. You need to be willing to take risks, learn, and continually get better.”

This need for innovation has spurred a wave of industry and technology partnerships, and it has opened the door to new business models. National Grid Ventures, an investment arm of National Grid that supports grid-enhancing technologies and innovative energy solutions, hosted a series of tech talks and demonstrations throughout CERAWeek that highlighted the types of advanced vegetation management, dynamic line rating technology, and AI-powered systems that it invests in.

“The intention behind National Grid Ventures was that it would give us access to the types of technologies and innovations that are over the hill. We can invest in them, grant them access to our networks, and improve our own processes,” said National Grid CEO John Pettigrew, noting the company’s plans to commit $100 million to AI startups to help modernize the grid. “These technologies are allowing us to think about meeting demand in a different way. We need to embrace digital and AI.”

Industry leaders also highlighted innovation in their relationships with government and regulatory partners. Dominion Energy Chair, President and CEO Bob Blue joined a dinner session featuring Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Commonwealth Fusion Systems Co-Founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard to discuss the world’s first commercial fusion power plant, which currently is under construction in Chesterfield County, Va.

“If this is technology that is proven out, and the financials and operations work, it is something that our company and our industry could deploy at scale,” Blue said of the nuclear fusion reactor.

Blue and others throughout CERAWeek noted the risks associated with building first-of-its-kind technology—with Governor Youngkin saying he didn’t want to be remembered as “the governor that unleashed a small sun on Virginia.” To help mitigate risk, many stressed the need for new partnerships with government and private-sector partners.

“Planning for the energy future is going to require more speed and more creativity,” Southern Company Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Stan Connally said during a CERAWeek breakfast panel. “If we can find many partners in these conversations, that will be a big piece of the roadmap to success. Finding the right balance of safe, clean, reliable, and affordable is what we’re all after.”

‘Technology Is Forcing Us to Rethink Everything’

EEI Chair Maria Pope (right), president and CEO of Portland General Electric, advocates for siting and permitting reform at all levels of government during a panel discussion.

Although renewable energy generation remained a popular topic of discussion at this year’s CERAWeek, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Mark Christie warned during a keynote discussion that the industry’s ongoing need for 24/7 generating resources represented a “rendezvous with reality,” of sorts.

This theme of grounding future-looking projections in the technology, policy, and regulatory realities of today was highlighted throughout the week. Pope noted that, despite the industry’s need for critical energy infrastructure of all kinds, siting and permitting backlogs can add years to project development cycles. She stressed the need for reform at all levels of government.

“Siting is very local, so we need to tackle that at the local level,” Pope said. “And, we have environmental agencies in each one of our states, not just at the federal level. We need to look at where the need is rather than just tweak federal legacy processes.”

Edison International President and CEO Pedro J. Pizarro, meanwhile, highlighted during a panel discussion that the industry is attempting to expand and optimize the grid while responding to a growing and intensifying list of physical, cyber, and weather-related threats.

“The economy will be relying more and more on the grid, so it is so important that we increase the resilience of the grid today and in the future,” Pizarro said, noting that AI can be an essential tool to defend the grid despite the risks that technology poses in the hands of bad actors. “One of our big messages is that grid security is national security. Across the industry, we’re thinking about defense in depth. We’re not pretending we can defend against everything, but we are building multiple layers of defense and making AI front and center in terms of grid design.”

And, AES Corporation President and CEO Andrés Gluski highlighted the unique needs of energy-intensive customers like data centers—and the fact that these facilities can be built, in some cases, in fewer than two years, when timelines to build new transmission and generation facilities can be significantly longer given labor, supply chain, and siting and permitting challenges.

“You’re not going to build a $50-billion data center and have it backed up by something you are 99 percent sure will be available. Energy has to be 100 percent available,” Gluski said. “Most of the interconnection queue is renewable right now, and that’s mostly time to power. If you want a new natural gas plant, it may be four or five years until it’s operational. With renewables, it may be two to three years. Time to power is very different for these customers if you’re talking about the difference of several years.”

Still, industry leaders were overwhelmingly optimistic throughout CERAWeek that they are on track to meet customer needs and that new AI and grid-enhancing technologies will continue to revolutionize how they do business.

“Technology is forcing us to rethink everything. How we operate, how we legislate, how we regulate,” Pope said. “It’s so exciting, because we used to talk about some of these technologies being part of the bulk power system. But, we’re at the point where they’re being integrated into distribution and impacting customers directly.”

Industry leaders and their technology, government, and regulatory partners will discuss these and other trends at EEI 2025, EEI’s annual conference and thought leadership forum, which begins on June 2 in New Orleans. To learn more about the event and to register, visit eei.org/2025.

Edison International President and CEO Pedro J. Pizarro (right) and AES Corporation President and CEO Andrés Gluski (second from right) discuss energy security, innovation, and data center-fueled demand growth.

L to R: Pat Vincent-Collawn, Interim President and CEO, EEI; Kenny Cooper, International President, IBEW; EEI Vice Chair Calvin Butler, President and CEO, Exelon Corporation; EEI Chair Maria Pope, President and CEO, Portland General Electric; and Paul Noble, International Secretary-Treasurer, IBEW.

EEI partnered with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in early March to host the 18th annual National Labor and Management Public Affairs Committee (LAMPAC) meeting, bringing together leaders in energy and organized labor to celebrate their long-standing partnership and to advance their shared priorities.

During a series of keynote addresses and panel discussions at the annual event in Washington, D.C., speakers discussed best practices for fostering a culture of safety and mental health, security concerns, federal and state policy, and more.

“We are stronger when we work together, and our public policy achievements and regional successes in recent years are a testament to that,” said EEI interim President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn during opening remarks that highlighted the strength of industry-labor partnerships.

LAMPAC, along with its four regional organizations covering all 50 states, was formed nearly two decades ago by former EEI President and CEO Tom Kuhn and then-IBEW International President Ed Hill to serve as a powerful voice on federal and state issues relevant to the industry. In addition to the annual day-long national meeting, the regional LAMPAC organizations host meetings throughout the year to share best practices and to address regional and local issues.

EEI Chair Maria Pope, president and CEO of Portland General Electric, moderates a panel discussion about leadership and the partnership between the electric power industry and organized labor.

Following Vincent-Collawn’s welcome, EEI Chair Maria Pope, president and CEO of Portland General Electric, and EEI Vice Chair Calvin Butler, president and CEO of Exelon Corporation, participated in a leadership discussion with IBEW International President Kenny Cooper and IBEW International Secretary-Treasurer Paul Noble. Butler and Cooper recalled working on a collective bargaining agreement together when Butler was CEO of Baltimore Gas & Electric, which Butler described as “a positive and impactful example of what can be accomplished when labor and management work together.”

“By working side-by-side to expand and maintain critical energy infrastructure and to keep the lights on for our communities, we are better able to serve our workers, our companies, and most important, our customers,” said Pope.

Later in the day, Puget Sound Energy President and CEO Mary Kipp and Duke Energy Florida State President Melissa Seixas participated in a panel discussion about the importance of investing in grid resilience and emergency response capabilities. Seixas discussed Duke Energy’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton last year, noting that, although the back-to-back storms devastated parts of the company’s service territory along the Gulf Coast, resilience investments made prior to the storm mitigated what could have been an even more significant impact.

Kipp noted the progress the industry has made in reducing serious injuries and fatalities during the past several years, praising her colleagues and the IBEW for “focusing on high energy hazards of all kinds as an industry.” Kipp, who co-chairs the EEI CEO Task Force on Wildfires, also discussed the industry’s focus on wildfire prevention and mitigation across the country.

Entergy Chair and CEO Drew Marsh participated in the next panel, which focused on energy security. He noted that the industry is working with organized labor to meet the energy needs of data centers that have “speed-to-market as a mantra” and the rising demand for electricity they create. 

“This is a challenge from a capacity standpoint,” he said. “We all need to be part of this conversation. We are engaged with the IBEW to meet these needs safely and as partners.”

L to R: Doug Cannon, President and CEO, NV Energy; Tyler Anthony, President and CEO, Pepco; and Jerry R. Williford Jr., Business Manager of Local 1900, IBEW.

The need for a skilled workforce to build and maintain the infrastructure serving data centers and other critical energy infrastructure was a theme throughout the National LAMPAC meeting and the subject of a panel discussion in the afternoon, featuring NV Energy President and CEO Doug Cannon and Pepco President and CEO Tyler Anthony. Cannon highlighted NV Energy’s efforts to promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education among grade-school students in the company’s service territory, potentially helping to drive interest in the industry and attract skilled workers down the road.

Anthony, similarly, highlighted the importance of STEM, highlighting a series of academies that the Exelon Corporation, Pepco’s parent company, has opened in partnership with the Cal Ripken. Jr. Foundation. Anthony also highlighted the D.C. Infrastructure Academy’s Pepco Utility Training Program, which offers paid skills training and certifications to aspiring energy workers in Washington, D.C. Read more about the academy in the Winter 2025 issue of Electric Perspectives.

“For all of us, if you ask how you define workforce development, you might get very different answers. What it means to me is giving people a chance and opportunity to get into this industry that may not have always been available,” Anthony said.

During the meeting, U.S. Representatives Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Linda Sánchez (D-CA), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) received the John D. Dingell Award in recognition of their bipartisan work to recognize July 10 as Journeyman Lineworkers Recognition Day.

Named for one of the longest-serving members of Congress, the John D. Dingell Award is presented to leaders who exemplify and promote labor-management cooperation and whose efforts have helped to advance the common objectives of the electric power industry and IBEW members. Former Representative Dingell chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee for many years and amassed an impressive record of bipartisan accomplishments on a wide range of issues, many of which focused on labor-management collaboration.

Separately, EEI and IBEW presented the Edwin D. Hill Award to IBEW Utility Department Director Donnie Colston for his four decades of service and leadership in IBEW and IBEW Local 2100, and to San Diego Gas & Electric and IBEW Local 465 for their efforts to educate their community about state and local initiatives.

Electric Perspectives (EP): Demand growth is creating a need for new critical energy infrastructure of all kinds, setting the stage for what could be one of the most transformational moments for American infrastructure since the years immediately following World War II. How is our industry responding?

Maria Pope (MP): Everything that we do and the way that we work is changing at a dramatic pace.

First, demand for electricity is growing at a rate we haven’t seen in decades. Data centers are rapidly expanding to meet the needs of emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and are expected to consume an extraordinary amount of energy.

When you consider that a search on ChatGPT or another large language model requires 10 times the energy of a traditional search engine, it is easy to understand why. At the same time, more sectors of the economy and more homes and businesses are continuing to electrify.

Second, tremendous federal, state, and private sector resources have been brought to bear to onshore manufacturing and to enhance America’s global competitiveness and security, especially in the high-tech sectors. Since the signing of federal legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022, investment in American manufacturing has nearly doubled, according to a report from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Third, extreme weather is underscoring the urgent need to enhance the resilience of the nation’s energy grid. Hurricanes, ice storms, wildfires, and other events are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity. In response, electric companies are deploying significant capital and are becoming tech-forward businesses with a renewed focus on innovation.

EEI member companies are bringing new infrastructure, generation facilities, batteries, and countless innovative projects online at an incredible pace. We will continue to strengthen our infrastructure and build a more resilient, cleaner generation fleet. And, we will work to accomplish all of this in a way that is cost-effective for customers.

“EEI member companies are bringing new infrastructure, generation facilities, batteries, and countless innovative projects online at an incredible pace.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In November, the Exelon Foundation and PECO partnered with the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation (Ripken Foundation) to open a new state-of-the-art center supporting science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) opportunities for students at the Tinicum School outside of Philadelphia.

The center will provide STEM education and training to more than 300 local students and is the latest partnership between Exelon, its local electric companies, and the Ripken Foundation to expand learning opportunities to elementary and middle school students, particularly those in disadvantaged communities.

The Exelon Foundation donated $3 million last year to support the opening of 81 STEM Centers across the country. The Tinicum School’s center is the 27th that Exelon has supported and the first of seven planned for PECO’s service territory.

“Exelon is proud to partner with the Ripken Foundation on this venture because we have been interested and invested in STEM education for a long time, and for good reason,” said EEI Vice Chair Calvin Butler, president and CEO of the Exelon Corporation. “The energy industry is facing some significant challenges—from climate change to cyber security—and we need the skills and expertise that students will gain in a STEM center. Our goal is that these students will one day bring those skills to Exelon.”

Butler attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Cal Ripken, Jr., a co-founder of the foundation and a Major League Baseball Hall of Famer, and other officials before attending a demonstration that allowed Tinicum students to show off the new tools and resources available through the STEM center.

“Seeing the students react to the new STEM center in their school is always special,” said Ripken, Jr. “Calvin Butler and the Exelon Foundation have been incredibly generous partners and with their support we have made a tremendous impact on kids here in the Philadelphia area and nationwide.”

Exelon has a long history of supporting STEM education and helping to develop the next generation of the energy workforce. Each summer, the company hosts free, week-long STEM academies in Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Many of these academies have been specifically designed for high school girls from underserved communities. Through its Corporate Scholars program, Exelon also supports students bound for historically black colleges and universities, offering scholarship recipients $25,000 in need-based financial aid each year for four years.

“We believe it’s our responsibility to ensure a better future for all. This guides me every day in my work as CEO,” Butler told Electric Perspectives in a recent profile.

Read more about Butler, Exelon, and the company’s philanthropic work in our Spring 2024 issue.

America’s investor-owned electric companies are in the midst of incredible demand growth and on the cusp of tremendous change. I am excited to be serving as EEI’s interim president and CEO at such a pivotal time, working with the talented leaders at our member companies to build a brighter energy future for all.

Today, electricity demand is growing at its fastest pace in decades, as new technologies and evolving customer expectations are driving rapid transformation. This once-in-a-generation demand growth is creating new challenges for our nation, as well as unique opportunities for our industry to better serve customers and communities and to ensure America is home to the industries, technologies, and jobs of tomorrow. EEI and our member companies are leading the way and are working hard to meet these challenges head-on.

At the same time, we are engaging with a new administration and new Congress on a busy policy agenda. We know that our job of educating policymakers, regulators, and industry stakeholders is more important than ever, and we have developed strategic advocacy plans to advance our priority issues and to achieve favorable results that benefit our customers.

Our efforts are fueled by knowledge that we need a modern energy system for our modern age, particularly as data centers and artificial intelligence technologies, the onshoring of manufacturing, and increased electrification continue to drive energy demand and global economic activity. With a supportive policy and regulatory framework in place, we can build an energy grid that is reliable, responsive, weather-resilient, and ready to meet customer demand today and in the years ahead.

Promoting Supportive Public Policy

We all know that electricity is the energy that powers our increasingly digital economy, and our industry is integrally linked to the success of our nation. As a whole, our industry supports more than 7 million jobs across the country and accounts for at least 5 percent of U.S. GDP.

More than ever, it is vital that public policies support energy security by prioritizing the buildout of more critical energy infrastructure and by allowing electric companies to maintain a diverse, domestic, and dispatchable energy
mix. Natural gas, renewables, storage, and new and existing nuclear are all important parts of this equation.

EEI’s member companies have the expertise needed to build the necessary infrastructure. What we don’t have is time—specifically, time for inefficient government review processes to drag on and on.

We must streamline permitting requirements, align policy requirements, and encourage capital investment to rapidly build out the grid and the other critical infrastructure needed to power data centers, bolster domestic manufacturing, and support the electrification of other sectors of the economy. We also must continue to lead efforts to develop, demonstrate, and deploy grid-enhancing technologies that are helping to bolster grid resilience and get more out of the infrastructure that we already have.

Favorable tax policy is particularly important, and we are engaging with members of Congress and their staff on where and how policies like the energy tax credits are driving innovation, creating new American jobs and economic opportunities, and helping electric companies meet the rapidly growing demand for electricity reliably and affordably. During the year ahead, we will work to protect the energy tax credits, secure a repairs fix in the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, and continue to advocate for provisions within the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that benefit electricity customers.

Environmental regulations also remain front and center, and EEI is committed to working with policymakers and regulators to support policies that better accommodate member company fleet transition plans and reflect the challenges of building new generation. We are committed to getting the energy we provide as clean as we can as fast as we can, and we are working to find solutions that drive innovation and the deployment of new energy technologies, allowing our member companies to meet demand growth reliably while helping to keep customer bills as low as possible.

Addressing Wildfire Risk

Among EEI’s priorities this year is advancing a comprehensive national strategy that addresses wildfire risk, with a focus on community protection, prevention, responsible investment, and rapid recovery. The recent fires in Southern California, exacerbated by hurricane-force winds and severe drought conditions, offer a grim reminder of the devastation that these events can inflict. We are grateful for the brave firefighters and first responders who worked around-the-clock to contain the blazes.

EEI and our member companies were actively engaged at the highest levels of industry and government through the CEO-led Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC) to ensure that impacted electric companies had the resources and equipment needed for the response, restoration, and rebuild efforts that are essential to the recovery.

The threat of wildfires is a societal problem that requires societal solutions. We are committed to working with Congress to advance legislation that will help mitigate risks and support our efforts to protect the customers and communities that we serve. And, we will continue to work with our partners in Washington to ensure that the ESCC remains the center of gravity, where industry and government come together to strengthen our shared responsibility of protecting the grid against all threats.

The growing frequency and intensity of wildfires and extreme weather events of all kinds reinforces just how important it is to invest in resilient infrastructure and a more weather-resilient grid, as few regions were spared Mother Nature’s wrath over the past year. EEI’s member companies invested more than $171 billion in 2023 alone to make the grid stronger, smarter, cleaner, more weather-resilient, and more secure, and these efforts will continue in 2025 and beyond. Securing our grid against threats both natural and manmade is critically important to the success of our industry, as well as to our nation’s role as a global energy leader.

Leading the Way

This will be a busy year for us all. As the leader of an EEI member company myself, I recognize and appreciate the important work that is underway across our industry on behalf of the hundreds of millions of Americans who depend on us to power their lives. I am also grateful for the high levels of engagement from my CEO colleagues on these and so many other critical issues.

We will face no shortage of opportunities, challenges, and change in 2025 and beyond. What will remain the same is our commitment to delivering a secure, reliable energy future that benefits everyone. Through the Power by Association^SM that EEI represents, we will meet the evolving needs and expectations of our customers, and we will engage with partners in industry and government to ensure we have the infrastructure, technologies, and policies in place to power our economy and our lives for decades to come.