Electrification
Moderator David Owens is the President of Da'Vision and former EEI EVP. Nigel Barbour is the CEO of Orion NZ. Ruth Forbes is the CEO of FortisTCI. Scott Seu is the CEO of Hawaiian Electric Industries.
Islands have their own set of unique issues when it comes to the clean energy transition, including land access due to limited acreage. There also have been destructive hurricanes and cyclones that have left islands devastated. This panel on Transitioning Island Energy Systems, took on managing the journey to decarbonization.
Listen in as these island leader CEOs dig in at the Edison Electric Institute's 7th Annual Global Electrification Forum: FortisTCI CEO Ruth Forbes, Hawaiian Electric Industries CEO Scott Seu, and Orion NZ CEO Nigel Barbour, all moderated by Da'Vision President and former EEI EVP David Owens.
Moderator and by Da'Vision President David Owens: Five years ago, I was working at EEI, and retired in June 2017. I got a call in September to come to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico had tremendous hurricanes, Irma, and Maria.
I've never seen anything like that in my life. Ninety-five percent of the cell towers were down, ninety percent of people didn't have drinking water, and three thousand people lost their lives. Homes were shattered.
Puerto Rico had a fragile grid and terrible infrastructure. Fifty-eight percent of their energy was oil-fired. Rates were through the roof. They asked me, "Help us to rebuild the electric system, bring some reliability, stability, and build a clean energy system."