Strategy & Planning

“If we build an energy system which nobody can afford, we’ll have failed. If we build an energy system which is clean but not reliable, we’ll have failed. If we continue using unabated fossil fuels, we’ll have failed. The answer is somewhere in the middle of these three, and we’ve got to have a properly informed debate.”

“I see my leadership at Exelon and my leadership at EEI as perfect matches in terms of what we’re doing. Because if I lead with my customer, I lead with reliability, resiliency, security, and affordability. Those issues permeate all our organizations.”

Key industry thought leaders from the C-suite gave unique perspectives on building an energy system for resilience, growth, affordability, and more at the sidelines of Accenture’s International Utilities and Energy Conference 2025.

“The key takeaway is understanding the evolving approach to traditional refurbishment projects. That’s where advanced conductors like ACCC come in. These all-aluminum composite conductors offer higher capacity and performance without requiring changes to the existing line design.”

“The biggest takeaway is the importance of building a stronger bridge between the engineers in the office and the crews out in the field. It’s about understanding what’s happening on site — what tools are being used, what challenges they’re facing — and making sure that insight makes its way back into our design process.”

James Duehning, Mark Van Dyne, Kent Herzog, Alex Lee, and Andrew Schulte: “We need to shift from a deterministic planning model to something more probabilistic, especially with all the uncertainty around future load and generation. The way we identify project needs today doesn’t fully reflect the realities we’re facing.”

From the sidelines of its Annual Transmission Symposium, conversations with Burns & McDonnell’s Alberto Ruiz, Chih-Hung Chen, Jess Kurpius, Zach O'Toole, JC Perkins, Matt Ingram, Matt Lind, Kyle Combes, Michaela Nickell, Brent Windsor, Brad Gardner, Paul Barker, Danny Serrano, Vinny Montemurro, James Duehning, Mark Van Dyne, Kent Herzog, Alex Lee, and Polsinelli law firm’s Andrew Schulte.

“The State Energy Offices are most easily characterized as the energy policy arm of the governor of each state. They’re diverse. Sometimes they’re stand-alone agencies or located in a Department of Commerce. We are located within the California Natural Resources Agency.”

“Evergy’s strategic tenets are affordability, reliability, and sustainability. If you ever put too much emphasis on one of those tenets at the expense of the others, you’ll get out of balance and run into trouble. Out of balance inevitably creates issues with key constituents.”

Respondents describe an industry grappling with accelerating load growth, infrastructure vulnerability, and policy uncertainty – even as they continue to work toward clean energy goals and distributed resource integration.