Strategy & Planning

“With applications, now we have predictive analytics and AI. It’s popular because the grid used to be one-directional power flow. Now, it’s a multidirectional, dynamic, and complex with increasing renewable and distributed energy resources.”

“Our AI model can make predictions in terms of number of outages of an upcoming storm at over 85% accuracy at a subregional level. We know each tree’s nucleus network. We map the height, health of the tree, propensity of the tree to fail against wind speed and windstorm path: we are able to precisely identify points of failures.”

“We have data around companies that lean into a metaverse/sustainable strategy. It’s more profitable. That has to do with retaining better employees and cost savings because, from onboarding and ongoing training points of view, you don’t have to send people all over the world.”

“Imagine a line person who would go out during a storm facing hurricanes, tornadoes, and operate with hook sticks. Those days are coming to an end. With virtual protection, virtual substations of the future, a lot of those concerns around safety go away.”

PUF’s Selected Excerpts of Presentations by EEI’s Tom Kuhn, Brian Wolff, Emily Fisher, Phil Moeller, and Richard McMahon.

“What’s unique about Exelon is we serve urban dense areas, as well as rural America. Think about the coastal and rural areas in New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware. With ComEd, the northern part of its Illinois territory, Rockford, DeKalb.”

“For Winter Storm Uri in 2021, we were part of those historic curtailments. That highlighted we can’t continue our traditional mindset that reliability is keeping wires in the air. That was the old way of thinking. It has evolved into the fuel deliverability, availability aspects of it.”

“Our challenge is the pace at which people are being forced into a clean-energy transition with resources that don’t have the capability to carry the load. We’re seeing blackouts. For us, it’s maybe slowing things down a bit.”

“To best serve our fast-growing service area and meet evolving member expectations, we have engaged in strategic acquisitions, which is a bit unique for the co-op space. We delivered broadband. We acquired a local for-profit telephone company, United Communications.”

“We’re different because we’re not like for-profit entities. We serve usually the hardest to the most expensive places in America based on lack of population density.”