People In Power

“Putting these factors together – an island with a need for renewables and a lot of wind off its coast – it’s not a surprise that LIPA was the first utility in the U.S. to sign a power purchase agreement to develop offshore wind in federal waters.”

A Global Circuit Interview with FortisTCI CEO Ruth Forbes discussing navigating the clean energy transition with an island energy grid, ensuring reliability, and providing opportunities for women in our industry to take on leadership roles.

“To be in Gerald Ford’s hometown, honor his legacy and the work he did around energy as president, ground this in what’s happening today, even as we look forward, has been important. We always wanted to tie in with President Ford’s legacy. The active work we’ve seen in the last couple of years at the federal level has made that more relevant.”

“We can begin to look at advanced nuclear reactor options that are being developed today, such as smaller modular reactors that are about three hundred megawatts versus the thousand-megawatt reactors at Vogtle.”

“The greatest risks are cost and affordability, even with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and all federal funds coming to utilities from those laws. Washington has a state Clean Energy Fund that supports utility investments in the clean energy transition, but it does not cover the significant costs of investment.”

“We are seeing a greater number of filings by developers for approval of new solar facilities. We are also seeing an increased number of transmission projects being filed with the Commission. That’s because there are a lot of data centers being built in our state, particularly in northern Virginia.”

“When you’re trying to build things like transmission lines, you can’t build them in the West without crossing over federal land. Unless significant changes occur, that takes a long time to work through the Bureau of Land Management to ultimately receive approval.”

“The Act on Climate requires net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050. We’re going to need to figure out how the gas distribution network can deliver a low- or zero-carbon product, or we’re going to have to do something else with the network.”

“What we see are storm clouds on the horizon that are going to affect reliability, resource adequacy, and prices because of state and federal initiatives that are pushing for a rapid transition away from thermal resources into renewable resources.”

“Bipartisan legislation required the Commission to develop a plan to reduce carbon emissions from Duke Energy’s electric generating facilities by 70% from 2005 levels by 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2050.”