Picture Energy
Steve Mitnick is the Editor-in-Chief of Public Utilities Fortnightly and the president of Lines Up, Inc.
CERAWeek is a massive five-day conference on global energy issues that attracts national leaders and ministers, too many chief executives to count, and this year, Public Utilities Fortnightly. Some of the days are devoted to international oil and gas markets, but Thursday is traditionally power day, so we made sure to be there then. We listened to the chief execs of CenterPoint Energy, CMS Energy, Edison International, Exelon Utilities, Florida Power and Light and New York Power Authority on topics of great interest in our world such as electrification, digitization, rate design, regional transmission operator developments, resilience, smart cities, and customer demands. On their panels were mayors, leaders of non-utility and tech companies, and major vendors like ABB. Check out the eight video excerpts at the Fortnightly website to get a flavor of the proceedings.
For example, CMS Energy CEO Patti Poppe said: "Today, two things are true that were never true before. Number one, we're retiring these aging central station power plants. That's happening. We have a choice right now to determine whether we replace them like for like, or we create a new clean and lean energy future.
The other second factor that is happening is the advancement of computing power. AI, machine learning, and the digitization of the information that we never had before.
Look, two years ago, I had guys walk in through backyards figuring out how much energy you used since the last time we were at your house. One data point per month per customer. We [have now] went from 36 million data points a year to 270 million data points a day. We have information we never had before.
[We can] create this opportunity to optimize both demand and supply. We can have the opportunity. Because demand isn't climbing like it was post-World War Two. It is flat to declining. Let's make sure we don't replace like for like infrastructure and have this heavy burden of an expensive electric system for all citizens. Let's have a clean and lean energy system for the future. It is possible today like never before."
And CenterPoint Energy CEO Scott Prochazka said: "[Customers] just want to know, generally, what is going on. Our systems today are such that we can provide that. We can provide more of that. And it's only to going to become, I think, more prevalent as we go forward.
The customer wants to be in control. The customer wants to have the tools necessary to make good decisions. The customer wants recommendations and information from their energy providers so that they can manage their homes, their environments, their equipment, their appliances in a much more thoughtful way."
