Decarbonization: Patti Poppe

Deck: 

CMS Energy

Fortnightly Magazine - October 2020
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PUF's Steve Mitnick: How was the drive to decarbonize a customer centric strategy?

Patti Poppe: It is an obvious customer centric strategy because our customers absolutely care about the planet and what we can do to preserve it. Maybe this is not something that people reinforce all the time but it's good for their pocketbooks as well.

When we think of our customers, they are fundamental to our Triple Bottom Line, serving people, the planet, and profit. As we protect our customers' pocketbooks and the planet, that leads to the prosperity of Michigan, and decarbonization is fundamental to that equation.

Our version includes retirement of coal, but it also has a significant demand management component, which requires customer engagement. That means that customer centric is not just a feel good, nice to do. It's business imperative for our future.

Jan Vrins: A lot of utilities are shifting to renewables and battery storage. Officially they've done that for several decades. You mentioned demand side management, and demand response.

How else is your company helping your customers decarbonize? How far as a utility do you want to go? You have a lot of heavy manufacturing in your customer base. Would you look at some of those production plants?

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