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They Said It in January's PUF

Chris Gould, Exelon’s Senior Vice President – Corporate Strategy and Chief Sustainability Officer: “If you start with scale in mind for some things that you're trying to do, there are paths. A good one might be where you can couple adjacencies and innovations together.

We talked about electrification and transportation. That’s something that could change demand outlook for electricity providers. There's a meaningful role for electric utilities to play in that.

Think about the revenue model for an electric utility today. Decoupled, partially-decoupled, whatever you want to call it.

Where is all the customer enabled technology, all the things we're saying that need to be in place for our customers. What's the role of the utility in that future?

That's innovation, in business model form. There may be a new revenue model there, so instead of getting compensated based on volume or some fixed demand charge, perhaps you're compensated on the number of transactions you facilitate for your customers.

The business model for the future utility and that electrification aren't just going to happen. They need to be enabled by technology. That's where these small bets can come in, and start to grow into bigger ones down the road.” Page 18 – 19, January’s PUF

 

Lawrence Jones, EEI’s Vice President – International Programs: “That was the journey taken by a man named John Wesley Powell. Powell, together with his expedition team, took what they soon discovered was a treacherous journey to map out the Colorado River and Grand Canyon. The success of Powell and his team’s story underscore the key ingredients for successfully navigating uncharted territories, and to do big things that were previously considered impossible and unimaginable.

The salient lesson of this and the other examples is that although trust and collaboration are necessary for team accomplishments, perhaps what’s most important is caring for your teammates.

Reflecting on the ongoing transformation and transition of the global energy system, I believe that the lessons about how teams do big things can be applied to some of the other grand challenges and serious problems facing our global community.

An important question is how do we get different stakeholders to agree on the same pathway to do big things, like electrifying the world or ending world poverty, or feeding a planet of more than seven billion people? It begins with being able to care about your counterparts in other stakeholder groups with whom you must work, trust and collaborate with to do big things. Caring is about listening. It's about empathy. It's about realizing that your viewpoint may not necessarily always be the best or right view.” Page 25, January’s PUF

Is your organization impacting the debate as a member of the PUF community? Nearly two hundred utilities, commissions, consumer advocates, associations, agencies, professional firms and vendors are members. How about yours?

Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly

E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com