Strategy & Planning

As we contemplate how we, in the fashion of Odysseus, shall confront the various Scylla and Charybdis of the new year, it is good to remember the strengths of our ship at sea.

“EPAC’s philosophy is that the industry can and must work together to proactively and voluntarily advance its own standards, rather than waiting for mandates to be imposed.”

“The main thing we want folks to know is that there are practical pathways, and they can look at this within their area of interest and start to understand how some of these solutions might fit for them.”

“ISO New England is the regional planner, and we work closely. They’ve identified in 2050 that they expect the winter peak in New England to double. What that means for VELCO and many other transmission owners in New England is line upgrades.”

“We have improved the reliability of the system by 35% in the first two years of operations. It’s quite a record in the U.S. for any utility. It would be hard to find any that have improved by 35% in two years in frequency of outages, and 20% of duration of outages in comparison to the previous year.”

“Reliability and affordability will be center stage this next year, and I have encouraged committee chairs to address these issues in meetings. I look forward to healthy debates about different approaches to decarbonization, new methods for resource planning, permitting, and construction challenges, workforce shortages or proposed EPA regulations.”

“We’ve seen the cost declines often lag for customers in ways that they may see technology as being ready, but it’s not showing up as a meaningful bill impact. Where are some gaps between perception and reality?”

A tour of the the Blue Lab Green Lab and Fabrication Lab with Jim McNelis, plus the Materials Testing Lab with Tony Kosari.

“We are an applied research and technology development non-profit organization. We have a long list of customers who we call when an opportunity presents itself. Now, about 50% percent of our work is done in the lab, and the other 50% is at company sites.”

“ We do component research on vehicles, from hydrogen-powered cars to heavy duty trucks like the class eight trucks. We collaborate with the Port of Los Angeles to test class eight trucks running on 100% hydrogen fuel. They work well, and are not just R&D trucks, they are running through a real-life cycle.”