Electric executives open up on what they’re planning next.
Kristian Hanelt is senior vice president for renewable capital markets at Clean Power Finance.
This past February, at the 2014 Infocast Solar Power Finance & Investment Summit, I interviewed three electric power executives about their companies' investments in solar and what they think their industry will look like in 20 years. The conversation produced some interesting insights into why they've invested in solar, how they decide where to invest, how the regulatory system might change to allow increased competition, and how they're planning to deal with increased penetration of DG solar in the long run. (Full disclosure: My company, Clean Power Finance (CPF), works with all three companies represented on the panel. None of the questions was specifically about their work with CPF.)
The three power industry panelists were Oded Rhone, a vice president with the strategic planning group at of Edison International, Gary Courts, a managing director of alternative energy at Dominion Resources, and Dan Smies, manager of development for new energy assets at Integrys Energy Services.
Edison (EIX) is the parent of SoCal Edison (a regulated utility), which maintains one of the highest penetrations of residential solar in the country. In addition, EIX owns several other competitive businesses, including a solar energy company active in the distributed generation sector called SoCore Energy, which Edison acquired in 2013. SoCore provides commercial energy solutions to multisite retailers, REITs, and large-scale industrial properties.