Serving the global energy sector
Anda Ray is SVP – External Relations and Technical Resources at EPRI. She is also Chair of EPRI International.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: The impetus to create EPRI began in the United States, but for some years now you've extended your reach and your base internationally. How far has EPRI gone?
Anda Ray: Innovation has no geographic borders and adds to the body of work we are doing in energy worldwide. EPRI's global reach includes participants in our collaborative research in approximately thirty countries, which we divide into seventeen regions.
We have fifty internationally based employees with offices in fifteen countries. While EPRI conducts international research and development in all areas of energy, the largest share of our current international R&D focuses on nuclear energy. In fact, EPRI's nuclear research serves about ninety-four percent of the market in the countries where we are engaged.
Our international funding over the past four years has increased about twenty-four percent, today accounting for almost thirty percent of EPRI's research, development, and demonstration budget. It's growing faster than our research with U.S.-based utilities.
As a result, we've expanded international utility and stakeholder representation on our board of directors by about twenty percent. About fifteen percent of the members of EPRI's executive-level Advisory Council represent countries such as Mexico, France, Ireland, Austria, and Canada. Our global reach through these two bodies is broad and continues to expand.