AEP, Ameren, Entergy, Exelon, Southern
Tom Fanning is the CEO of Southern Co.
At the June 2019 Edison Electric Institute Annual Convention in Philadelphia, Nick Akins from AEP, Warner Baxter from Ameren, Chris Crane from Exelon, Leo Denault from Entergy, and Tom Fanning from Southern Company, joined Strategy& and Public Utilities Fortnightly for our third virtual innovation roundtable.
Strategy&: Bring us up to date on the accomplishments over the last couple of years around innovation?
Tom Fanning: Innovation's been part of our DNA, in fact, we wrote a book that celebrated our fiftieth year of having research and development. The video was good too. The video won a regional Emmy and just fell short of a national Emmy.
I'm in my ninth year now as CEO of Southern and before I became CEO, R&D was focused on protecting coal. That was environmental controls and a variety of other things.
We've turned the focus of our R&D so that Southern as long as I've been here, has been essentially fuel agnostic. It's whatever makes sense and we believe in the full portfolio.
Moreover, I draw a picture, and it talks about how the age of big iron, which is where we still are, because technology's enabling it, because customers are requiring it, is starting to dissipate. That's not to say that the electricity business is dissipating.