EEI Financial Conference
Jan Vrins is a partner and segment leader for the Global Energy, Sustainability, and Infrastructure segment at Guidehouse.
Excerpted from EEI's 54th annual Financial Conference:
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted business operations nationally with more employees working remotely. This shift in operations and increase in residential demand has further amplified the need for affordable energy, as well as a reliable and resilient energy grid.
In addition to the changing business environment, many utilities have set ambitious greenhouse gas goals and several states set aggressive clean energy standards and targets. The increasing severity and frequency of weather events coupled with the threat of cyberattacks have increased focus on the importance of resilience CAPEX.
Global Energy Sustainability and Infrastructure Segment Leader, Jan Vrins: I want to recognize three resiliency challenges that we are facing as an industry today. The first one is immediate resiliency challenges with hurricanes, wildfires, and cyberattacks. We need utilities to prepare, restore, and recover. Hardening security measures are being put in place.
Medium term, as the grid is changing, as we get more smart technologies, distributed energy resources, and intermittent resources on the grid, we also need to warrant resiliency as we continue to support our customers.