Accenture
Eva Burén is Accenture's Managing Director — Global Energy Retail and Song Utilities Lead. James Mazurek is Accenture's Managing Director — North America Utilities Strategy Lead.
Affordability is fast becoming the center of attention at energy and utilities companies as the energy transition gains traction throughout the nation and the world. That is due in part to significant investments required to upgrade aging infrastructure and evolve it for lower carbon emissions, while also combatting the ill effects from increasingly dangerous natural disasters, and handling increased energy demand.
To help understand how to deal with affordability issues, Accenture recently released a report, "The energy provider's guide to net zero: Managing consumer affordability and an affordable energy system." The report finds that completing required investments will more than double electricity costs as a percentage of household income, but consumers cannot afford to support this scale and pace of investment.
Alternatively, keeping the transition affordable will delay achieving net zero by thirty-five years according to Accenture analysis. To dig into the report's findings, Public Utilities Fortnightly discussed it with two of the authors, Accenture's Managing Director — Global Energy Retail and Song Utilities Lead Eva Burén and Managing Director — North America Utilities Strategy Lead James Mazurek. The third report author is Senior Managing Director — Utilities Global Sector Lead Scott Tinkler.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: Talk about what is most important that industry leaders should take away from this survey and report.