Conversation with Reuters’ Owen Rolt about the jam-packed collection of CEOs and other industry leaders in this conference that is just around the corner in Brooklyn.

“Electrification 2022 comes with a global perspective as EPRI works in 45 countries with over 450 companies.”

“We want to prioritize policies regarding tax and finance, infrastructure, resiliency, environment, changing customer expectations, reliability, and support for customers and workers.”

“Avista’s team of engineers, McKinstry, and our smart people got together and designed these buildings from the ground up with innovative systems. Instead of operating in silos, the buildings were designed to interact. They basically talk to each other and the energy grid.”

“There is a role for natural gas. We are comfortable in our net-zero plan saying we won’t require new gas generation after 2035. We expect gas generation will be used less and less, primarily for peak. But we have severe, extended peaks in our region.”

Conversation with Exelon COO Calvin Butler about his company’s focus following the separation with Constellation Energy.

“We have always been leaders in the utilities space when it comes to a focus on resilience. That comes from our experiences with severe weather events.”

“We are very independent, maybe more independent than we get credit for. I don’t think we’re political at all. We all bring different expertise and have a similar mindset of serving the State.”

“The new expectation is we’re not going to have an outage that lasts longer than 24 hours. That is the challenge and we’re blending that with new customer expectations when it comes to renewable energy.”

“My number one issue has always been customer service, and it doesn’t matter if it’s gas, electric, water, or wastewater. You give a utility monopoly, so customers have no choice, and they need to be protected.”