Mark McGettrick, CFO, Dominion, "PUF Southeast CFO Roundtable, Part II."
"I started in electric distribution, after I came out of school and spent about six or seven years there. This was in residential, commercial and industrial line design.
There were two gentlemen at that time that ran our construction. They taught me several important lessons. First, they taught me the importance of customer commitment by our employees. These were the folks in charge of construction crews that were available all the time to keep customers' lights on and provide new service.
Second, they taught me that there are many different skillsets in a company. You must be able to communicate with all kinds of different people, whether they are craft employees, engineers, clerical employees, management, or customers. The final thing that they gave me was great respect for skilled craft employees.
I never did field work, construction work, electrical type work, or pipe work. But that's what makes these companies go, on the electric side and the gas side - those folks that are pipe-fitters, electricians, linemen, ground-men, substation employees and the folks that operate our generating stations.'"
Ahmad Faruqui and Henna Trewn, The Brattle Group, "Enhancing Customer-Centricity."
"Yet we do not have much information on the customer's perspective on these methods. Take the case of energy efficiency. For years, the industry thought that customers cared about energy efficiency. They don't. It is a concept that is only of interest to engineers.
This was very evident at a recent town hall meeting in the city of Dublin, California. Some fifty homeowners had gathered one evening to listen to presentations by energy experts. As the discussion progressed, it became very clear that homeowners were not just interested in saving energy, even though that was an objective.
More importantly, they wanted to be comfortable, in control over their lives, doing something good for the planet, and, yes, saving money. When it came to energy, they wanted style as much as efficiency in their appliances, light bulbs, and windows.'"
Virginia Palacios, Environmental Defense Fund, "Leak Detection/Measurement Saves Money."
"Natural gas is made of methane, and methane is over eighty times more potent than carbon dioxide as a climate warming pollutant over the first twenty years it is emitted. When natural gas leaks into the atmosphere from utility infrastructure, customers pay the price and the environment is degraded.
But market based solutions like advanced leak detection technology and leak quantification, by addressing the methane leakage problem, save customers money and can help to realize the potential climate benefits of natural gas.
Working together, state regulators and utilities can use advanced leak detection technologies and leak quantification methodologies to improve both the economic and environmental efficiency of large capital expenditures directed at replacing pipeline and reducing the number and size of pipeline leaks.'"
The magazine for commentary, opinion and debate on utility regulation and policy since 1928, Public Utilities Fortnightly. "In PUF, Impact the Debate."
Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly
E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com