Article

California Utility Leaders on Their Blueprint for Safety and Resilience

PG&E CFO Carolyn Burke and Southern California Edison CEO Steve Powell join Guidehouse and PUF to discuss wildfire prevention and grid resilience.

California is leading the nation’s energy transformation, with the state’s utility companies making major strides in doing business in a changing environment. Some of the many challenges they’ve been facing include grid hardening and resiliency efforts along with meeting increased data center demand, mitigating wildfire impact, and managing public safety power shutoffs.

These topics took center stage when Guidehouse’s Chris Rogers joined Public Utilities Fortnightly (PUF) in conversation with PG&E CFO Carolyn Burke and Southern California Edison CEO Steve Powell, who discussed their plans to enhance their wildfire prevention, grid resilience, and disaster recovery strategies.

“Safety is foundational to our strategy. This foundation includes the physical and financial protections we’ve put in place, and that the state has put in place over the last few years.”

⁠— Carolyn Burke, CFO, PG&E
In an era marked by transformational change, both utilities seek to pioneer innovative ways to promote greater safety and resiliency.

“We’re working to figure out how to come up with a federal solution to manage liabilities for utilities. That’s a big piece. It’s going to be a challenge to put it together, but it is critically important that utilities have that for the long run, because the wildfire risk is only going to increase.”

⁠— Steve Powell, CEO, Southern California Edison

Read the full interview to discover how PG&E and Southern California Edison are adapting to growing demand while embracing technological developments that will improve safety and reliability for their customers.


This article is part of a series of interviews with U.S. utility leaders that Guidehouse is conducting with PUF.

 

Read the Full Article

RELATED SERVICES
RELATED INDUSTRIES
MORE ON THIS TOPIC

Let Us Guide You

Guidehouse is a global consultancy providing advisory, digital, and managed services to the commercial and public sectors. Purpose-built to serve the national security, financial services, healthcare, energy, and infrastructure industries, the firm collaborates with leaders to outwit complexity and achieve transformational changes that meaningfully shape the future.

Stay ahead of the curve with news, insights and updates from Guidehouse about issues relevant to your organization and its work.