Fortune Staff

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The parent company of Southern California Edison generates and distributes electric power, energy services, and renewable energy.

Edison International (EIX) Company Profile, News, Rankings | Fortune

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Edison International

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Adam Lashinsky

The latest business buzzword? ‘Decarbonization’

/2015/09/29/utilities-edison-google-decarbonization/

Katie Fehrenbacher

Announcing the speaker lineup for Fortune Brainstorm E (that’s for energy)

/2015/08/18/brainstorm-e-speaker-lineup/

CEO Pedro Pizarro says “We are doing things today we didn’t imagine five years ago”

Edison International CEO: AI Tools are Transforming Utilities

Leadership

Edison Intl. CEO: AI Tools are Transforming Utilities

Pedro is amazing to see how artificial intelligence has become such a valuable business tool for so many industries, including for utilities, tell us how ai has changed the way you operate your company, Edison International and your utility southern California. Edison. It is helping us to deal with the massive amounts of data that we generate across our business. Um and automate the processing of that and getting intelligent information out of it. We're just starting with this susie. Uh and the impact already is amazing. Nobody likes power outages, Nobody likes to be without electricity. And it is so critical for utility to check the status of this critical infrastructure. I know you're using ai to do that, explain how that works. First we have smart meters for all of our five million smart meters and those were men just to be a billing tool, but they're looking at voltage every fifth minutes. So we're now able to use machine learning based algorithms to examine all that data and look at the state of the system. And one application is allowed us to do is to if we have an issue where a car has hit a pole and a line has fallen to the ground. We can now detect the vast majority of those very quickly by using machine learning algorithms. And I understand that just for your standard maintenance work and inspections of your critical infrastructure, you're using drones with cameras that are doing the work that used to be done manually. Right? Absolute. And we have in uh significantly increased the amount of inspection that we do, particularly in the 27% of our territory. That's high fire risk areas. Uh And so now we're using drills to get 3 60 views of our assets out in the field powers folds wires, that generates a large number of photos. Right? So we're now able to use AI to examine those photos to the first fast identify areas of concern. We still need a human being to take a final look at that. But you know that AI capability has dramatically enhance our ability to be able to sort through the thousands of photos that we need to expect our system. Tell us a little bit about how AI is helping you deal with wildfires. I mean, we know that power lines ignite wildfires, but I understand that a I also helps to fight wildfires before they even start. How does that work? Certainly the examples I just gave you both go towards that. Right, Because down wires can start a fire and getting better inspections help prevent wildfires, but we're also using supercomputers to run over 100 million fire simulations nightly. And that gives us some sense of what is the fuel on the ground, what our weather conditions uh and therefore help us to triage out. What are the areas of greatest concern are the areas where we may need to double down on inspections or areas where we need to do greater hardening of the system. Um or areas potentially where things are, you know, conditions are tough enough. We might need to take a preventive outage to help a avoid a fire. So all of that is being assisted assisted through uh you know, significant supercomputing assets with the machine learning and Ai capability as well. How much has this changed and made detection much faster and easier? It's just night and day. So the rate of change is amazing. It's been amazing to hear and it's going to continue changing but much more automation across the system, the ability to, you know, to process all of this. We still need humor Beings in the equation but their capacity to move and move quickly, particularly as we get larger scale events with climate change. We we are doing things today that we didn't imagine five years ago. And it's making a huge difference in keeping our communities safer looking ahead. How do you see a I evolving in your business in the future? What are going to be the kinds of things that you'll do 5, 10 years from now that you couldn't have imagined right now? Well remember that our system itself is evolving. So we're going from what used to be a one way power grid with large central stations feeding all the power to a system that is more and more distributed. Right? So think about that as having now instead of a few dozen nodes, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of notes that we need to uh coordinate, monitor. Uh and so ai tools are going to be able big part in making sure we can run that kind of large scale and much more complex system also think will be helpful in terms of running the system with high cybersecurity standards to be able to monitor potential threats. And then finally, I think we're just scratching the surface now in terms of a ice capacity to improve the customer experience to anticipate customer, needs to find better ways to communicate with the customer. So it's just an exciting time.

Pedro Pizarro’s biggest worry on protecting the environment: “a lack of urgency.” 

Edison International CEO on Climate Change Bill: “It’s a game changer” 

Edison Intl. CEO calls Climate Change Bill "a game changer”

Edison International CEO on Climate Change Bill: “It’s a game changer”

Pedro, thank you so much for joining us to talk about Edison International. Your company operates one of the largest electric utilities in the country. Southern California. Edison. So what's your take on the new climate change bill? Is it a game changer? It is a game changer and it may help the us get as much as a 40% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030. Uh, you know, very much part and parcel of what our company has been doing, what the state of California has been doing. And it's great to see action at the federal level. But there's still considerable debate about this. Many scientists are saying that the legislation doesn't do enough supporters are declaring victory and saying that because of this new law, it will make it possible to drastically cut carbon dioxide emissions. You're a scientist by training. Where do you stand in this debate? All of these conversations. All of these steps get us one closer to addressing the issue on a global level. So here we have the US taking another important step. It's not the first step we take in as a country, I don't think will be the last step we'll need to take. But it's a big step. You've written many op ed articles about the cost of inaction when it comes to climate change. What worries you most? Lack of sense of urgency and the bill helps with that. But we are so past the time to be doing pilots or being doing small things. Uh, take a look at our state of California, right? There's a state that already has on the books and legislation a target to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 40% from 1990 levels by 2030. And I can't think of any state that has done as much as California. All that said, if you look over the last decade or so, great job that the state has done reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 1% a year. Uh, and that's what the economy growing, you know, 3% a year or so. But here's the big, you know, big issue as you look at getting to 2030 white paper that we published called mind the gap last year, Pointed out that in order to get to 2030, the state will need to quadruple the rate of emissions reduction starting pretty much now. Right, so go to a 4% a year reduction as opposed to the 1% a year we've had over the last decade. So that illustrates a sense of urgency that we need not only in California, but nationally globally, because we're seeing the impacts of climate change and we're certainly seeing them in our home state? Well, your utility Socal has in some ways been a role model, you've been very aggressive about decarbonization energy. Can you tell us, what are some of the key things that you've been doing that sets you apart from other business companies today. Southern California. Edison has the country's largest utility based programs for supporting electric vehicle charging, uh over $800 million that have been approved for that last year, SCE also made a filing at the Public utilities commission in California to do something similar for buildings with a nearly $700 million program to help get heat pumps installed and help get homes ready, particularly in our low income and disadvantaged communities. So those are ways to have a big picture understanding but also get going on specific actions. Well, it's because of those actions that you said that a local and the state of California, what they've been doing can quote, serve as a practical roadmap for what happens elsewhere. Do you see others? Um whether it's businesses or states following your lead, are you getting phone calls from business leaders from state policymakers, consumer groups, is your phone ringing off the hook? I think not just mine, but it's also the States in the, the good thing is that the conversation is one that's broad and it's nationalist cope California's not alone. Uh hawaii massachusetts, new york. A number of other states have also been in the leading edge here. And there's a lot of discussion that takes place about how are you setting up your renewable target or how are you thinking about markets for this at the business level? I've been really proud to co chair a working group that we've had within the Edison Electric Institute. Our industry group uh working group focused on electric transportation and there the phone has been ringing off the hook, both from other utilities. Right? Because we're all collaborating to share practices. But importantly, there's been a great vehicle, no pun intended to engage with the broader community of automakers of charging companies and so were all exchanging ideas and we're figuring out how do we make this work quickly. And for the long run you've been a ceo Of Edison International for six years now and it's obvious that climate change has been, your priorities are very passionate about it. But what about the directors on your board, your employees, your shareholders? How are they responding to your leadership on this issue? Leadership starts at the top and our board is an absolute partner in this and very committed to the clean energy transition. Same thing with our employees and utilities have been built, you know, for decades on focus focusing on safe, reliable, affordable power. But now it's also about clean and so for employees, it's a renewed sense of our mission that is really exciting. And frankly it's helping to attract and retain fantastic talent. What are you hearing from your employees and what more do they want you to do or what they want the company to do. It's the small actions where we, as individual citizens can show we're, you know, we're part of the solution to so, you know, susie things as simple as hey, you know, what do we still have all those plastic bottles around or what are we doing about? Energy efficiency in our own buildings are um, how do we make sure we are deploying electric vehicle chargers quickly enough at our own locations to accommodate the needs of more and more of our teammates who are getting electric vehicles themselves. So I really like the fact that, you know, our team is thinking both big picture, the big actions that really helped move the economy and then the more local actions that we can take as individuals as you look ahead. What's the single most important thing that you would like to see happen when it comes to climate change? The commission already susie sense of urgency. The time for pilots is over. We need to be responding in a major way and that's because climate change is not just something that's decades away. It's here already. We're experiencing it through wildfires and droughts and extreme heat in California. Our colleagues in the Southeast are seeing it in more massive hurricanes. It's here now. It will get worse. And so we need to be acting now

Edison International

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