form coalitions around the value and many have done and furk, asking for a rehearing. >> thank you so much. ferc. [ applause ] now, tom, from a company that represents electric utilities, for 220 americans provided as participants. the members include, operating in all 50 states, d.c., and employ more than 500,000 workers and has 70 international

electric companies as international members and related energy suppliers. tom was president of the american nuclear council subsequently merged into the nuclear energy institute. he has represented virtually all companies in the commercial electric power industry and he joined us here many times and been a tremendous supporter of u.s. e.a. and a thought leader and friend and visionary, too. tom, it's a pleasure to have you here. [ applause ] >> let me say bonjour, i have never been call peeed that.

it's a great honor to be on the platforms of the energy business, sheila and barry, really continue to appreciate usca's leadership, as we discuss these important issues. the previous speakers represented gas and coal and nuclear and renewables. i remember being at a dinner one time and there were a number of speakers like this, got to be about 1030, and the last speaker came up and said, you know, i think everything that could have been said should have been said has been said. everybody breathed a sigh of relief we could go home and relax and get to bed. he said but not by everybody, and he talked about another hour after that. i will try not to do that and

interrupt your lunch. i did notice the gender is changing here. sheila, that's a wonderful thing. the fact you placed me between julia and maria and karen, that's just not fair. it is an exciting time to be in the energy business. for those in the media, it's a very slow news period in 2020. energy and environmental issues are interesting, too, and a large part of the national debate. i think that usually, in the past when we've come to these forums, people have a tendency to talk about the last year and what's happened there and what the outlook is for the next year. i notice people are talking longer term right now, and i like to do that as well. basically, i think a longer term

perspective does give you a bigger picture what's really happening in this business. i think since we are at the start of a new decade it is appropriate to go back and take a look at that. the energy electricity business, i have to get a slide up here. i don't have a whole lot of these things. i think it's interesting to put these in perspective. what did i do? just turn it off? there you go. in any case, the electricity business does represent a fairly substantial part of the economy. 5% of gdp. i always say it's the first 5% of gdp. without electricity you haven't got much of a gdp.

and 7 million jobs. it's a very very substantial business. it's had a long term mission. the mission for decades has been reliable, affordable and clean, increasingly clean. that mission is something that doesn't change. during the last decade, we've really gotten the industry together and julia talked about some of the heroes in the business that have been the leaders. i don't have any favorite children. i think you really see the collective leadership of the electric utility industry has been a long term mission but we can do better. we got everybody together, the senior leaders of the electric business together and said what is your vision? what is the vision really

transformative to this industry? they really came out with three things, much cleaner, much smarter and much stronger and much more customer-focused, as part of all of those equations. i think the idea -- will go back to my thomas edison quote because i love to quote tomas edison, he said a vision without implementation is an hallucination. we see a lot of people with visions that don't carry through on it. i'd like to talk about the implementation. what happened in the last decade? let's start out with cleaner. let's see if this changed. there we go. >> there we go.

do that for me, would you? there we go, finally got it up there. let's start out with the cleaner. 10 years ago, our industry was in the crosshairs of every major legislation. we had the markey bill and electric energy was the sole focus on that bill. we had the mercury rule and epa and clean power plan. we negotiated on those regulatory situations, and waxman-markey was a 17% reduction by 2020. the clean power plan was a 30%

reduction by 2032. even more aggressive than the paris agreement. if you look at what's happened since then, we have reduced carbon emissions in the electric utility sector more than any other place in the world and reduced carb emissions from 2005 levels by 27%. the investment in utilities alone have reduced it by 37%. that's a fairly substantial accomplishment. how did we do that? we increased the use of natural gas that's been a substantial thing, and i want to give a shout-out to natural gas, too. we did increase renewables a great deal. and the nuclear plants. the combination have given us a situation we have 24/7 reliability and dispatchability

and we have messaged to reduce carbon emissions in a big way and as maria pointed out, about a third of emissions are carbon-free. to go from where we are to where we have been and to the future, the commitments mentioned here by our ceos and our visionaries, has talked about a 50% by 2030 on average and 80% by 2050. maybe we will get carbon-free by 2050. that's a long time away. we have to look at the new technologies that will help us get there, and we will be working aggressively on new nukes and storage and all kinds of things that will help to change things there. maybe carbon capture storage as well. new technologies and hydrogen

technology an things of that nature, a very very exciting future. the commitment and vision is there and we will continue to work strongly on that. smarter. how are we doing on the smarter side of the equation? on the smarter side of the equation we have majorly invested in the grid. this is -- over a period of a decade, we have added, up to right now, 98 million meters, smart meters. i was with the mayors last night and talking about smart cities and all the changes happening and things enabling that, the smart meters enabling the integration of smart technologies on the system and maintaining liability and enabling two-way communication with our customers and allow us to serve customers, whether it be the military that wants a

higher degree of resilience and reliability to customers that want clean energy and demanding clean energy, individual residential customers that want apps to help them message their system and become more officiate. so, a very very exciting future with all of this investment being put under the grid. finally, stronger. we used to say reliability is the total priority for the industry, the number one priority. it still is. but reliability, we've found the definition of reliability is how the system works on a day-to-day basis. we're very very proud we have a 99.99% reliability. but, the resiliency is where we're focused a lot now, which is to say, okay, what happens

when you have the extraordinary events and it's not an ordinary situation, you have storms like sandy and maria and harvey and irma and things of that nature, you have tornadoes and you have wildfires right now. perhaps cyber attacks. our vision has been to harden ourselves to the idea we have to make this system a lot stronger. we formed a partnership and have a mutual assistance program i'm proud of but not up to the task of major events happening. we formed a partnership with the federal government and moved on storms, people, you think of moving 60,000 people, that's a

major operation from canada and west coast and other places around the country to deal with storms, it's a major major operation. then, we go to a situation we have the possibility of maybe a cyber-attack from iran we're looking at right now as a concern, a huge concern. again, we formed a partnership with the federal government under the direction of the president and we've added new technologies, which we've gotten from the labs, have major information sharing regimes, do exercises like we did a couple months ago that involved thousands of people all around the country and established a cybermutual assistance program which means we will all come together in the case of a cyberattack. next week, we have a meeting with our federal partners and adding a major segment to it on

the wildfire issues. i think it's an industry-wide issue. we're looking at technologies we can get from the labs of the department of energy, things to help mitigate and get permits early to get in and do vegetation management and other technologies you can use. the data you can have from the secret computers from the federal government that can help us again get in front of this situation. we are very very excited about this partnership where we have all our ceos leading on this issue, coming in for the event. again, i think we will have a situation we're moving resources in a major way to deal with wildfires in the future, to be out in front of it not that the electricity industry is be the

solver of all the wildfires but we can make a major part and i want to change the name from solving firefighters. all of this has taken a lot of investment. we are the most capital intensive industry in the world. capital expenditures for $100 billion. the last 10 years, close to$10 trillion. we've done that at the same time that we've kept rate increases at or below the level of inflation. it's a remarkable story. again, a tremendously successful story. so we've got lots of priorities. see if i can do this this time. i don't know why everybody else

can do it and i can't. >> there we go. >> that's the same one again. anyway, we've got lots of priority. we face this year, lots of issues i could go into. roi decisions, you name it, a lot of things in the states on good modernization. i want to stay focused on the larger picture and bigger picture and transformation going on in this business. taking a long-time perspective sometimes gives you valuable lessons. one lesson i would take in this election year, the electric power industry, no matter what happened, later on this fall with respect to elections from the president to senators, to congressman, to governments and mayors and regulators, no matter

what happens on november 4th, 2020, the electric power industry will have the same focus and the same vision that we had the day and the night before. we are committed to driving a smarter stronger cleaner energy future for all americans, and to continue to provide the reliable affordable increasingly clean energy they want and need. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> any questions for tom? or would you like to -- >> go to lunch. >> you're not allowed to talk anymore. that's a hard thing to do. >> thank you, everyone. see you after lunch, and thanks to our outstanding wonderful speakers and the great staff that always provides tlc and help to all of us. >> right. amen.

thank you. [ applause ] the u.s. energy association conference is taking a lunch break now. while we wait for this to resume, we will show you speeches from the heads of the wind energy association, the solar energy association and the coal mining association. this conference is scheduled to continue just before 1:00 p.m. eastern and we will have live coverage on c-span3. our next speaker is tom kiernan. he's the chief executive officer of american wind energy association. he began as ceo of awea in 2013,

and before that, he was president of the national parks conservation association for 15 years. previous positions, deputy assistant administrator of epa's office of air and radiation. he was in a number of other positions in state and federal government. he has a degree from dartmouth and mba from stanford. i'm delight to have him here know it's smorgasbord of opportunity and ideas and wonderful people that come together, bound together forever because they actually care about energy, they care about the environment and the well-being of the world. step forward, please. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, sheila. good morning, everyone. wonderful to be here and part of the smorgasbord this morning.

somewhat analogous of that, i was looking at the lineup of speakers you and barry put together, reminded me of a group of people in a very darkroom and an animal and the elephant, reaching out to feel the tux and tail and leg. i do think the end of the day today you will have an extraordinary summary where we are in u.s. energy and where another going. i hope it is a great day for you. we have a great lineup of speakers. i'd like to start with a few data points or guard rails where i see the wind industry and my good colleague, abbey hopper, with solar will follow because there is a lot of great partnerships between wind and solar and others whether they be nuclear, wind, or gas. with wind we are currently the largest source of energy in the united states. we put a vision a couple years

ago called wind vision to get us to 20%. wind energy by 2030 in this country. we're excited about that, i believe. abbey may talk about it. solar getting to 20% and add those to other renewables, one could easily envision a majority renewable energy in the united states by 2030. wind energy is also the cheapest source of new electricity on the grid. in many parts of the country we are cheaper than the marginal cost of existing power plants. power costs have come down 70% in the last 10 years. we are affordable and certainly reliable. there are certain individuals that run the grid and talk about wind energy in combination with other courses and storage, wind energy as the new quote, the new base load. wind is hiring, currently at 114,000 positions in the industry and wind technicians

are either the first or second fastest growing professions in the last three years in a row. we are hiring throughout this country well paying jobs with benefits. let your kids or colleagues or family know if they're looking for a growth profession, look at the wind industry. we are launching the u.s. offshore wind energy. we currently have five turbines off of block island but a series of projects totally over 20 gigawatts of offshore wind off the east coast is pre-nexted in the next 10 years. when you look at other proposals, what they're proposing for the cost of wind off the east coast is competitive for electricity prices in those east coast urban areas. another diplomat to frame out the wind industry today, a number of larger developers are offering different types of

products. i want to summarize two of them. they're taking wind, solar and storage, grouping it together and offering it as a firm product to utilities or other customers. they are able to say, we will guarantee this amount of electricity at this price because they're able to match wind and solar storage together to create a firm product. also, we just had announced at our conference this past fall, producers combining wind, solar and storage to look like a peaker plant, we will give you on demand, however much you want, clean energy that meets those peaker cost levels using wind, solar and storage. you're starting to see the combination come together to meet those needs in the electric market even though our products are variable but combining them,

and with storage, you're able to have 100% -- you're able to meet the needs of electric generation. last point i want to say, obvious one, wind is a key solution for climate change. wind does not need any water to produce electricity, and in an increasing areas around the country water is a scarce resource. we are pleased to say we are carbon-free and don't use water and are affordable and reliable. that gives you a quick snapshot. i'd like to share two slides of what i just said, of where we're going. let me start. not sure where to point. if the folks in the back -- there we go. on the left hand side, this is -- you can see the dark line is wind projections using a wia

and wood mack and yellow solar projections, i believe abbey using the data. you can see the growth curve for wind and solar in the last couple of years. there have been many different projections about wind going forward. and a very reputable firms did three different projections. on the left hand side, you can see what they look like. on the right hand side, a little more detail. a base case in the middle and bold case more aggressive and a bear case. what i will do in a few minutes is show you those drivers that will allow the wind industry to hit or exceed the bull case and allow us to take off hence what we are looking for in policy throughout the country. you can also see the green arrows, as i'm sure everyone in this room knows there was a production tax credit at the six

year level, a one year extension. that is obviously lifting up that base case. we anticipate 6 to 8 additional gigawatts as a result of that extension. we see the market heading closer to the bull close in 2023 and 2024. let's jump to the next slide, what i would like to do here, if you can do that in the back. here we go. this is a quick summary on the left hand side of the factors that impact long term wind growth. then, you can see midterm, near term, long term, how i see them playing out and i want to talk about them to give you that sense. first, carbon. we are facing, and mike, i appreciate your comments of a climate crisis throughout the world. i'm pleased wind is part of the solution and in congress, state

capitols, we're starting to see more democratic and republican bills to put forth the carbon challenge we're facing. in a way, it's not surprising -- i want to poll two antidotes. you may have seen the announcement by larry fink, black rock, i think the world 's a set owner at $7 trillion, they committed climate and sustainability will be one of their core principles. the largests a set driver in the world has wind driving it and not surprising congress is moving forward more seriously looking at legislation. the other data point driving carbon, there was an article yesterday in forbes, i was reading it, going through energy across the board, renewables, declining costs and potential for renewables.

this is from ford, one of those analytic pieces they do so well summarized and talking about the decline and cost of renewables. in other words it is cheaper to save the climate than to destroy it. pretty strong statement from forbes. i think it speaks to the move to move forward on carbon in the united states. the pronouncement of the ptc helps on that point and we're looking to create that level playing field so all energy sources are able to compete. we do by example of good bill we will be encouraging this coming year, senator wyden's bill, a technology approach, carbon neutral that incentivizes clean energy.

and then you see the industrial purchasers make their commitments to renewable energy, clean energy. we did an analysis recently. we looked at the fortune 1,000 companies. they currently consume roughly half of all the electricity in the country. only 5% of the fortune 1,000 companies have yet to make a commitment to sustainability. we're excited to see that 5% grow very likely in the coming years and see an 85 gigawatt potential for renewables by 2030. last year, in arlington, texas, at the gm facility, where they're producing their suvs, excites at that point they had a wind farm nearby that was producing half of the electricity needed to run that huge assembly line.

they, roughly 6 months ago, committed to going 100% clean energy and 100% wind powered for that gm assembly plant for their suvs. exciting to see that kind of commitment to that big of a company. offshore, we see 26 gig watts, roughly, in the next 10 years, the amount of commitments made but probably take longer to get installed. a $70 billion supply chain in the united states of the offshore industry and 38,000 new jobs. a lot on the east coast but a chunk in louisiana and gulfcoast as oil and gas expertise there, offshore gas and oil expertise can help drive and implement the offshore wind industry. the lowering of the levelized costs of energy are also key

drivers in the future of wind. we do have challenges. clearly, we need to keep working in the country at the state and federal tloefl improve, whether transmission lines or wind farms, we need to shead up the process in the country. next transmission. we will not get the clean energy grit we need get renewables where they're developed to created to load without new transmission. as well, most of our transmission lines in our country have congestion right now. we need to get transmission from where it's developed to load. the benefits of that new transmission are two-four times of the cost of building that transmission. offshore permitting is an important next step. we're working with the

department of interior and they have not yet released the first offshore wind farm and working to get that out this spring. tariffs are our significant concern and we're working to reduce those tariffs while the majority of the costs of a wind farmer reduced in the united states, we do because of the supply chain being global are impacted negatively by tariffs and hoping to reduce those. given the growth of the wind energy, focused on logistics getting them out when deploying a lot of wind. in closing, from the wind energy perspective, the next couple of years extraordinarily important for us and advancing wind you will see increasingly partnerships among renewables and solar and other sources to advance energy in the country. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> i see you were associated with the audubon society. how is the wind industry addressing the concerns which have been voiced over the risk to avian life? >> thank you very much for that, sheila. after my remarks here, i'm going to join a group of the environmental community talking about that. let me put it in perspective. .01% is the amount of human caused bird death by the wind industry. actually less than .01%. we do take it seriously and are working through the american wind wildlife institute a partnership of the environmental community and wind industry. there are a lot of technologies and techniques deployed now and we have more in the works to take that less than .01% of human caused bird death, the

biggest impact on buildings, roads, power lines, in cats, so wind is actually quite small, i should say domestic cats, quite small and something we want to drive further down. any other questions? i'm not sure of our time. any other questions. >> are you working with the grids on the rate structure and state regulators and the national regulators to have to maintain that place and opportunity lineup for overall supply, and do you work into the weeds on the rate structure the entire process of getting the wind power on the grid? >> fortunately, i do not, but my staff does, yes. we work at those levels and we have with our regional partners

because what we're looking to do is compete in the markets for electricity, the rtos, hosting that market and we want a level field there to compete straight up so we're working with all the stakeholders and each of the rtos to update the market design. >> great. any other questions? >> i just wanted to ask you if you see carbon pricing and dividend policy as potentially something that could help the wind industry and realistically a bipartisan kind of solution to some of this? >> we see carbon pricing and dividending as one of a suite of potential approaches, so we are actually supportive in concept at the high level of carbon pricing and dividend climate leadership council is

advocating. we are looking at ces and cap and trade. we think there are a number of -- just a straight-up carbon tax that could work this year and we look forward to working with legislators and other groups to keep refining those different options to see what politically can work and make the most sense. we do see carbon tax and dividend a couple of ways. do you want one more? i don't know our timing. >> thanks, tom. appreciate your comments. can you talk a little bit more about your partnership with louisiana? you mentioned louisiana could help advance wind? >> we have an offshore wind council, a group off the east coast and we're working with them as we speak to partner up with louisiana companies to provide expertise and products to provide the initial wind product off block island.

i believe the foundations were f fabricated down in louisiana, i believe, gulf island, looking at that and other capabilities, and kill seths in louisiana, as we're speaking, to identify other companies to partner up. we do see a huge amount of opportunities there from the job front, makes sense from all perspectives. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> very quick question, barry. will these slides be available on our site? yeah. i assume most of the speakers will share their slides? it will be very very hopeful, i think. next speaker, abigail ross harper president of and ceo of the solar energies association. we are delight to have her here. scia is the american association

for solar energies. she overseas government affairs, research, communications and leadership and focused on creating a remarkable new environment where solar grows and grows. before joining scia she was part of the department of interiors osha management where she led the agency that oversaw the leasing and development of all offshore energy, oil, gas and offshore wind. she served formerly as director of maryland energy administration as acting in 2012, and then as director starting in 2013. she's also served concurrently as energy advisor to governor martin o'malley then. delight to have you here. please join us. thank you so much, abigail. looking forward to hearing from you. >> good morning. how are you?

good. i'm glad to hear that. i'm super excited to be here as well. i have a speech which i will read in a moment. i want to say thank you very much for inviting me. i appreciate following tom. tom, can i share our weird life story? so, tom and i have very -- in addition to having the honor of leading the two most -- the fastest moving trade associations in washington, no offense, mike, or maria, we also shared this crazy history. so tom and i both grew up in washington, d.c. tom went to the boys school her, i went to the girls school here. tom and i both went to dartmouth, not at the same time. then, tom lived here with his family and i lived here with my family. his kids went to the boys and girls school and my kids went to the girls and boys school and now lead the trade association. when we say we have a shared

vision of what our future should look like, it comes from a shared past and history. it's this weird thing we didn't realize about ourselves. that's partly because of what most of what tom talked about i will say, yes, and expand upon. my goal for you to take away from this, i believe we have a shared view of what our energy future looks like, right? it's not a technology specific future, per se, but more one defined by its attributes. in my opinion, that is a carbon-free future reliable. that's the vision i have. i will talk more specifically about solar and i'm the head of the solar industry. that's what they may me to talk about. i will talk about that. i will talk a little bit about frame it and where solar is going and how we're growing by the numbers, but then talk a little bit about policies so critically important to us. i want to share -- i want to --

back of the room, where do i point this to change or do you want to change it for me? down. i want to talk a little bit about where we've come since the last decade. in 2000 or two decades now, many people doubted solar would be a viable option for energy. many can see in 2000 we had two gigawatts of solar deployed and reality is we will have 95 gigawater deployed in this past year. it shows we have increased solar by a factor of 188. pretty amazing. some of the biggest companies such as target, walmart, amazon and apple are all leading the way. i am proud to represent the vibrant solar industry. there are now more than 2

million installations across the united states and 350,000 americans working in the solar industry. we added tens of thousands of locations powered by solar energy. one of the things i'm excited about it. it is scalable. you can have it on your home, your hospital, have it on your retail or warehouse and humongous power plant in the desert. solar energy is everywhere and our impact is undeniable. part of the reason for our success is changing attitude. i can't tell you how refreshing it is to talk about climate change again. it is a reality and appreciate the speakers who acknowledged that reality. climate change has historically been an elephant in the room. i don't think that's true anymore and i don't behave that

way. politics is changing rapidly. when i speak with politics, they are looking for ways to tackle our rising climate because they have seen the same poll numbers we have. according to a poll research poll nearly half of all americans are considering solar energy and a huge percentage support it. the last time was there a poll where 92% of americans agreed on anything. it's becoming obvious americans must respond to what we want and what the health of our planet demands. what do we do with this point? we have an incredible interest and trajectory before us? we think big and we think ahead and what we can do to work better. we have many speed lumps along the way and many have bruises from the speed bumps, and we are incredibly optimistic about our

growth. we have deemed this decade the solar plus decade. by 2030, i think solar will comprise 20%. what tom side, if wind is 20% and combine that with renewable technologies and carbon-free decade, we're at an incredible time and huge huge shift. by 2030 more than 14 million rooftops will have solar and we will offset over 500 million metric tons of greenhouse gas annually, equivalent to 35% of all electric sector emissions. think about that for a minute, thinking how we together solve for reducing carbon emissions, if we reduce solar to 20 to 30% we will reduce the challenge in

front of us. the 35% reduction in carbon stopped me in my tracks when i saw it. it speaks to the value proposition and solutions we have in front of us to help fight climate change. not only climate change. oh, i didn't do what you said. there we go. that's what it's going to look like in the next decade. in addition to the economic benefits, by 2030, 500 gigawatts of pv will be installed, 600,000 americans from every walk of life will have a career in solar energy. we're calling this radical market transformation, as i said, the solar plus decade. i want to emphasize the "plus" because i think it speaks to your organization. the 2020s will be the decade when solar really transforms to how we generate, distribute, and consume energy in this country.