Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1371910
16 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | MAY 17, 2021 There is no question in my mind the project is going to move forward. Q: Eversource has traditionally been an easy target for criticism from lawmakers and regulators. How do you plan to get back in the good graces of those constituents? I hit things head on. What you'll see with me is that I want to engage and get to a mutually-beneficial outcome so we can get a win-win. It doesn't always have to be a win-lose. Q: What are your thoughts on the recent PURA report that was highly critical of Eversource's response to Tropical Storm Isaias? Believe me we feel terrible about what happened with Isaias and we are sorry about that and we always look at how we can improve things. But the fact of the matter is you have a weather pattern in the South, which generally happens that time of year, hurricanes, they come up during August, September and October. We must have six to eight weather services that are telling us what is taking place. That weather pattern was shifting and shifting so we began to line up mutual aid crews but no matter what you do, nobody to the south of you is going to commit crews until they see the type of damage you have. The other thing is you really can't do much until the storm passes. There is a mandate that power must be restored within 96 hours of a storm hitting (or else utilities must compensate ratepayers). But when these big storms hit they are violent and create a lot of devastation. You really can't put a stopwatch on and say you want power back in 96 hours. When you have wires all over the ground, you don't know if someone has a generator running that wasn't properly set up and that's going to back feed into one of our lines and kill one of our workers. It requires a lot of thoughtful and deliberate planning. That storm did 30% more damage than Superstorm Sandy and Irene. We got people back online quicker than those storms. We had 2,550 crews we deployed. We had to get 6,000 hotel rooms for crews when usually we have 3,000. It was a pandemic so we could only have one person in each hotel room and one person in each truck. People have to appreciate that. Our employee morale was really hit hard by the criticism and that bothers me. They don't deserve that kind of criticism. Q: Is there anything Eversource is doing to improve its future storm response? I was on the phone recently with utility CEOs from around the region and what we were talking about is how do we expand the mutual aid footprint. We are thinking differently. Do we go to the Midwest for help? Maybe we get some of the Michigan crews. Maybe crews from Ohio. We are also meeting with communities to determine what their priorities are when these big storms hit. Connecticut has among the highest electricity prices in the country. Why? The reality is Connecticut and Massachusetts value a clean kilowatt hour, energy efficiency, and green energy and with that comes a price. If you want to go to Texas, you can probably get yourself half the price, but you aren't going to get the reliability and you are going to get a dirty kilowatt hour. I think the folks in Connecticut can go to bed at night feeling like they are doing all they can to help the environment and lower their carbon footprint. And with that comes cost and that is the decision policymakers have made. Q: Eversource became a big player in the water industry when On The Record Earn your Master's Degree at the University of Saint Joseph APPLY NOW FOR FALL SEMESTER CHOOSE FROM 27 PROGRAMS THAT OFFER: • Graduate degrees for the dynamic workplace • Quality teaching • Expert faculty • Flexible schedules • Online and on-campus programs NEW GRADUATE PROGRAMS: • Physician Assistant Studies, M.S. • Chemistry – online, M.S. • Health Coaching – online, Certificate • Health Informatics – online, Certificate www.usj.edu/masters it acquired Bridgeport-based Aquarion Water Co. in 2017 for $1.7 billion. Aquarion recently announced it was buying a Plainville water company. Why did Eversource want to be in the water business? The water business is basically an infrastructure business. We love it. If we can find more deals we will pursue them. There are 50,000 water companies across the country so when you pick one up, you get 1,000 customers here and 5,000 customers there. What happens with a lot of water companies is they come to a point when they have to make an investment, whether it's in treatment or something else, and they say the burden is too much for them. And that's where we come in and we have the management team and expertise and we roll these companies up. Q: In 2019 Eversource made a declaration that it would be carbon neutral by 2030. Is that goal still realistic? We feel good about meeting that goal. The big steps we are taking to reduce our carbon footprint are related to our fleet and facilities. Q: How much do you worry about cybersecurity? It's a very big threat. We have our IT area in Berlin where we can see the number of people trying to penetrate our system. I'll go into this room and see the map and all the sudden there will be this country that begins to pound us, trying to get into our system. Attacks could come from anywhere from Russia or Ukraine. The number of attempts is in the millions on a weekly basis. We have a cyber team and outside folks who are guarding the system. PHOTOS | CONTRIBUTED Tropical Storm Isaias knocked out power to over 1 million Connecticut residents creating headaches for utility customers and Eversource, which had to restore power amid a pandemic.