Podcast series: Future of Utilities

Renewable transition: Separating perception from reality

Jim Thomson, vice chairman, US Power, Utilities & Renewables leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Marlene Motyka, US Renewable Energy leader, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP

Hosted by Kate Hardin, executive director, Deloitte Research Center for Energy & Industrials

The road to net-zero emissions is not only a complex one, but also riddled with misconceptions. Most countries are targeting net-zero emissions by 2050, and in the United States, there’s discussion of a 2035 target for decarbonizing the power sector. How difficult will it be to get there? Tune into this latest episode with Jim, Marlene, and Kate as they discuss five common perceptions around renewables—and the actual ground reality.

Read the report: Renewable transition: Separating perception from reality

Implications of decarbonization on the power workforce

Brad Denny, principal, US Power, Utilities & Renewables Human Capital leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Carolyn Amon, manager, Clients, Industries and Insights, Energy, Resources & Industrials

Decarbonization by 2035 could lead to a tripling of the power workforce. In this episode, Brad and Carolyn offer suggestions on what the power sector will need to do to fill these jobs, including expediting digitalization, preparing to compete against other industries with select digital and data management skills, recruiting for talent in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, and more.

Read the report: The decarbonized power workforce: Digital and diverse

Smart energy management for industrials

Paul Wellener, vice chairman, US Industrial Products & Construction leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Jim Thomson, vice chairman, US Power, Utilities & Renewables leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Energy management is becoming a growing component of business strategy. Industrial companies are looking more closely at their energy profiles to identify opportunities for cost reduction, decarbonization, and resilience. In this episode, our energy and industrial leaders, Jim and Paul, discuss converging trends that will likely accelerate industrial companies’ adoption of energy management solutions and potentially boost their interaction with electric utilities and the grid.

Access the related report: Smart energy management for industrials: An ecosystem approach to reduce energy costs and achieve ESG goals

Utility decarbonization strategies

Christine LaCroix, Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP
Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Xcel Energy

The power, utilities, and renewables sector is expected to drive decarbonization efforts in other industries. Unfolding in record time to meet the global imperative to limit global warming, the forthcoming energy transitions away from carbon are doubly significant. In this episode, Christine chats with Brian Van Abel, CFO of Xcel Energy, to discuss emerging technologies, industry convergence, and how they can play into decarbonization frameworks.

Read the report: Utility decarbonization strategies

2021 Power and Utilities Industry Outlook

Stanley Porter, vice chairman, US Energy, Resources & Industrials leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Jim Thomson, vice chairman, US Power, Utilities & Renewables leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP

In 2020, the US power and utilities (P&U) industry led the clean energy transition despite federal policy headwinds—and COVID-19 helped solidify the urgency. In this episode, Stanley and Jim discuss how the energy industry converge as players seek to serve a growing clean power industry in an economy moving towards electrification and five P&U trends as we enter a new landscape.

Read the report: 2021 Power and Utilities Industry Outlook

2021 Renewable Energy Industry Outlook

Jim Thomson, vice chairman, US Power, Utilities & Renewables leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Marlene Motyka, US and Global Renewable Energy leader, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP

The potential for increasing renewable energy demand—combined with the electrification of transportation and industrials, as well as oil and gas companies’ increased participation in the electricity value chain—is accelerating industry convergence. In this episode, Jim and Marlene discuss how these trends could help foster collaboration and what the year ahead may look like for the renewable energy industry.

Read the report: 2021 Renewable Energy Industry Outlook

Business and residential consumer attitudes about energy and resource management

Jim Thomson, vice chairman, US Power, Utilities & Renewables leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Marlene Motyka, principal, US and Global Renewable Energy leader, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP

Hosted by Kate Hardin, executive director, Deloitte Research Center for Energy & Industrials

Over the past 10 years, businesses have consistently raised goals and met them year over year, creating new value while managing resource use.

How have consumer and business attitudes toward energy and resource management, renewables, and climate issues changed over the past 10 years? And will COVID-19 stand in the way of continued progress? Tune into this latest episode with Jim, Marlene, and Kate as they discuss the latest survey results from Deloitte’s 10th year Resources Study and their long-term outlook for the energy industry.

Read the report: Energy management: Paused by pandemic, but poised to prevail

Midyear 2020 Renewable Energy Industry Outlook

Jim Thomson, vice chairman, US Power, Utilities & Renewables leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Marlene Motyka, principal, US and Global Renewable Energy leader, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP

As we began 2020, the renewable energy industry was just preparing to enter a new phase of growth, driven largely by increasing customer demand, cost-competitiveness, innovation, and collaboration. But within a few months, the COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruption across the sector. In this episode, Jim and Marlene discuss the major trends outlined in Deloitte’s midyear 2020 report—providing insights about short-term challenges and long-term trajectory—and what it means for companies in the industry.

Read the report: Midyear 2020 Renewable Energy Industry Outlook

Midyear 2020 Power and Utilities Industry Outlook

Stanley Porter, vice chairman, US Energy, Resources & Industrials leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Jim Thomson, vice chairman, US Power, Utilities & Renewables leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP

In our original 2020 power and utilities industry outlook, we saw emerging opportunities for the industry as it led the economy-wide clean energy transition. While some of the trends around climate goals, DER, and growth will continue, the COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed the transition while lending urgency to strategic decisions about DER and growth opportunities. In this episode, Stanley and Jim discuss the major trends outlined in Deloitte’s midyear 2020 report—providing insights to help leaders navigate increased uncertainty in the wake of COVID-19.

Read the report: Midyear 2020 Power and Utilities Industry Outlook

Exploring the utility customer of the future

Where we were years ago compared to today has been a transformational journey that's happened in a very short amount of time. All the data available now really does give utilities and renewable companies the ability to interact on a much more personal basis than they had even a few years ago.

Jim Thomson

The COVID-19 crisis and the related economic downturn are an external disaster that all utility companies are contending with now.

How can utilities overcome these disruptions? In this podcast episode, we share how it’s important for utility companies, now facing a higher bar for consumer engagement, to advance and take advantage of new digital ways to communicate and interact.

Hear how the 3Ds are reshaping the power industry and transforming customer expectations. And, we also discuss the interconnectivity of the customer and utility journey and how the current pandemic situation is affecting the customer experience.

Navigating the energy transition from disruption to growth: Energy and industrial companies are positioned for a lower-carbon future

Stanley Porter, vice chairman, US Energy, Resources & Industrials leader, Deloitte LLP­
Kate Hardin, executive director, Deloitte Research Center for Energy & Industrials, Deloitte Services LP

It’s great to buy an electric vehicle, but if you are charging that car on power that’s generated on coal, you’re not really making a big difference. If you’re charging that car on power that’s generated with renewables then you are making a much bigger difference in terms of carbon reduction.

Are we getting closer to a lower-carbon future? Deloitte’s energy transition survey reveals the drive to cleaner energy sources continues to sustain momentum, even amid economic headwinds. In this episode, Host Tanya Ott discusses the report findings with authors Stanley and Kate. They share how companies are engineering change across six key channels—and how the COVID-19 crisis could actually accelerate the clean energy transition.

Access the related report: Navigating the energy transition from disruption to growth

100 percent renewables Dbrief (part 2) podcast

Marlene Motyka

There is really no fix recipe or map for the journey of 100% renewables but there is a three step approach taken

In Part 2 of our podcast version of our Dbrief on “Greening your organization’s energy profile,” Marlene Motyka discusses the insights from the Renewable Transition survey and how companies are taking steps towards a renewable energy future.

Live from the 2019 Deloitte Renewable Energy Seminar

Marlene Motyka

130 US cities and seven states now committed to going 100 percent renewable

What will power the future of the renewable industry? Deloitte’s 2019 Renewable Energy Seminar, hosted in Dallas, TX provided a unique opportunity for attendees to explore the trends and issues impacting growth and innovation in the industry—and what they mean to their organization.

It was focused on the theme of renewables “Powering a bright future” and brought together leaders from energy service providers, utilities, associations, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations, as well as executives from the manufacturing, finance, and technology sectors, to share their perspectives on the drivers and opportunities in the global transition to a renewables-dominated future.

Smart cites: The Future is Electric

Simon Dixon, Duncan Barnes and Justine Bornstein

If you were going to design a city today, you would design it in a much more distributed, green and renewable way

The move towards increased electrification through greener means will change the way we power our communities, industries, and daily lives. In the context of global trends toward decarbonization, decentralization, and digitization, we can expect to see profound changes in the way we power our communities, industries, and daily lives. This podcast covers the impact of electrification and hydrogen fuel cells across the transport sector, the infrastructural changes required in our cities; the technological development that drive it, and the implications of shifting consumer and legislative requirements on business models.

Simon Dixon, Global Transport leader, Duncan Barnes, EMEA Digital Utility leader and Justine Bornstein, Energy & Transport Insights leader share their views on how the transport and energy sectors are changing with host Susan McDonald, Future of Energy manager.

Disruptive innovation in the retail power sector

Duncan Barnes and Peter Sayburn

Is the era of selling electricity as a commodity coming to an end?

A big shift is underway in the retail power sector and the rise of three interrelated global trends, digitalization, decarbonization, and decentralization, are threatening the long term viability of traditional business models. The pace of change is increasing and retail power companies need to innovate to compete. Deloitte UK’s Duncan Barnes, partner in Deloitte Digital and Peter Sayburn, Consulting partner in Deloitte UK CEO and cofounder of Market Gravity, discuss the major trends impacting the retail power market with host Susan McDonald.  

Read the full report: Widening the lens: Big-picture thinking on disruptive innovation in the retail power sector

Energy management—Balancing climate, cost, and choice

Stanley Porter and Marlene Motyka

When the customers speak, businesses tend to listen. When stakeholders speak—i.e. investors—businesses tend to listen.

Businesses see opportunities to create new value by conserving resources, diversifying energy sources, procuring renewables, and deploying energy management systems and applications. Host Tanya Ott met with Stanley Porter, vice chairman and National Industry leader for Deloitte’s Energy, Resources & Industrials (ER&I) practice and Marlene Motyka, US and Global Renewable Energy leader—authors of Deloitte’s 2019 Resources Study—to discuss how businesses and consumers are tackling climate change’s challenges and how to reduce carbon footprints.

Read the full report: Deloitte Resources 2019 Study

How are renewables and utilities shaping smart cities?

Bernadette Cullinane and Marlene Motyka

Deloitte created a concept of smart renewable cities (SRCs) to better describe cities that recognize sustainability goals and harness renewable energy.

As cities vie to attract growing businesses, talent, and innovation in an increasingly global competition, renewables and utilities will have a key role in achieving their smart city goals. In this podcast, Marlene Motyka, Deloitte's US and Global Renewable Energy leader and Bernadette Cullinane, Deloitte’s Australian Oil, Gas and LNG leader, discuss renewable energy, smart cities, global insights and the diversity of trends that the energy industry is currently seeing.  

Read the full report: Renewables (em)power smart cities