00:00Everyone blames data centers for higher power bills, but what's the biggest thing people are getting wrong in your view?
00:07Well, thank you for having me today. I'm really excited to have the conversation.
00:11And it's such a critical one, not only for our country, but for our communities.
00:16I think this is a complex challenge facing our entire industry.
00:22And when we sit back and we ask ourselves, where are we and where are we going?
00:27We have to reconcile the fact that we are living in an age that there is a disconnect.
00:32There is a disconnect between the pace and growth of technological advancement and the demand for economy to grow and
00:41the physical reality of the grid and how we build our infrastructure.
00:45And historically, the way we built out infrastructure in this country was really a just in time approach.
00:50And we did it incrementally and we grew very, very, very small increments year over year.
00:56And now we have this huge economic opportunity in front of us and it's asking us to grow rapidly.
01:03And in that tension, we are finding a lot of opportunity, but we're finding a lot of challenge.
01:09And I think when you ask the question, how are data centers stressing the grid or what's the challenge in
01:15front of us?
01:16We really have to go back and say, was our infrastructure prepared for this?
01:20Was it not?
01:20And the reality is we weren't prepared for the opportunity in front of us, but I think the industry today
01:27is really working to develop the innovations to make sure that we are going to grow well in the future
01:34and unlock all the opportunity the AI economic development brings to us.
01:40Caroline, I want we want to talk more AI in a moment with you, but I've got to talk about
01:44hurricane season, which is now actually underway.
01:47I think it started June 1st and this time of the year, there's always that concern around electricity grid reliability.
01:54And I think maybe this year that concern is heightened because of all of the data centers that are, you
02:02know, sort of stealing the power away from that grid.
02:05How well prepared are we, do you think, for this hurricane season?
02:10I think NRG is preparing, and I think we are investing in the innovations that are going to protect our
02:18communities and ensure that we meet all customer demand.
02:21You know, I go back to this tension that we're seeing, and you're absolutely right.
02:26We have sort of three legs of the stool.
02:27We need to meet customer demand and load growth.
02:30We also need to keep the lights on and make sure the grid operates reliably.
02:34And at the same time, we need to do all of this by keeping costs affordable to all of our
02:39customers.
02:40And at NRG, we're really leaning into innovations that I think before were sort of seen as pilot programs.
02:47So take the opportunity of flexible power.
02:50You know, for most of my tenure in my career, flexible power was seen as something that was on the
02:55margins.
02:56It wasn't a real capacity solution.
02:57But what we're seeing across our fleet is that flexible power can service not only the needs of today, but
03:04the needs of tomorrow.
03:05So, for example, we saw with Stormfern that we were able, through flexible power, to produce 1.7 gigawatt hours
03:13to make sure that we kept the lights on.
03:15And that was across 126,000 customers that we were able to work with to make sure that we met
03:23the grid reliably, kept costs down, and kept those lights on with the threat of, you know, extreme weather events.
03:33So if AI demand keeps exploding, I'm just really curious about this, then where does the grid hit its biggest
03:39stress point first?
03:42I think we're hitting it, and I think hitting it means opportunity, right?
03:46And I will continue to go back to that.
03:48I'm a perpetual optimist, and I'm in this industry to drive innovation and to drive change.
03:54We're hitting it because, on all levels, we are in a crunch to meet demand.
04:03So at the grid level, we don't have the topography, we don't have the supply chain to meet out the
04:09transmission system at the pace of demand.
04:12At the supply level, we don't have the supply chain, we don't have the workforce to meet out the power
04:19demand that's needed right now.
04:21However, we have this really interesting opportunity with the capital that's there and the demand that's there to reinvest in
04:30new solutions.
04:31And so at NRG, we're building the power plants that we need today, as you pointed out, to make sure
04:37the grid is running reliably.
04:40And we're going to need tomorrow because demand is going to continue to grow.
04:43But we're also looking at all of those different areas.
04:46What can we do on supply chain?
04:48What is the partnerships we can do on labor?
04:50What are the partnerships we can do on transmission?
04:52What are the partnerships we can do on innovative technologies?
04:55And by doing all that, we're tackling all of it.
04:57There isn't one leg of the stool that's falling down.
05:01Everything's being stressed.
05:02But in that stress, we are working across the board with partnerships at all levels to figure out what are
05:09the solutions we need today.
05:10But then they're also going to take us to the next wave of opportunity moving forward.
05:15I want to talk a minute about electricity bills because, you know, the U.S. consumer is getting hit right
05:19now with higher electricity.
05:21I mean, energy is just higher wherever you look.
05:23Natural gas, wherever you heat your home, however you're going to cool your home.
05:26And I'm wondering what NRG Energy is doing on the affordability issue.
05:33Yes, it's a wonderful question, and thank you for it.
05:36I want to say first and foremost, I'm a people person, and I joined NRG because NRG puts its people
05:42first.
05:43And we take very seriously the economic impact that is transcending across our country right now.
05:55And we're sort of engaging in, I think, three ways.
06:00The first way we're engaging is the fact that we are committed to dispatching the lowest cost power we possibly
06:07can on the system to make sure that we're keeping energy prices low.
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