Webinar: How Accurate Emissions Data Drives Decarbonization and Net-Zero StrategiesIn today’s industrial landscape, sustainability is a mission-critical part of corporate strategy. Many companies in hard-to-abate sectors, such as energy and heavy industrials, have set net-zero targets for 2050. Accurate emissions data helps enable companies to effectively operationalize and measure their sustainability programs against these net-zero goals.In a webinar with Reuters, GE Vernova, Xcel Energy and Hamilton Clark Sustainable Capital discussed the multifaceted benefits of emissions data precision and how it can influence decarbonization strategy. The experts also cover how customers are using GE Vernova’s CERius™ emissions management software.Watch and learn how complete emissions data helps:• Improve operational efficiency• Enhance confidence in compliance• Substantiate investment decisions• Increase stakeholder engagement--TRANSCRIPTHi. Welcome to today's webinar. My name is Christy Pooler, and I'm the product marketing director at GE Vernova. Thank you again and welcome aboard to our webinar, which is How more accurate emissions data is crucial to propel the energy transition. Today's speakers include myself. I will be leading our panel discussion. We also have Cole Fisher, who is the America's Decarbonization director at GE Vernova. Jeff West, who is the senior director, Environmental Services at Xcel Energy. And we have Rob Edwards, who is a managing director at Hamilton Clark Sustainable Capital and the vice chairman, board of directors for Maryland Clean Energy Center. Today, we're going to discuss the following. We'll have Cole, who will kick us off and how you can help transform your sustainability programs with more accurate emissions data and more complete data. We have Jeff with Excel. That's going to talk about the need for data, precision and insight to identify your, decarbonization opportunities faster. And then we have Rob with Hamilton Clark, sustainable Capital that's going to focus on financing the decarbonization of hard to abate industries using validated abatement strategies. And then we'll go into a panel Q&A. So this is going to be a very conversational, session. With some questions back and forth throughout the with throughout the webinar. But what I do ask is, just a few housekeeping reminders, that everyone is going to be on mute automatically. And if you have a question to go ahead and submit through the Q&A tab at the bottom of your screen in the zoom, interface. And with that, I'm going to kick this over to Cole Fisher. To start the program. Thank you Christy, and thank you, Reuters Events for hosting us today. Thank you, Rob, for joining us. And thank you, Jeff as well. Looking forward to a discussion today that brings together stakeholders from, the financing side of the energy transition, the grid and utility side of the energy transition in the software and industrial side here at GE Vernova. And to kick this off. The reason we're all here is to figure out how emissions data can propel us into a more sustainable future. You know, on this slide in particular, we see industry disruptions but also opportunities, opportunities to grow the global energy demand shift as sustainable and clean energy in a pragmatic manner, while we also hit our business targets and our power targets. As companies evolve, evolve and respond to regulatory changes and requirements across the world, and then finance those innovations in a prescriptive way, that allows us to hit the energy transition in a meaningful manner. Next slide, Christy. And so why we have disruptions and opportunities. We can now look at why having better emissions data can deliver value for ourselves at GE Vernova and for our clients, we all have similar challenges as highlighted on the previous slide. So more accurate and complete emissions can help drive operational efficiency as an institution. We know where to invest, how to invest, and how to drive the energy transition, but that all hinges on accurate data that helps us with compliance, interactions with the regulators, interactions with internal and external stakeholders, and then allows us to improve better investment decisions. And that data driven stakeholder engagement is critical to all of the above. And finally, with better data, we know where and how to be prescriptive, to have a competitive advantage as a financing institution, as an industrial and software institution, to show those insights and as a utility to drive energy and give your power demands to your end clients. So back over to you, Christy. Christy, you're on mute. Sorry about that. There's a little bit of a latency on my side. So how does GE Vernova approach the emission software, and how is it different? And give us a little introduction to CERius. And what are some of the differentiators, compared to traditional traditional methods. Yeah. Thank you Christy. I'm getting a little bit of feedback, so would you mind going on mute, or are other people getting that feedback? Gotcha. Okay. So first and foremost, you know, how does GE Vernova approach, emission software differently than traditional methods? GE Vernova developed CERius due to those disruptions and opportunities and emissions management that we highlighted earlier. We got to work on our end. As a large industrial company, we deployed CERius in its infancy on our gas turbine facilities in Greenville, South Carolina. And GE Vernova's approach through CERius is really built on four modules: collecting accurate data, monitoring accurate data, reporting and strategizing emissions data. This means the CERius consolidates data from all assets and sites in one platform, from the table stakes of carbon accounting and reporting to complex data collection, using our experience to validate data and taking that into CapEx and OpEx into your decarbonization strategy. Ensuring efficiency and accuracy and timeliness, and collecting data at the operational level to have a prescriptive and robust corporate corporate strategy and planning in one source of truth. CERius, by leveraging GE’s years of expertise in industrial, IoT, energy and power software with the capabilities of machine learning and digital twins, eliminates the black box scenarios that a lot of us feel with emissions in general. Reduces manual time and spend serves, as I said, that one source of truth for collection and validation. And on the other side of CERius it supports all silos of an organization from plant manager, sustainability officers, financial planning and executives so you can hit your demands and your emissions in a critical way in one one software. Thank you. So how about here's another question for you. Can you provide an example of a successful transformation in a net zero program using our software? Yeah, absolutely. And you're going to hear, later on today from we're lucky to have Xcel Energy on the call, the first utility to ever hit a net zero target. And, they are a leader in deploying technology and have a good use case of, of our software and how they've applied it. But, other adopters of CERius have highlighted the main benefits of streamlining complex data and validation on one end and using that good data and accurate data that to be prescriptive in their abatement strategies, marginal abatement curves at the other end is the solution driver. Carbon accounting and reporting modules are our table stakes and the successful transformation of clients via CERius flows further into taking that data supporting CapEx, OpEx, integrated resource planning, for example, giving clients the ability to run scenarios across operating companies, across assets, projects and beyond, zeroing in on the most effective way to abate and invest presscriptively. But on the other side of that, having the most accurate and validated data to make those decisions. So assisting with project timelines is a successful transformation that we've seen, across across pilots in the likes for executive decision making decision making, providing streamlined view of projects, showing if they're tracking or not, tracking to that net zero, how to hit those and address those, and allowing our clients to hit business goals. Most importantly, hit their power demands, hit their business goals, all while moving in lockstep with an emissions strategy that makes sense prescriptive to your business. Thank you. Now, we all know that the, energy organizations and heavy industrials comes with specific challenges to the organization to improve their efficiency to, what what are some of those challenges and how can we abate those challenges? Yeah. You know, and a lot of these challenges, quite frankly, we feel at GE Vernova as well, so self-serving in the sense that, you know, we get to build a software that gets to solve these solutions. But it really starts with collecting and validating complex data. Make sure that data is accurate. Large organizations in hard to abate sectors, they have data and emissions data across scope one, two and three that exist, and different sources can be bifurcated and validating that data is critical. You know, secondly, organizations face challenges is the need for robust data collection, for stakeholder engagement, regular regulatory and investor scrutiny. So making sure that that data is extremely accurate is a is is probably where we see, the challenges and or in the main organizational, dislocation to actual decision making. And they also need to ensure the accuracy and validation of data across all sites to integrate this into a single platform. So they have a holistic view. So this complex problem that software can make faster and more accurate across scope emissions, across jurisdictions, across asset types, across calculation nuances. There's a lot of complexities with emissions data. And that all hinges on, you know, that that accuracy, and that validation. Okay. We have one last question for you. So how does GE Vernova connect the importance of scope emissions to decarbonization in delivering electricity, as well as financial efforts in the hard to abate sectors? Yeah, absolutely. And, it's it's a great question. Us here at GE Vernova. You know, our our motto is electrify and decarbonize the world. So with that in mind, GE Vernova's platform supports the entire ecosystem of emissions for those sectors in those hard to abate sectors, right. Hitting your business demands or your electrification demands, while also decarbonizing in a manner that is prescriptive. So providing executive level oversight to track and meet emissions targets and hit those CapEx, bringing it all together from data to financing and data to investment. CERius also allows, an improvement of enterprise data flow to support things like ESG scores, scope emissions for financial reporting for the SEC and the like, and other jurisdictions that are calling to see what these scope emissions are for. Your For your businesses profile also allows you to get more prescriptive into project based financing. You know, where emissions are a problem within your operating companies. You know how to invest in those in those areas leads to better, linked sustainable financing efforts, which Rob is going to talk to later on today and how data affects that. So all in all, offering abatement, planning to support client net zero projects in a fiscally sound manner. Having a clear view of this data supports it hitting business goals, investing to hit power demands, hitting those net zero goals while moving in lockstep with your emissions targets. Oh that's great. I think the folks have heard from us. So we're going to transition over to, Xcel and... Cole and and Jeff, it's it's all you. Awesome. Thank you. Christy. Jeff, you are on mute, my friend. I took it off. It should have been. Anyway. Anyway, go ahead, introduce myself very quickly here. Jeff West, senior director of environmental services for Xcel Energy, as Cole mentioned earlier. Xcel Energy is a, regulated utility basically running across the central United States. We operate in eight different states. We, run operations in the form of generation, in the form of fossil fuels, renewable energy and wind and solar and battery, refuse derived fuel. In addition, we have two nuclear facilities in our northern states operations. We also, run transmission and distribution of electric and gas throughout those states as well. And then where I'll tell where I'm pretty proud of where I work at right now. Cole mentioned it earlier. We were the first utility, around 2015, that actually had a carbon-based initiative, 80% from 2005 levels reduction by 2030 and 100% carbon-free by 2050. Since then, we've also aligned in 2021 our gas system to meet those similar goals as a 100% carbon reduction or carbon elimination by 2050. Seen several other, many other utilities follow in line with that and, consider ourselves a leader in the industry when it comes to carbon reporting. And so happy to be here today and talk about some of the things that we have in emissions and the importance of that data and the strategy and challenges, and align that with Rob and his aspect from the financing side. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. Appreciate you hitting early on on Xcel sustainability goals. Curious, you know, how do you use emissions management tools or software? And how do these help you in your role at Xcel? Yeah, that's that's a great question. We live in a world with a lot of data. Data is knowledge, and knowledge becomes power. And that's how you can make decisions on where you need to go and where you're going to be. I mentioned earlier we had a net zero vision of 80 by called 80 by 30 and 100 by 50. It's a bold statement to make, but it's a pretty easy statement to make. But after that, now you got to actually do it and make sure it happens. And having the ability to have that data, to have it accurate, to have it in a manner that is easily, easily maneuvered around your organization to make those decisions moving forward so you can strategy and plan for those applications to meet those targets. Be honest with you on the 20 by 30 goal being 80% reduced. That's a fairly easy goal, going 100% by 2050. Going to need some help. Going to need some technology enhancements. Going to need some other things that are going to happen in that area. With that and having the missions data accurate in a central repository, a central location easily maneuvered to make decisions for the future is paramount in achieving those goals. Thank you. And, you know, want to call out Xcel Energy for being, such a leader in this side of the industry. You know, investing now so you don't have to invest later. It really seems to be a message that Xcel thinks about all the time and the work we've done together. So with that in mind, you know, we'd love you to walk us through your relationship with emissions data, how it affects your day to day. And, as senior director of environmental services at Xcel, what keeps you up at night? How do you move forward? And, yeah, just want to, you know, your day to day with this data. I'd love to hear more. Yeah. Data comes in a variety of different, different mechanisms that are out there. We have as, as we've mentioned, a variety of different emission sources. And as we align those in the carbon spectrum from scope one to scope two to scope three, we've got to have a good way to assimilate and bring that forward to see where we're standing today, where we want to be in the future, what maneuvers or changes we need to make within that system, and how can we partner all of that to, quote unquote, clean up the grid electrification downstream with vehicles and other industries and actions that we can really work through to make that work through that. So it's it's a constant maneuver through the actions of seeing the data, seeing where we're at, making these decisions. Because some decision points require more time than other decision points to move forward. There's a capital investment aspect associated with that. There's the regulatory mechanism that's associated with with us being a regulated utility. Many decisions that we make in that space cannot occur just because we want it to. We have to go through a process to get approval of that, to have that happen and to make that that process work for us. And then what keeps me up at night the most about that is our emissions data and predominantly our carbon emissions data, because that's where a lot of scrutiny is now is the most scrutinized data that we send out there. And we have to make sure that it's accurate, and we have to make sure that it's correct and it's in the right reporting mechanisms that align with our vision and a company. Because if we don't, the worst thing you can do to a company, and I'm sure Rob will agree with this, is reputational harm. It's so easy to get rid of it and it's so hard to get back when that happens. So you got to be accurate. You got to be right and you got to be telling the right story. And your story's got to align with your actual actions that you're doing. And that's the importance of having very quick, accurate and credible data. Once you have that accurate data, and it's quick and it's accessible, I mean, obviously the goal, to decarbonize the grid, Xcel Energy and what's the next step, you know, how do you use that data once it's accurate and and applied? Well, look at as far as there's there's two different spectrums that we have. One is internally within Xcel Energy and meeting our goals. And that is the strategy component of planning out how we're retiring other generation, what we're bringing in for new generation, what forms of that generation is based upon the technologies that are available now we're seeing technologies just increased exponentially. Think about where batteries were ten years ago and where they are today. Wind farms and wind turbines and solar panels and those things and how we maneuver that and how we can do that in a manner that is reliable but yet affordable to our customers and our stakeholders. But the other side of that is working with our states and our regulatory bodies and agencies on working through how can our efforts promulgate into other industry and other areas that we can electrify them. Like you said, decarbonize and electrify the world. We can do one thing on our side, but on the other side, there are other industries that are very difficult to abate because of where they're at and the things that are occurring. How can we continue to drive and drive into those industries to electrify that, to further decarbonize that market, making it reliable, cost affordable and accurate. So those are a lot of the simulations that we have every day with data and how that's used and how that's moved forward. It's a great answer. And, you know, taking that a step further, Xcel has been extremely progressive and in movements on this front, know why should other utilities adopt this practice? Why should other downstream, consumers of energy adopt this practice? You've hit on, you know, your use case in Xcel, but also that use case downstream as well. Just what benefits have you seen from from really being progressive in this area? Yeah, that's a great question. And it's a great application that we get when you look at other utilities, when maybe they're extending coal facilities or extending fossil fuel units, we've been very staunch and straight with our targets and where we're at and how we're going to get there, and I think it's important to be that way because we know decarbonization is going to happen. It's just a matter of when and where it will because it needs to happen and it can be pushed from a regulatory space, whether it be through our, agency, through the Department of Energy or the Environment Protection Agency or anything else. But the other side of that is basically three factors that we bring into that are another driver other than we believe it's the right thing to do, and that is our shareholders and our investors want us to move in that direction, our customers and our stakeholders, as far as our regulatory bodies want us to move in that direction. And lastly, our banks and our financers, because we have to get capital to secure these type of actions. And that's how you become a solvent company. They want us to move in that direction as well. So when you put those three together, you know, even though we think it's the right thing to do, you don't really have a choice in that sector too. So you might as well do it now and work towards to get that so you can get ahead of the curve as opposed to being behind that curve. Those are those are great insights. And yeah, I'd love to dive deeper into Xcel's applied, emissions financing, but maybe that's a topic for Rob here shortly. But you hit on something in that answer, regulation. You know, in your eyes. Yeah. Is there a need for a universal reference for emissions data, universal calculations by sector, supported by the regulator? Things seem to be bifurcated, in your seat, you know, how do you address this? And where do you see things going? That's a great question. And I saw a question in the chat that I think will address this as well. Yes. I think that right now I don't call it the wild, Wild West, but there are a variety of different ways that you can report your carbon data. The really only driver out there right now is the EPA mandatory reporting rule that we report every spring, but it doesn't really get to the level of carbon reporting that we really need to have out there. Xcel Energy was a founding member of Climate Registry in 2005. The Climate Registry, or TCR, our series of protocols that are used for carbon reporting that we have been very instrumental in with other utilities in that to define how we should report carbon and what that allows us is an opportunity to actually have a third party certification of our carbon reporting, to say, yes, they follow these protocols, these emissions are accurate, and this is where they should be. We have 17 years of that that we have straight with that on moving through that, I think as we go forward, there is going to have to be a uniform standardization of how we report these scope emissions and this data, because if not, the information that it provides can lead you down different paths that might not be accurate with that. We've already seen states start to do that. As a matter of fact, reporting the state of Colorado right now on how we report data, how we report our carbon, how we catch these emissions, how we use offsets, sales and other things in there to align with how the state of Colorado would like to do that. And we're going to see more appetite as we move that forward. But as we continue to look to decarbonize the world in that scenario, everybody needs to be on that level playing field of how they're reporting the data and what the data means. And right now we don't have that. And so I think it'll be important that we have that in the future. Thank you. Thank you. And to bring this back internal at Xcel right. We've gotten external financing and regulation. But bringing it back internal emissions is a complex topic at every organization. It lives with the chief sustainability officer. It lives with environmental, it lives in finance, it lives in operations. Data at Xcel straddle those, how it overlaps with financing, how it overlaps with operational insights, how it operates. It overlaps with executives and, decision making. So, it's my last question to you, but, if you could talk to the nuance of emissions straddling an entire organization, that would be that'd be great. Yeah. And like I said, we live in a world where data is is power, and it comes very fast and it comes very quick, and it comes from a lot of different sources. And that data is the fundamental basis for any point of decision making that you're going to do. What investments are you going to make in the future to make that to meet your targets? With that, how are you going to do that? Are you achieving your goals? So from your financing standpoint and your credibility, you are actually achieving what needs to be done. And so you can secure that type of money. From an executive standpoint, they are continuing to tout Xcel Energy as a carbon leader. Is their objection or achieving looking for investors looking for profitability in our company in those type of actions? It's important to have that right data as well. So that stretches across all of that. Those venues and the quickness of having that data is, is pretty paramount there because there are some times where things an opportunities can come up and you need to make a decision pretty quick on what's going to happen in that and to have that correct data and to have it in a spot in a location that is easily accessible and readable, allows you to make better informed decision making and can move faster as an organization. We're 100 year old regulated utility. I call this a herd of turtles sometimes, and so we have to really move faster than that at times, and that allows us to do it. Well, thank you for your your answers, Jeff. And thank you to Xcel Energy for being, the fastest of the herd of turtles by a mile. I think, in terms of net zero commitments and decarbonization. So, looking forward to continuing our work together and, more questions to come in the panel here. But over to our next speaker, a man who, needs a little introduction. Rob Edwards. Looking forward to speaking with you here, but over to you, Rob. And, we'll let you introduce yourself here. Thanks, Cole. And thanks, Christy and Jeff. This has already been illuminating for me, and I've we've already been practicing this together. So, Rob Edwards here. I'm a managing director at Hamilton Clark Sustainable Capital Inc. We are a boutique investment bank with a 30 year history and we put the word sustainable into our title before it was fashionable. So what do I do on a day to day basis? I raise debt and equity capital, advised clients seeking BIL and IRA funds through DOE coshare grants, DOE loan program office loans and companies who are looking to attract and monetize, energy tax credits, be they 48C, 45X, 40 etc.. The alphabet soup of energy tax credits. All of our clients are energy transition clients. And every one of our, and everyone working for our clients really has sustainability in their job function. My clients span a wide range of sectors including green cement, low carbon aluminum, municipal solid waste, bio based materials to substitute for polyethylene and plastics that come from petroleum. And other clients who are working, through a variety of ways, but with one common theme: every client has got to do a reduction of greenhouse gases as compared to the base case scenario. Each year, our clients have their own proprietary technologies which materially reduce scope one and scope two emissions as compared to business as usual. Cool. Thank you. Thank you for the intro, Rob. Really exciting to see everything that Hamilton Clark is doing on this front. Stemming from Jeff's conversation. Now on to the financing side of things, how does emissions data influence your job and your end clients’ strategies as this they go out and think about, financing their sustainable efforts. Well, it really is nice to follow Jeff and his discussion, which he alluded to, which includes not just cleaning up the grid, but enabling the utilities customers to clean up their own production processes. So, for companies and we're back to data companies can only manage that which they can measure. For innovative companies like green cement and bio based materials, financiers expect for those companies to have various LCA analysis done by reputable third parties which validate the scope of emissions reduction. So think about this. If you are starting a new emerging energy transition company, and you are bringing either a brand new product to market or you're bringing, production of a new, you're building batteries, long duration energy storage batteries, in these cases, especially in things like green cement and, and low carbon aluminum, you need to really have an analysis upfront before you build your manufacturing plant to predict what the reduction of greenhouse gases will obtain after the plant is built. And to do that, you start out with an LCA analysis done by reputable, reputable entities. But then as you build your plant, you're eventually going to be in the business of measuring the exact scope one and scope emissions from your brand new manufacturing plant. So this goes right back to everything Paul and Jeff were saying. All these companies trying to raise money as energy transition companies, whether you're dealing with the DOE, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs or investors like TPG and others, one of their first analysis they do is relating to what is your impact on greenhouse gas emission reductions? If you can't demonstrate that clearly to the financiers, but they may send you to another part of your organization, but you're not going to be financed as part of either the green group or energy transition, a financing group. And, and I think also, you know, that there is a divide between mature industries that are trying to abate, emissions and new companies trying to bring to market new products and services that abate emissions. So let me just walk through a little bit. It's not quite a full blown taxonomy, but here, here is here is some ideas. So, for more mature industries like steel and aluminum, companies are innovating around two vectors to lower their emissions, lowering scope one emissions through, for example, electrifying production processes which formula related relied on fossil fuels. So that's what we say when we talk about electrifying everything. If I have an aluminum plant or steel plant, my goal is to look into my scope one emissions and see if I can take out gas fired heating systems and put in electric heating systems. That and then, of course, we got to look back to Jeff and say, is my or my electrons great, right? So I need Jeff to give me renewable energy, energy storage and the like. And then I can take out the natural gas fired boiler and put in something that is driven by electricity. And in the coming years, I mean, I think, they also, of course, everyone wants to lower scope two emissions, but I think the big elephant in the room on that is AI data centers. Right. And we've all been reading about this every day. Microsoft teams up with company A, Google with company B, and, you know, and Amazon or Company C. And all of a sudden the folks in Silicon Valley have found nuclear energy, right? They didn't they didn't know those words They could care less about nuclear energy. But now everyone has seen that the ability to bring renewables, which are intimate resources to these giant AI data centers, is a mismatch, right? We don't have enough renewables, and we can't make them firm enough to really power AI data centers. So this is going to result in the rebirth of nuclear. I think I touched on things I wanted to talk touch on there. Yeah. The data centers is an interesting one that we'll come back to later in some panel questions. But, you know, bringing this back to your, your role, Rob if, your, DOA attorney appointed under Obama here in the Maryland. You're the vice chairman of Maryland Clean Energy, an investment banker. You know, can you can you discuss the role of public and private sectors and financing the energy transition? How data, you know, comes into play in that? And, I guess what would you see in your seat of, technology, software, data influencing this downstream, both in the public and private, influences. Yeah. So I'm going to first start with a small history lesson, because I think people should remember this history. The BIL and IRA are the children of the ARRA, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That was passed as one of the first piece of legislation passed under President Obama in 2009. And at that time, it represented the largest investment in clean energy in the history of the world. Right. And, and and we took we had more funding under IRA than the entire budget of the Department of Energy. So in two years time, we grew that we grew that Department of Energy and built the muscle and capabilities to take, you know, several hundred million dollars into the economy over a two year period. So now we fast forward and we we we come to the BIL and the IRA, those, we had built basically an infrastructure, at DOE through the Recovery Act. And then we are expanding it by ten X for IRA and BIL. One thing that John Podesta always loves to say, he said this to me. He said, you know, Rob, the difference between the Recovery Act and IRA is $1 trillion. And he's not kidding. It is $1 trillion. So so how do we tie together both the private sector driving the energy transition and the government sector helping to drive it? The the words that, you know, President Biden and everybody likes to use is government enabled private sector led. Because even $1 trillion of government spending is not enough to get us to where we need to do to avoid that increase. a great increase in temperatures. So nearly all the IRA programs require applicants to demonstrate in their concept papers and then for applications, that the proposed project will materially reduce greenhouse gas emissions as compared to the base case. So you're not going to get any money out of BIL or IRA unless you can prove that in the first instance. So, for example, under title 17 of the DOE Loan Programs Office, which I have a lot of experience with, the part one analysis for Title 17 requires the applicant to reach over two hurdles. Two requirements. One the technology is innovative, right? And that means it has not been done more than three times in the last five years in the United States. And then secondly, you've got to demonstrate that your project will materially reduce greenhouse gases as compared to business as usual. Right. So, for example, let's let's take a case of modular housing, for example. How can modular housing be an energy transition company. Well you know what it creates housing which is more sustainable by design in its construction, requires less energy for heating and cooling over the life of the home as compared to traditional homes built at the construction site. So why is this accepted into the Title 17 program? Because my house uses a lot more energy than a modular home that's built in the factory. And then secondly, every one of us you've ever been to a new home construction site, so much stuff is thrown away because you bring out large amounts of stuff, and then you cut it to size at a construction site and you just throw the rest away. And so that is the, the theme here, and it relates to what I said earlier. Remember, I said, if you're going into the Goldman Sachs Energy Group or the JP Morgan Green Economy Group, you better have a story about greenhouse gas reduction and you better have the data to back it up, because otherwise they're not interested. Similarly, if you don't have the data, whether it's an LCA analysis or other things, you're not going to be categorized as energy transition company, and you'll be sent to some other part of the bank to get funding. So, you know, again, just to put a fine bow on top of this, none of this gets done without verified emissions data. None of this because we're in business to reduce greenhouse gases, to save the planet. That's why we exist. And if you don't have the data that says you're going to do that, then you're not doing what you need to do. I'm getting a little fired up here. So I apologize for the level of enthusiasm. I love it, Rob, and thank you for a robust answer and insights into things both public and private nature. You sit in a very interesting seat being able to see this, across multiple industries. Bringing us back into sort of the harder to abate, older, established, industries like utilities, oil and gas made up downstream. But most of the oil, oil and gas in general. And then utilities in general. Are there any themes that you're that you're seeing? And this will be our final question until we get to the, to the, panel. Challenges you're seeing in those, in those industries and how data can help them, and challenges, particularly to finance. And, just can I that can I start with that? Yeah. Together. Yeah. Can I start? All right. Here we go again. Another history lesson, right? You go back to the turn of the century beforehand, all of the utilities were vertically integrated. From generation, transmission distribution to the home. Right. That worked well for quite a long time. But there was one inherent problem with that. Since it was vertically integrated, no one really was measuring or quite understood where value could be created in each of the elements of the electric set. And because you didn't have, do you just use transfer pricing. And all you did was make sure you had profits at the end of the day. But once you separated out generation, transmission, distribution. And then business people had no responsibility to manage their their particular sector. That's when you start to understand better where opportunities for efficiency existed within the electric sector. That's globally. Now I'm got one last point. Then we add technology, digitization, smart grids. We put $5 billion worth of smart meters into the economy in 2009 through 2014. That formed the basis for the digitization of Edison's analog grid. And this is now the foundation that we're building on. Right. So when we talk about energy storage, that is a demand side asset located at the load. Right. And we've never had this before. We never had an asset that can take electrons and store them and then release them at the right time. Because it used to be under Edison's analog grid. Remember when they turn on the lights of the football field and everybody was happy a hundred years ago, you had to use the electricity when it was produced. You had no choices. Now, with energy storage, you can time shift the use of electrons. But the challenges, of course, is that the economics of energy stores are not yet there because the prices of batteries and systems are still too high. Vis a vis, what they are trying to do. So we are now at the most exciting time in the history of the electric sector. And you know what? For the first time, Thomas Edison wouldn't, he wouldn't recognize the equipment. You know, 20 years ago, Thomas Edison could come back with his friends and say, there's a generating a session, there's a generating station. The electrons come over the wires and it lights up a home. Now we've got a dynamic system which can move electrons in two directions and creates loads of opportunities. Let me stop there because I'm I'm droning on to. Thank you. thank you, thank you, Rob, and thank you for your insights. Very valuable as we navigate the energy transition. Thank you Jeff. Thank you Rob. Thank you Christy. Now, now is a good time to segue into panel Q&A. And so over to you, Christy. Yeah. Thank you. And thank you. Thank you all. Thank you Rob. It was a very exciting history lesson. And I appreciate a lot of that. And your expertise and Jeff, of course, for bringing and the practicality of of Xcel energy and moving forward of sustainability. So we have a few questions for, for the panel. And then I'll, get to some of the Q&A as well, from the audience. So this question is for Jeff, what are the most common misconceptions about emissions data and sustainability programs? I think one of them we've already addressed, and that is there's a uniform way to report it, state your goals, state those activities that there's not, you know, at the end of it, the fundamental baseline is the simple algorithmic equation of what you're in, what you're at, and what you're left with, but how you report that and how you bring in to that is, is another aspect of that. Another common misnomer out there is, and this can probably be answered in a couple of the questions that, are listed in the Q and A, and that is the speed and action with which you can actually be done, but yet maintain reliability and affordability. Rob mentioned about battery technologies and how where they're at and the affordability is not there, you know, quite yet from that scenario. I'll just be honest. We could and when I say tomorrow, I'm being very superlative when I say that we could go carbon free tomorrow, if we could, I could put wind turbines. I could that solar panels, I could use battery and I could put SMRs everywhere else. Nobody could afford it. Nobody could afford it. And so there's a balance that you have to bring between that misnomer of bringing reliability and affordability. And so having that data is paramount to what goals are you making and having a plan and sticking to that plan to get there. Great. Thank you. And I'm going to pop in one of the questions, I think you mentioned that in your, in your your readout. So from a misconception, emissions data, tying that back into standardization for was there a body within Xcel Energy focused on, standardization of requirements for the data? Yeah, we, like I said earlier, we are we're one of the founding members of The Climate Registry. TCR, which we mainly will run our standardization and our protocols. So that that is how we report our carbon data published. You can see it. That's how we move that. There are manifestations that occur as data becomes more and more deeper and more and more actions and technologies change. And what we do in that scenario is develop what we think is the appropriate reporting mechanism for that. Then we'll go to see TCR, and say, can we generate a protocol? Does this make sense to you? Is this something we can do? Generate that protocol. And then we are judged against that protocol as well. So that that's our balancing body that we have with Xcel Energy. So it's not just Xcel Energy saying this. It’s Xcel Energy with another source that is certifying that this is accurate data. Great. Thank you. All right, Cole, this one is for you. How can companies balance the need for speed with the need for more accurate data within their sustainability efforts? Yeah. Thank you Christy. It's a it's a great question and I'll I'll answer this pretty briefly. It's it's two areas in my mind. It's it's partnering with the right partners and having the right tools. And the clients we work with at GE Vernova who are looking to decarbonize, will also hit their business demands. They have to have tools to to accurately collect in a timely manner, bifurcated and complex data. And then leveraging a partner like GE Vernova who has, you know, years and years of IoT industry energy and power software experience to collect and aggregate and automate that data for them that's validated. So if you want to be accurate and you want to be fast and you partner with with people who know the industry and live in that industry, have those partners and build those tools together. Great. Thank you. All right, Rob, this one's for you as well. So what role does innovation play in the energy transition? And how do you see emissions management software supporting this transformation alongside other technologies? All right. So innovation is at the heart of everything is at the heart of America. It's at the heart of everything we do every day. So let's think about it this way. More history lessons, right? When I decided to focus on clean energy United States, it was 2000. Solar panel prices were ridiculously through the roof. Nobody had wind, nobody had nothing. Right? So 20, 30 years later, we now have solar and wind at cost parity with coal, if not lower. So we had innovation 20 years ago, which allowed us to get to where we are today. So when I think about the energy transition now, it's two things. Scale what we already know that works, which means more solar, more wind, microgrids. Improve the efficiency and cost points of things that are in their earlier stages. That's long duration energy storage and some other technologies. And then continue to innovate brand new stuff. The brand new stuff is not going to bend the emissions curve. And for another decade. But we've got to scale what we've got that we know that works, and then bring in the brand new stuff and know that we can rely on that. A decade from. Now, emmision software. Okay, so before the Paris protocol, really. Right. Nobody was really measuring emissions. Jeff mentioned the EPA was trying to do what it could do. And, you know, cut down smut from coal fired power plants, measure emissions, blah, blah, blah. But it was never a business imperative, right? Emissions were not the same as your EBITDA, gross margins, profits, cash, cash to shareholders. Now emissions is not quite yet there, but it's taking its place alongside these other metrics of financial performance. That is new. And people like to criticize ESG. I mean, I would ask those people to go back and look at GAAP in 1935 and ask if GAAP was perfect then. So, now for the first time, Christy, everybody's got to measure their emissions. Everyone. Whether I got an ice cream stand on the corner or I'm building a data set, and if everyone is like doing that with a pencil and paper and then they send it to somebody, we'll never get there. So we have to have automated emissions data. We've got to learn how to calculate big data, and then we have to apply AI to it so that we can be predictive. And it helps not just tell us, you know, what happened in the past, but it can start to inform decisions going forward. So what you guys do at GE and this is not a plug, I'm not being paid to say this, but what you guys do at GE is at the heart of this all because the tools that you are building, they have a home in every company, because every company is a sustainability company and every job is a sustainability job. But we can only do what we're supposed to do if we have the right measuring tools, and we have the right computing power to guide our decisions, and we can only guide our decisions if we know what has happened in the past. All right. There we go. Thank you. No, that's fantastic. In fact, you're hired. I'm just kidding. So we have a message or, excuse me, a question for Jeff to want to leave you off the hook anymore. Jeff. Many companies have set net zero targets. Do you see an an inflection point with achievable targets being substantiated by a regulatory body on emissions and auditing emissions data? We're already seeing it with states. We, as a matter of fact, went out there and, we made our statement that 80 by 30, we've seen some other states come in with potentially more progressive goals that are happening in there. And so we'll continue to see that move as we go through there. And, you know, yeah. Is there an inflection point? Well, I mean, the end points 100% carbon free. We all know that we can get there. It's a matter of getting there affordably and reliably. When we made our statement earlier, in 2015, we said, you know, 80 by 30, we have a really strong, solid plan to get there. There's that's kind of the not really the low hanging fruit, but there's a lot of things that can happen as long as they occur as they're supposed to to get there. We're exceeding that target. We're on our goal to exceed that target. But we were very bold in that last 20%. And we said for that last 20%, we need several things to happen for us to get there. Number one, our nuclear facilities need to be re-licensed and utilized for the future because that is a carbon free energy source. Technologies have to advance at the level that we've seen them advance in the past. Battery storage has to come to a certain location. Other technology as far as compressed energy, kinetic storage, you know, those type of things that occur has to wrap there. And lastly, the regulations and the policies need to align with how fast and what the industry wants to move. That is one of the biggest challenges we see right now is a lot of the regulations don't align with how quick this industry needs to move, and so we've got to make sure those things align back together. So that I think that answered the question there and in totality. Yeah, I think so. But to dovetail off of that question, we had a question come in through the chat for you, Jeff. Is how and why did you find easy or sorry, what did you find easy? An 80% reduction. And what made the hard going after the additional 20% to get to 100%? Yeah. Easy is a is a good word. That's there in parentheses. Like I said earlier, you know what with our current plans and retirements and clean energy plans, you know there's a good go for that. But I think I covered it a little bit earlier that 20%. It's hard because not not all of it is in our control. You know, we can do our best to shape policy, shape those actions, shape those things. But there are some things that we need to happen and occur that we are involved in and being a point of that. And like Rob said, our involvement and our status and our movement towards that direction is imperative to be in a solution like GE Vernova, not on a notepad. And we need to have some standards of that data. So everybody plays on the same level field when it comes to that. And they reporting, you know, apples to apples, to use the old cliche. Great. Thank you. All right. So this is a question for both Rob and Jeff. And we keep hearing about data centers. We know that data centers are very electrical and electricity intensive. Heating, cooling, you name it. How is that problem going to be addressed by both utilities as well as financing efforts? And we'll start with you. Rob, let's give Jeff a break. Your next step. Yeah. Rob. Well, we are seeing what's happening right now on the ground. I'm involved in a few data centers. Firstly, people site the current generation data centers in places where they know they will have access to renewable energy. That means, for example, we have one in Maryland that's trying to go up. And I went out there. It's beautiful farmland. You know, if I lived out there, the last thing I would want is a data center. But that's not me. And God. I shouldn't have said that because I represent Governor Moore. But putting that aside, they they they put it at a place where there was a old aluminum smelter. The aluminum smelter, however, was demolished So what you have is this incredible plot of land with high voltage transmission lines coming in to nowhere. So that is that short term solution, site your data center where the energy infrastructure already exists to bring in renewable power. We're going to run out of that pretty quickly because the magic companies, you know, the Googles, Amazons, they've got $1 trillion to invest in this space. And they're only but so many sites that look like that. So the next thing is SMRs. The only challenge with SMRs is that it's going to still take some time. Only two SMR designs have actually been approved by NRC, the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Authority Commission. So, you know. Nobody knows how long it will take for the NRC to certify these new SMR technologies and designs that are coming through the pipeline. Even for those that have already been, certified, it's still going to take time to get units one, two and three deployed and nobody's going to make a big bet when an SMR technology that has not been proven through operation of the SMR technology. Right. So I'm glad that Google and these others are going to invest tremendous amounts of money into the SMR ecosystem, but I think it's going to take longer to get the results from those investments. And for those SMRs to actually show up co-located at data centers or showing up at a retired coal fired power plant or at a decommissioned nuclear site. So so my my thing here is we've got some short term solutions, but the longer the medium and longer term is still uncertain. Great. Thank you. Rob. Jeff, you're up to bat. Yeah, I will partner with that. And you hit the nail on the head there. Basically, intensive data centers are 3 to 500MW or more. And for folks that are on here that don't understand what that means, that's a power plant. That's essentially the size of probably a gas fired power plant that we have out there. So it's an intense amount of energy. These data centers are they've got the money and they want it to happen. Yesterday. And this is the wrench that gets thrown into the plan, as you have a good plan on where you're going to go and how you're going to meet there. Now, you need to meet these requirements from a standpoint of providing them the energy, because that allows your transmission of energy, your transformation to become more affordable for your clients or your other customers because you now generated more revenue. That's coming to your facility that you can use to offset other costs for others that that come in with that. And so that balance is, is is an intricate deal. And and Rob, I was very impressed how much you, you reference exactly kind of where we go with that right now. These data centers, we're putting out retired coal plants. We're putting in retired facilities where you got transmission, you got interconnection, you got everything right there. The next round. That is going to be all right now. Now that we've got to put them out here. I don't have a transmission line out there. I don't have these other things that happen. I need other technologies to make sure that is renewable because they want to be renewable in that space. And this is where I said a lot of the regulations and the bodies are behind and catching up on where we need to go to get there. And so referencing that now and saying this is something that needs to happen, this is something that needs to change. Let's get the voices happening on this. So when it happens, we're not just sitting there going, what do we do now? Yeah, Jeff and I would like to plug put in a plug for Maryland Governor Wes Moore. We actually want those data centers out there in the beautiful countryside. We're just going to make it fit in beautifully. But Jeff's right. This the one of the biggest hurdles are lagging policy. Policy is lagging technology and is not forward looking enough. Public utility commissions, their job is to keep the lights on and they've done a fabulous job. We have one of the best electric systems in the world, bar none. But now we've got to take that forward. And public utility commissions need to be more active and innovative to allow the new technologies to come in. New structures and business models to come in and to cut down the time for permitting for everything. You know, it takes too long to permit a high voltage transmission line for a lot of reasons. And here's one more historical note for everyone, and one why don't why do we have a natural gas pipeline system that is, again, the largest in the world is because of the natural gas and it federalize the rules applying to the purchase sale generation natural gas. We don't have that in electricity. We've got the Ferc that controls the bulk electric power system. And then we've got 51 PUCs and PSCs plus additional local regulations. So no wonder we can't get anything done on electricity, because there are so many regulatory bodies that have authority to slow you down. And I don't know, there's no one quick answer on that. But Jeff is 100% right. We need to be answering that question with the urgency of now, so that ten years from now, we actually will see SMRs being sited next to new data centers that need an SMR to be co-located because they can't get renewable energy or carbon free energy anywhere else. And what I'd add it real quick is I know we're out of time, but what's important is to utilize successful measures we've learned and had in the past to move that forward. Rob mentioned earlier 20 years ago, wind turbine solar panels, crazy expensive. Well, the government came out with a PTC and then ITC said, all right, I'm going to make these affordable so I can jumpstart the industry. But they are going to be done over a period of time, which now forces a business that they want to play in that sector, to get more innovative, to bring their costs down and to drive that action with that. That's how you jump start those and get those things moving, because at the end of the day, we are a capitalistic society and that's what we're based on. And so I think those are the important acronyms we have to bring as well into that. Thank you. Yeah. We had we had a very, good discussion today and I appreciate all of you guys. And of course, for the the attendees and folks sticking around, we did learn a lot. We know that the demand for energy is increasing. We do know that, you know, decarbonizing at the, simultaneously is important. You have the technologies and tools. And please let us know. And, we'll get to some of the questions, in the Q&A. We'll send those out as well. But thank you all. And, you guys have a great rest of your day or evening. Thanks, everyone. It's been great. Thank you.