Duke Energy 2015 Annual Report Download - page 9

2015 ANNUAL REPORT / 7 /
“ We earn trust by
knowing what’s
right and having
the courage to
follow through.”
Julie Janson
Executive Vice President,
Chief Legal Ofcer and
Corporate Secretary
improvement at our Edwardsport
gasied-coal plant in Indiana, brought
into service in 2013 as one of the
world’s cleanest, most efcient coal-
burning plants. We also invested
$80 million to install new technology
to monitor our power plants and provide
early warning about potential
operational problems.
According to the Electric Power Research
Institute, we lead the industry in this
“Smart Generation” program that puts
sensors on critical plant equipment such
as boilers, turbines and transformers.
Moreover, we are greatly outpacing the
promised customer savings from fuel
efciencies and joint power generation
in the Carolinas as a result of the July
2012 Duke Energy-Progress Energy
merger. Seventy percent of the way
through the rst ve years, we’ve already
achieved 90 percent of the $687 million
guaranteed savings.
Customers expect safe, reliable, cost-
effective operations, and that’s what
we’re delivering. That’s not all they
expect these days, which leads me to
the rest of our transformation story.
Creating what’s next
for customers
In the fall of 2014, we initiated an
in-depth examination of the key drivers
of change in the regulated electric utility
business. These trends include new
customer expectations caused, in part,
by technology; greater energy efciency
and slower growth in electricity demand;
strong demand for renewable energy
and natural gas; new government
policies to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions; and discussions to update
utility regulatory models.
More than 60 of our in-house experts,
with outside advisers, studied the
implications for Duke Energy over the
next ve, 10 and 15 years. This rigorous
analysis led to an integrated, market-
based strategy that places customers
at the center of all we do. Our senior
leadership team discussed, at length,
this strategic context and framework
with our Board of Directors.
Our vision is to lead the way to cleaner,
smarter energy solutions that customers
value. The Road Ahead blueprint outlines
the major strategic elements: transform
11-unit nuclear eet achieved a
consistently high performance benets