Xcel Energy has only 30 years to sprint to an audacious decarbonization goal. Alice Jackson is off and running.
Alice Jackson spends her days focused on a bold idea for one of the country’s leading energy companies: Go carbon-neutral by 2050. It could make Xcel Energy the first utility to achieve such a milestone in the energy transition, one sure to set the bar for the industry.
For Jackson, it’s more than a job with a deadline three decades away. “To me, it’s a mission,” she says. She’s approaching it with a preternatural instinct for the next groundbreaking technologies: new batteries that can store and redeploy energy at one-tenth the cost of current storage systems, artificial intelligence (AI) that can quickly recognize and pinpoint smoke and fires, and solutions yet to be discovered.
“When it comes to solving the puzzle of how to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity and carbon-neutral natural gas, it takes a lot of technology that we still have to advance and integrate—variable energy resources, like wind and solar—in our systems,” Jackson says.
Jackson is based in Colorado, where she formerly served as president of Xcel Energy – Colorado. Xcel Energy is headquartered in Minneapolis and serves 3.8 million electricity and 2.1 million natural gas customers in eight states. Now, as the company’s systems strategy SVP and chief planning officer, Jackson balances her time between big ideas for solving energy needs and concrete ways to turn those ideas into plans that are both good for customers and the planet.
“It’s exciting to think about the energy system of the future and what that looks like 10, 20, 30 years from now, but we’re not waiting,” Jackson says. “At the same time that we’re thinking about 2050, we’re looking for ways to lower costs, increase resiliency and increase reliability.”
Balance is nothing new to Jackson. A former ballet dancer, she grew up practicing 40 hours a week while juggling international travel and academics, including advanced placement (AP) courses. But it’s her background as an IT professional that gives her a head start on working and investing in new technologies to meet the carbon-neutral goal.
“There are so many things I’m excited about,” Jackson says—like Xcel Energy’s pioneering use of AI. When the technology first emerged as a viable way to manage data and information, Jackson’s previous experience helped her turn it into a groundbreaking asset for the utility. Xcel Energy is now using AI to assist in fire prevention, one of the most common causes of power outages. The tool, called AiDash, collects satellite imagery of areas at risk for wildfires to produce a digital vegetation model and calculate a fire risk score. AiDash then directs fire trucks to the smoke’s location, saving time that would be spent searching for the source of the fire.
Another project that excites Jackson involves retrofitting two retiring coal plants with innovative demonstration-scale battery systems by Form Energy. The batteries can store 100 hours of energy, allowing Xcel Energy to limit energy waste and improve reliability by storing excess power generated during periods of higher production for use during stretches of low-energy production. If successful, the batteries could store energy at one-tenth the cost of lithium-ion batteries, creating a huge cost reduction for the company that ultimately saves consumers money as well. According to Jackson, it’s also an example of the collaboration needed to achieve a carbon-neutral future.
“We have a huge responsibility that comes with providing clean energy to our customers,” she says. “But we also have a responsibility to the rest of the nation because, if we're going to achieve our clean energy and climate goals, we need to work together as a nation and as a world right now.”
