MARY POWELL

CEO of Sunrun

Former CEO of Green Mountain Power

Mary Powell was one of the first female CEOs of a utility. At Green Mountain Power she set out to revolutionize the industry. Running a B Corp, she didn’t separate her mission to do well for her investors from doing good for customers and the planet.

“I love the magic that happens when you focus on innovation and collaboration because that is where you achieve results that none of you on your own could achieve. And you achieve results that are inherently better for society, better for the economy, and better for the environment.”

Green Mountain Power is the first utility to offer batteries to customers so they can help balance the grid and have resilience. Mary started a program where the utility and customer share the electricity stored in a battery. The battery replaces the meter. It replaces backup generators.  

Her story is all about transforming the grid. Not throwing it out. Using it. But also allowing for off-grid and microgrid and customer-generated energy.

Mary explains that we can be both self-sufficient and interconnected. We can have all of the security that self-generation provides and share it with the grid to help the entire community have cleaner, safer and cheaper electricity. Isn’t this what we all want? To be self-sufficient but to work and collaborate and live as a community.

“Things have changed dramatically and our hope and our dream and my hope and dream certainly is that again we continue to accelerate that revolution to a different system, and in fact, I think we have. We have now 2,000 Power Wall customers, we have thousands of Vermonters, I think it's about 15,000 Vermonters that are self-generating. We have up to 3,000 businesses that are self-generating. We have ramped up local renewable resources. I think we are well on our way to achieve this vision that is dramatically different and better for the environment, better for the economy, and better for society in a state of climate change.”