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Spencer Levy
By the time you hit the play button to listen to this podcast, the electrons powering your device made a few stops along the way. Same for the gas that might be heating your home or office. A complicated web of companies that make the world go round. On this episode, a little science about energy and a lot of business with the head of one of the oldest utilities in the nation.
Carim Khouzami
Our job is to provide safe and reliable energy to people. But actually, it goes more than that. We have a responsibility, we feel, to our communities, to our customers, and our motto is to power a cleaner and brighter future for our customers.
Spencer Levy
That's Carim Khouzami, the president and CEO of Baltimore Gas and Electric, or BGE. He leads a company with a history that stretches back to the 1800s, the oldest and largest utility in the state of Maryland. He also knows a thing or two about power on the baseball diamond, as you'll hear in the conversation ahead. Coming up, electricity, natural gas and other forms of power. A look at how the energy business really works and its relationship with commercial real estate. A power play with BGE. I'm Spencer Levy and that's right now on The Weekly Take.
Spencer Levy
Welcome to The Weekly Take, in this week we are in Baltimore with my friend Carim Khouzami, the CEO of Baltimore Gas and Electric. Carim, thanks for joining the show.
Carim Khouzami
Thank you for having me.
Spencer Levy
Well, I'm delighted to have you here. And before we begin, I just want to thank you for the ten-plus years you were in addition to being CEO of BGE, my son's baseball coach here in Baltimore.
Carim Khouzami
Absolutely, my pleasure, always enjoy coaching little kids and had a great time doing it and always easy when we had great parents like you on the sidelines that were into the game but stayed out of the game as well. So…
Spencer Levy
Yes, indeed, I got in trouble once at a game, but that's a whole other story. So, Carim, for the benefit of our listeners, please tell them who BGE is and what you do.
Carim Khouzami
I am the CEO and president of BGE: Baltimore Gas and Electric. It is central Maryland's Energy and Natural Gas utility. We are the largest utility in Maryland. We serve about 1.3 million electric customers and about 700,000 gas customers. Really, our job is to provide safe and reliable energy to people. But actually, it goes more than that. We do have a responsibility, we feel, to our communities, to our customers. And our motto is to power a cleaner and brighter future for our customers. And that motto extends beyond just delivering energy, it goes into so many other aspects of life and having the fortunate responsibility and privilege of being the utilities to serve this region for over 200 years, we take that very seriously. In fact, we are the nation's oldest natural gas utility. We literally invented the natural gas industry here in the state of Maryland.
Spencer Levy
Wow, that's pretty cool. That's – 200 years – that's a long time. I didn't even know they had natural gas 200 years ago.
Carim Khouzami
Actually, the way it was invented was there was a gentleman named Rembrandt Peale. He was an artist. And he created the first natural gas light. And the reason he did that is he wanted people to be able to come to his museum and see his art at night after work. So that's how the industry started, he started The Gaslight Company of Baltimore, which eventually became BGE.
Spencer Levy
So, Carim, most of our listeners are real estate people. They don't really understand the energy business, but from my understanding, there's really two parts to it. One part of it is the creation of the energy. The second is the distribution and BGE is primarily a distributor, correct?
Carim Khouzami
That is correct, so we are a local distribution company. We deliver electricity and natural gas. The way I equate it to you is, think about FedEx or Amazon. That is the role that BGE provides. We deliver the commodity that you purchase and you purchase that from a generation company, and that is a company like Constellation or Dominion Resources or a host of others that own the power plants. They produce the electron, they create the molecule of natural gas, and then BGE, through its wires or its pipes, delivers that to its customers.
Spencer Levy
And the customers are both residential and commercial.
Carim Khouzami
That is correct. So residential businesses, industrial, government, basically everyone in central Maryland, we serve.
Spencer Levy
Got it. And so when I'm driving down Route 70 I see the wires. Right, that's you.
Carim Khouzami
That is us, so those are our wires. We have a monopoly. So in our industry, the delivery system is a monopoly. So we are the only deliverer in the central Maryland region. The generation company and the, as you call it, the creator of the energy, that is deregulated. So there are people who are competing. So oftentimes customers, whether they're residential or commercial, they'll get a request or advertisements from generation companies saying switch your energy provider and they're talking about the generator of electricity or natural gas. They're not talking about the delivery company because again, there is only one delivery company. That's BGE for Central Maryland.
Spencer Levy
And let's talk about the means of delivery. I mentioned the wires that go - generally speaking, along highways and other places like that. You also mentioned the pipes for natural gas. So tell us about both of them, what they do and how they distribute energy.
Carim Khouzami
Sure. On the electricity side, you have a generation plant. They produce the electrons and then you have transmission lines, which are the really large, big wires you see potentially running up a hill cut in the middle of a woods or what have you. Those are the transmission lines. They take high voltage electricity and they will take them to a substation. So if you see steel in the ground in and around your neighborhoods, that's a substation where they step that electricity down to a safer voltage and they distribute that into smaller wires right into your home. On the natural gas side there is something called a city gate. And so basically, the producers of natural gas will transmit, again through transmission pipes. to a city gate. And at that point it is stepped down, and then our pipes, which are more for the local distribution, take it into the homes or businesses.
Spencer Levy
So some businesses or maybe most of them have both natural gas and electrical distribution from your company coming through different distribution means.
Carim Khouzami
That is exactly right. And so basically, many of our customers are combined customers, which means they have both electricity and natural gas. We do have some customers that are electricity only. So it really depends, but for the most part, most of our customers get a combination.
Spencer Levy
So let's go to how you started today, Carim, talking about not just being a distributor of energy, worrying about the community, worrying about the environment. We are at a point in time now in the real estate business where I think the E in ESG, never been more or the S and G, very important as well. Tell us about that in the energy distribution business, how you're trying to be better, more efficient with the E and the S as well.
Carim Khouzami
There are a number of things that we've done for a number of years and a number of things that we are doing going forward. Taking a step back, as you may know, Spencer, last year in the legislative session, Maryland passed a pretty ambitious goal of being net carbon zero by 2045. This is one of the most ambitious goals of any state. And they did so and said we will be net carbon zero by 2045 economy wide. For us to achieve those goals, it's going to take a lot of people and a lot of companies and a lot of interests, including the utilities. So what we do on our end, one thing we've been doing for many years is our energy efficiency program. So this is how do we help our customers use less energy. And so that is something that we've been doing for many, many years and since 2008 when we really started the program, it's about a 26% reduction in usage per an average customer that participates in these programs. So that's a positive in terms of trying to lessen the impact, lessen the need of the amount of electricity that we're using and natural gas going forward. There are a number of ways the state of Maryland can achieve their net carbon zero goals. And one of the things that we did over the last year is we worked with a company called E3, which is an independent consulting firm that the state of Maryland has used many times, to develop a study to say what are the different pathways that can get us to that net carbon zero goal. And the reason that's important is there are different risks, there are different costs, there are different things to consider with each of these pathways. Each one can get you to that net zero carbon goal. But, again, there are other things you need to take into account. What we say at BGE is we will never be the utility that says no. We fully ascribe to the goals that the state has set out. We want to be part of the solution. So we have a unique position that we have the data where both the electricity and natural gas supplier. So we have all the data, we know the amount of energy usage, we know the different technologies that are available today, the ones that are being developed. So we are actively working in a series of working groups that have been charge throughout 2023 to come up with the preferred or recommended pathway, which we expect to come to the Legislature in 2024 for a vote and approval. So a long way of saying that BGE sees on the E side that we are an integral, but not sole entity, for us to achieve that net carbon zero goal for the state.
Spencer Levy
And you mentioned the importance of your data. We had an episode here a couple of weeks ago about data in the real estate business, and we've come a long way, but we aren't there yet. But one of the things that we're trying to do in our business is measure usage – usage of electricity, of water, of other forms of carbon emissions. But I think we still have a long way to go. Where do you think the energy business is?
Carim Khouzami
I think we're in a pretty good spot because and mainly due to the fact that we have what is called smart meters. So this took place - and Maryland was one of the first states to authorize and start to install these smart meters. But it's basically a meter that provides information in 15 minute intervals so that we can collect the data to understand usage, understand patterns. What can you do with that kind of data? One of the things we can do is really start to see where the peaks are in terms of the highest level of energy usage, and then you can develop programs to say, how do we shave some of those peaks off? So I'll give you an example. We have a pilot program underway now at Time of Use Rate Program, which allows people who own EVs to get a reduced rate if they charge their EVs at night. As you can imagine, this isn't rocket science. As you can imagine, less energy is used at 2 am than at 2 pm. So if we can incent customers to instead of charging their cars at 2 pm, charge them at 2 am and work with the charging companies to be able to provide tools so that you can program it to start then, that is something that helps everyone in terms of energy conservation as well as the amount of capacity we have to build in our grid. So that's one of the many ways we've been leveraging data and we've been collecting all this data and being able to use advanced analytics to really determine what are some of the usage patterns, how do we use that information to be predictive in terms of when do we think some materials or some equipment needs to be replaced proactively rather than waiting till it fails? So that's also a way for us to avoid prolonged outages or surprise outages so that we can anticipate them, replace them, and make sure that our customers don't see the interruptions.
Spencer Levy
So you mentioned EVs, and I now have my first EV.
Carim Khouzami
Alright.
Spencer Levy
And I love the car, but I didn't love it at first. And I'll tell you why.
Carim Khouzami
Okay.
Spencer Levy
I didn’t love it at first, because the cord that they gave me at the dealership probably could charge a toaster and I had to install a supercharger at my house in order to get this thing to work and give me 12 miles added per hour instead of 12 miles in 24 hours.
Carim Khouzami
Right.
Spencer Levy
So which got me thinking, how much power do these cars use?
Carim Khouzami
So what I would tell you is there are level one, level two, and level three chargers. So on the level one front, that is probably the cord you got. That plugs into any household socket and basically it will take you four days to charge your car. So I'm not really sure how much use that cord is to be honest and I have an EV too, so I have that cord as well. The level two is probably what most residential users use and what you see in a lot of the chargers. And that is one where basically it's really designed so that you can plug it in overnight and then all of a sudden it's fully charged. So that's where you need to put a 220 volt plug in. The state of Maryland has an incentive program, a tax rebate program, that you can get this installed and then get a tax rebate for it and it's a couple hundred dollars in total. That charger typically takes about 6 to 8 hours to charge a car fully. So again, if you come home every night, you plug it in, charge it overnight, in the morning it should be fully charged. And then there's what they call the superchargers. And these are superchargers that can charge a car from 0 to 100 in 30 to 60 minutes, and that's really designed for some of the heavy duty fleets and other things like that. So it is available, it's much more expensive to install at a residential location. I do know some people that still have that. But for the most part, most people with the level two find that that's acceptable, that works for them, they can charge overnight and the range that they have on the car can last them for the whole day. So it typically meets their needs.
Spencer Levy
And let me correct myself, I don't have a supercharger.
Carim Khouzami
Okay. I was very impressed when you said you had a supercharger.
Spencer Levy
I like to say the word supercharger.
Carim Khouzami
I think you have a level two as my guest.
Spencer Levy
I have a level two.
Carim Khouzami
Okay, there you go.
Spencer Levy
I call it a supercharger.
Carim Khouzami
I was going to say it's super compared to level one, so. Exactly.
Spencer Levy
Yeah, exactly. So staying with the residential thing for a moment, Carim, as you know, I've got three kids. One of them played ball for you for ten plus years. They use a lot of power. They've got their computers, they've got the refrigerator, they've got air conditioning, all these things, right. And so you are the one business that tells people to use less of your product, which I find fascinating. How can a typical family like mine use less power?
Carim Khouzami
I think there is a number of ways. So the first is you can always get a home energy audit to make sure that your home is as efficient as possible. And there are a lot of services out there that do something like that. You know, used to be affiliated with us. It's no longer part of us, but Constellation Home, for example, is an entity that you can call them up, they'll do a home energy audit. BGE can come out and do an audit for you as well as a number of organizations that will come out, assess your home and tell you where your opportunities are, whether it's more insulation, maybe it's more efficient windows, a lot of things. And they can kind of price that out for you and say, by making these changes, here's how much you can save each month in terms of your energy bill and energy usage. Another is to really see are there opportunities to space out the energy. And I mentioned like the EV charging, you know, a lot of the appliances nowadays are also smart. So can you wash-run your dishwasher, your laundry, your dryer, can you run those at night? And so a lot have programming that can help as well. And we're starting to move to a world where it's more time-of-use type of usage, where it's something that you can be charged different amounts depending on the time of day that you use the equipment. That's a pilot program we have now. We hope that that will take off. I think the folks that are in the program actually really do enjoy it. And more importantly, the data suggests that people are using less energy that way because, again, they're using it at different times of the day. So it's all about the peak, we always build for our peak and if we can shave that peak, it requires less investment in the grid. It means it's more capacity so that we have more options to get the power to you. And so it usually results in better reliability.
Spencer Levy
So now let's shift the conversation to the area that most of our listeners are in, which is commercial real estate. It may be the top topic among our clients, our customers of how they can be more efficient. What are some of the tips you give to commercial real estate owners and occupiers?
Carim Khouzami
A lot of the same. So again, there are different ways that you can make your building more efficient. There are different pieces of equipment in terms of upgrading your equipment to more energy efficient equipment. So when you think about a water heater, for example, the water heater from ten years ago, even five years ago, is not the same as the water heater from today. So if you have the opportunity to upgrade and install a more energy efficient appliance, that's a way to use less energy. There are also other programs that you can also subscribe to with - and again, both on the residential and the commercial side where you can sign up to save money by allowing your thermostat to be adjusted. So in those hottest of days, we may adjust your thermostat by a degree or two. And again, that's all about shaving that peak off so we have enough capacity on our system, but by doing that in exchange will pay you for that. And we pay you a fee every month to give us the ability to allow us to do that. And in the end, when we make that adjustment, it's not for the full day, it's not even for the full afternoon, it's for a short period of time. You may feel a degree or two change, but it's not going to be very meaningful. And so for a lot of customers, that's a good way for them to lessen their energy bill because they're getting paid to give on those hottest of days in the middle of the afternoon, maybe a short period of time where they increase their temperature just a little bit so they use less air conditioning.
Spencer Levy
I think you used the term, Carim, preparing for the peak or you build for that peak. Unfortunately, the peak happens on the hottest days and on the coldest days. And that's also where there's probably most risk in your transmission system where you have storms and other natural disasters that can disrupt service. How do you prepare for that?
Carim Khouzami
So for us, it's a lot on the resiliency side. So we spend a lot of time, a lot of planning, a lot of our design work, a lot of our resources, trying to ensure that we have a resilient system. And by resiliency, one is basically how can it withstand weather? So you think about taking lines and moving them underground. So you think about real estate. A lot of new developments will bury their power lines because again, when the weather comes through, it's a safer, more resilient way to operate. The other way is to think about redundancy. So do we have redundant pathways? So about five, seven years ago we installed what are called reclosers, and these are basically automated distribution equipment that's a lot like a circuit breaker. So that if there is a problem on a line, it instantly will click over and divert the power around where that issue is. And so when you think about something like that, you think about the storm we had this past summer where we lost about 200,000 customers in total. So a large storm, that distribution equipment saved about another 200,000 outages. And that was because it was able to divert the power using other lines around where the downed power line was. Whereas in the past, before we had that equipment, it would have just taken out thousands of people until we repaired it. So these are the kind of investments, these are the kinds of technologies that we're looking at to say, how can we make our system more resilient so that we can avoid outages? And in the case when we do have an issue – weather or whatever the issue is due to that – we can get the power to you in another way.
Spencer Levy
So I always find this expression somewhat interesting or maybe even funny, getting off the grid. And there are a lot of people trying to get off. Is that realistic? If people put in solar panels or any other form of their own electric creation?
Carim Khouzami
The short answer is yes. The long answer is it's extremely costly. So it is possible and there are entities that are effectively off the grid, and they are what we call microgrids. They're basically their own self-sustaining grid. They may have their own generation source with solar panels or wind. The piece I'd throw out there for you, Spencer, as you can imagine, is it's not always sunny and it's not always windy. So you can have storage. But again, that technology is evolving now, so storage is an option. But the amount of space it takes, the amount of cost, it isn't practical for 99% of the people out there. So most do not do that. The answer instead is how can you ensure that you have the ways to avoid an outage. So you can think about a generator? So a lot of customers, whether it's residential or commercial or use generators, I think about some of the hospitals, for example. They have gas powered generators that can kick on if all of a sudden there is a power outage due to weather or what have you.
Spencer Levy
Now, one of the things that we are advocating for our clients and we are an investor in a company called Altus, they put solar panels on the roofs, primarily of commercial buildings. I know a lot of residences do it as well. And in fact, for those places that have a lot of solar panels, you need a lot of real estate. They can actually sell back into the grid. Tell us a little bit about that.
Carim Khouzami
That's exactly it. And so a lot of companies, a lot of individuals are starting to put solar panels on. They use it for their own use, but where you're talking about is, is there an opportunity, it's called net metering to sell the power you generate that you don't use back into the grid? And so this is something that is on the surface, very simple. The power I don't use, I'm going to sell it back into the grid. But as you can imagine, we don't have people just throwing electrons on lines and just sending them all over the place. It is a very organized, very complicated mechanism to orchestrate. And so there's a lot of focus on the industry, not just in Maryland, but across the country, on how are these rules going to work? How can someone generate their own power and then sell it back into the grid? And what are the rules around it? So now all of a sudden, they are effectively a generation company. Are they governed by the same rules that face other generation companies all of a sudden? Can a utility do something like this? Because utilities by statute here in Maryland at least, can’t own generation. So there's a lot of questions that we have to figure out, but that is something that we're going to see more and more of. And it's a good thing that's allowing us to increase that capacity without substantial overall infrastructure investment needed that ultimately gets charged back to our customers.
Spencer Levy
So I remember when I was a kid, I used to like to play with magnets and I used to take magnets and put them on a lego car and take another magnet of the opposite charge. And I could really push the car because the magnet was in there, which was a very, very, very crude way of thinking about superconductivity. Okay, how do you move something that you're not touching it, right, when you have elevated trains, things like that. And this is the science portion of today's broadcast. But my real point is this, is that there's a lot of ideas out there about putting different forms of energy generation further and further away from the population; nuclear or otherwise. The problem is transmission.
Carim Khouzami
Exactly.
Spencer Levy
And so tell us tell our audience just how efficient transmission is from point A to point B and how much power is lost from point A to point B.
Carim Khouzami
So there is some line loss and these are where the technologies are continually evolving. So different kinds of cable are more effective in terms of insulation to ensure that they lose less power in the transmission. Transmission lines are actually very efficient and so you lose very little power. But they're very high voltage. Think about your example, think about really big magnets moving these things very quickly across. So that's why we use transmission lines. You cannot take that level of voltage and safely put it right into a home or a business. Which is why we stepped that power down. As we step it down, the line lost does get greater and greater. But the industry, many companies, many VC firms out there are spending lots of money to try to find ways to lose less and less. And that goes back to other ways, in terms of energy conservation. Not only using less energy. But is there a way that we lose less in the delivery of electricity so that we have to produce less? So it's all kind of all wrapped into the same issue that we're trying to deal with and trying to address as an industry.
Spencer Levy
And one of the challenges is that the places that need energy the most: the big cities, the high density areas, don't have the land or the capability to produce that power.
Carim Khouzami
Well, and I would go even further. If you look at the state of Maryland, within the whole state of Maryland, we do not produce enough power for the state of Maryland. We are a massive importer of power from other states from around us. And that's where those transmission lines come into play. You're seeing more and more focus on transmission and the need for us to make those investments. A big piece that you hear a lot about is offshore wind. So this is where you build the wind turbines 50 miles off the shore. You can't see them they’re way out there. Well, there's only one way to get that power from 50 miles offshore back onshore and those are transmission lines. So this is an enormous investment that's going to be needed as we continue to build out the grid, as we continue to move towards a decarbonized world. As you think about net carbon zero, we're going to need more and more clean sources of generation because really it doesn't help us to, let's say, decarbonize all of our buildings and then just use coal plants to supply the energy for those electric buildings. It's still dirty. So we've got to find ways to get that clean energy built and then brought in to wherever we need it, whether it's the cities or the different customers that we have scattered throughout the state and the country.
Spencer Levy
So just to be clear, BGE is not in the business of wind turbines or solar panels or any form of electricity–electrical creation, is all in the transmission?
Carim Khouzami
Right, we do not own any of that, we do not build any of that. What we will do is we will work with the people who build that or own it and create what's called the interconnections. So something has to tie to that to bring that power to wherever you need it. So we will work with them to create the transmission lines, to bring it to a substation so that it can be brought into the grid and sold to customers.
Spencer Levy
One of the major trends in office today is people not being in the office and hybrid work. From your perspective, Carim. How has hybrid work changed the way you do business for transmission when people have higher use at your home during the day?
Carim Khouzami
What we see is higher residential use, lower commercial use. So it almost - it balances out. And I'll tell you what we have seen in terms of the usage throughout the pandemic and then our forecast going forward is less than a percent decline. So we're at about 0.5% a year. That's basically where we are. Some of that’s attributable to energy efficiency. So it's not that people aren't where they are, in terms of business or home, it’s that they're actually actively trying to use less power. So from our perspective, we're not seeing a big change in the overall usage. We are seeing a big change in where it's being used: residential versus commercial.
Spencer Levy
So when we talk about transmission and people doing it themselves – and again, this is the second science portion of today's broadcast – it seems to me that the limiting factor isn't the creation of power, it is the storage. Because batteries, though they keep using different components, whether it's lithium versus some other metal, are still the same basic technology we had 150 years ago. So storage may be the single biggest limiting factor. What do you think?
Carim Khouzami
That's a great point. So when you look at solar, when you look at wind, these are clean forms of energy. And people will say, why don't we just move all to solar and wind? And the short answer is, like I said earlier, it's not always sunny, it's not always windy. In fact, when you need the most power, a lot of times it's not windy. Think of the middle of the day in a hot summer day. So really, storage could be a game changer for our industry. If we can find ways to store power for long periods of time, now all of a sudden these other forms of generation or creation or electricity can become viable baseload. And we call that baseload, which is basically the minimum amount that you need in order to power the economy. Typically, these have been nuclear or natural gas fired plants or coal plants. You look over at Europe, some of the countries have tried to make that transition to wind and solar, a much higher dependance on that, and they have found themselves having to go back because, again, they don't have the capability to store the power. So, this is something I think will evolve over time. I think as we think about this back to that goal is for Maryland to get to that net carbon zero. These are the types of technologies that are going to evolve and help us to get there because that's going to give us ways to generate clean power and actually be able to store it and actually use it throughout the day and night.
Spencer Levy
Carim, you mentioned that the state of Maryland came out with an ambitious goal of making the whole state, I think carbon neutral by 2045.
Carim Khouzami
Right.
Spencer Levy
There are some cities that are even more aggressive than that. Local Law 97 comes up on this show all the time about New York City, even more aggressive. And there have been some stories about commercial real estate developers who have literally built the most energy efficient building in the history of buildings - that no longer comply once these new laws come into place. So what advice would you give to a landlord to future proof their building, given the fact they're doing their best, but things change?
Carim Khouzami
I would say one of the things that's happening here in the state of Maryland is over the next year, so 2023, there are a number of working groups that are charting out what the path is going to be; what are the rules going to be, what are the regulations going to be? And these are things that they're going to make a recommendation for by the end of the year and we'll go into 2024 legislative session and probably will pass. Then we will be basically moving towards trying to execute this and that's going to take many, many years. But again, it's going to get us that net carbon zero. So if you are a builder, if you are a commercial developer, I would stay close to that. I would work with BGE. Again, we are in the working groups. We talked to a lot of our large customers about what we're hearing, what the trends tend to be. There are some no-regret moves or some things you can do to your building to make it more energy efficient, no matter what the regulations are. But again, I think that's the thing that we have to wait for, is we have to wait for these working groups to get through the work, get through all the data, and figure out what the right path is. The legislation started off last year saying we are going to electrify every building. Again, that isn't the most efficient and most effective way to get there. And as you know, you're in real estate, you understand, the cost of retrofitting existing buildings is enormous. So I think the working groups are working through what are the other pathways. And this goes back to the study that we had done, which shows that there are many different pathways to get there, to still get to the goal we're trying to achieve, but in a more measured, less disruptive, less costly way. And so that's what's going to come out this year, and we'll know a lot more once that comes through.
Spencer Levy
Carim, one of the things that always impressed me about you is you have this tremendous job here at BGE. But you were my son's baseball coach, head coach, I might add, for ten plus years. Your son, Trevor is now playing club ball up at BC, and I must add that your son Trevor, is also inspirational, had a terrible health issue, had cancer, but did a wiffle ball tournament to raise money for that. So all this stuff, well beyond the scope of what we're talking about here today. How do you do it?
Carim Khouzami
First is I've got a great team at BGE, so it's not like it's all me doing this. And so having a great team, having the ability to delegate, having the trust in my folks, to be able to get the job done, knowing that we're all on the same page, that's very helpful. The other is, as I tell everyone, because I always get the question about work life balance, which is I think where this is going is for me, that was my way of relaxing. It may not always seem like it when you saw me on the sidelines that that was my way of relaxing, but I really enjoyed it. That was a way for me to take a moment to disconnect a little bit from work and just focus on something else to kind of reset my mind. And so what I often tell people is you've got to find what's right for you. For some people, it's going out for a run. For some people, it's watching comedy movies. For some people it's coaching Little League Baseball. So, for me, that's what I did. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun doing it. It's interesting, I met a lot of great kids and met a lot of great parents as well, and it's funny to see how they've all grown up and how much different they are now and the conversations I had with them are a lot different than when they were eight or nine when we first started off. But it's all about trying to find that balance and trying to find the way to prioritize having some time to yourself because all of us have jobs that are very demanding. All of us have a lot of responsibilities that we're trying to live up to. And if you don't take that time to decompress, you're going to explode. You've got to basically find a way to find that place where you can reset, recalibrate, and re-energize.
Spencer Levy
Agree completely. So, Carim, any final thoughts? BGE, future of energy transmission, anything that our commercial or residential users should think about?
Carim Khouzami
For us at BGE, we are very focused on this transition. The industry is going through a big change. We are looking to be a partner. So I encourage you, your listeners - if you have questions, reach out to BGE. We want to help educate. We want us to make the right decision. As I said earlier, we will never be the utility that says no, but we will be the utility that provides data and that utility that provides the alternatives as well as the repercussions of the different decisions we make. Because each one comes with different risks, different costs, and different things that we need to take into account. So looking forward to partnering with more of our commercial customers. And again, thank you for having me on.
Spencer Levy
Well, thank you, Carim. And on behalf of The Weekly Take, Carim Khouzami, CEO and president of BGE – and great baseball coach of my son, his son and others. Thank you, Carim.
Carim Khouzami
Thank you for having me on. It's been a pleasure.
Spencer Levy
For more on the topic of today's show, please visit our website CBRE.com/TheWeeklyTake. We'll be back with more powerful insights and information. In the weeks to come, Our guests will include an author and innovation expert sharing her perspective on business disruption, an important conversation about the evolution of raising capital, and more. For now, we hope you'll energize our show by sharing it with the power people in your network. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen. Thanks for joining us. I'm Spencer Levy. Be smart Be safe. Be well.
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