The reliability of our electricity supply is critical to the normal operation of our economy and our society, particularly in the areas of transportation, telecommunications and our financial systems. We read about e-Bay going down for four or five hours and losing millions of dollars. And if we are to bridge the digital divide for our citizens, reliable, high-quality electric power must become a national priority. For factories turning out the latest generation of semi-conductors, even minor fluctuations in the power supply are unacceptable. But as it now stands, these technological innovations are just too expensive.
More research is needed to help bring the costs down, and to make broad deployment cost effective.
A couple of years ago, Kurt Yeager and the executive team at EPRI embarked on a long-term strategy to help meet the challenges I'm outlining here today. The Roadmap is an ongoing initiative involving about 150 organizations, and it represents the most strategic vision of the future of electric power I've ever seen. But despite the challenges, I remain optimistic. EPRI is bringing the will and the vision to the pursuit of basic and applied research on electricity. Following the Roadmap guidelines, we can deliver on electricity's promise for the future, to Electrify the World.