Joe Smyth 
David Pomerantz Investor-owned utilities paid their CEOs over $1 billion between 2017 and 2019, according to recently filed corporate data reviewed by the Energy and Policy Institute.
The companies offered their CEOs nearly $450 million in compensation in 2019, a raise of nearly 26% over the previous year. The average compensation for the CEOs was approximately $11 million in 2019. Southern Company’s CEO, Tom Fanning, received approximately $28 million in executive compensation in 2019, making him the highest paid utility CEO last year.
As the first part of a two-part series exploring how the investor-owned electric utilities pay their executives, EPI collected data showing the executive compensation for 41 utility CEOs, presented in the table below.
This list of companies includes all investor-owned electric utility companies that are members of the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for U.S. investor-owned utilities, and that have reported compensation data to the Securities and Exchange Commission as of April 27, 2020.
In Part II of this series, EPI will examine further compensation data, as well as the incentive structures that are built into utility executives’ compensation plans.
Data are from Summary Compensation Tables published in companies’ 14A or 10-K forms, filed with the Securities and Exchanges Commission. EPI did not include companies that were recently acquired, or subsidiaries of larger companies that operate mostly internationally. (EPI will add any companies that have not yet filed data with the SEC as they file data.)
The table lists the person who was CEO during 2019; in most cases, that person was also CEO in 2017 and 2018. In cases where a different person was CEO in 2017 and/or 2018, the data in earlier years are the compensation received by the former CEO; those figures are in italics and are explained in the notes below the table. When two people were CEO for portions of a single year, we include compensation for the person who was CEO for most of that year. Former CEOs are noted in the table when a company has announced a new CEO since 2019.
| Utility | CEO | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2017-2019 | |
| Southern Company | Thomas Fanning | $15,702,228 | $13,097,691 | $27,865,185 | $56,665,104 | |
| NextEra Energy | James Robo | $18,811,693 | $21,358,742 | $21,877,597 | $62,048,032 | |
| Sempra Energy | Jeffrey Martin | $4,155,645 | $9,324,491 | $19,806,346 | $33,286,482 | |
| Eversource | James Judge | $15,915,461 | $14,925,381 | $19,806,088 | $50,646,930 | |
| Berkshire Hathaway Energy | Gregory Abel | – | $18,013,750 | $19,014,000 | $37,027,750 | |
| PG&E Corporation | William Johnson | $8,597,220 | $9,289,842 | $18,529,842 | $36,416,904 | |
| Dominion Energy | Thomas Farrell, II | $15,495,762 | $14,956,442 | $17,257,035 | $47,709,239 | |
| Xcel Energy | Ben Fowke | $12,676,399 | $12,147,768 | $16,898,798 | $41,722,965 | |
| Exelon | Christopher Crane | $14,857,859 | $15,643,078 | $15,444,692 | $45,945,629 | |
| Con Edison | John McAvoy | $16,047,911 | $9,765,858 | $15,345,285 | $41,159,054 | |
| Duke Energy | Lynn Good | $21,415,936 | $13,982,960 | $15,029,386 | $50,428,282 | |
| FirstEnergy | Charles Jones | $15,281,885 | $11,123,128 | $14,684,659 | $41,089,672 | |
| American Electric Power | Nicholas Akins | $11,530,461 | $12,202,028 | $14,492,436 | $38,224,925 | |
| Entergy | Leo Denault | $13,158,220 | $10,326,456 | $14,264,249 | $37,748,925 | |
| PPL Corporation | William Spence | $13,540,331 | $11,338,785 | $14,142,567 | $39,021,683 | |
| PSEG | Ralph Izzo | $10,621,115 | $10,419,291 | $13,074,227 | $34,114,633 | |
| Arizona Public Service (Pinnacle West) | Donald Brandt (former CEO) | $10,533,439 | $12,145,522 | $12,250,614 | $34,929,575 | |
| DTE Energy | Gerard Anderson (former CEO) | $15,835,907 | $10,986,809 | $12,145,179 | $38,967,895 | |
| Puget Energy | Kimberly Harris (former CEO) | $7,788,167 | $8,044,584 | $11,774,368 | $27,607,119 | |
| Edison International | Pedro Pizarro | $9,754,920 | $9,777,523 | $11,761,702 | $31,294,145 | |
| Ameren | Warner Baxter | $8,080,790 | $8,454,460 | $9,718,998 | $26,254,248 | |
| WEC Energy | Kevin Fletcher | $13,642,237 | $9,862,993 | $9,262,101 | $32,767,331 | |
| Consumers Energy | Patricia Poppe | $6,862,295 | $8,091,185 | $8,986,702 | $23,940,182 | |
| Idaho Power (IDACORP) | Darrel Anderson | $6,695,596 | $5,376,529 | $8,271,701 | $20,343,826 | |
| CenterPoint Energy | Scott Prochazka | $8,024,525 | $8,887,981 | $7,724,121 | $24,636,627 | |
| Alliant Energy | John Larsen | $6,535,329 | $6,520,709 | $7,619,999 | $20,676,037 | |
| NiSource | Joseph Hamrock | $5,407,202 | $5,778,515 | $6,628,690 | $17,814,407 | |
| Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OGE) | Sean Trauschke | $4,884,882 | $5,694,937 | $6,447,313 | $17,027,132 | |
| Montana-Dakota Utilities (MDU Resources) | David Goodin | $4,058,001 | $4,155,255 | $6,144,355 | $14,357,611 | |
| Evergy | Terry Bassham | $5,187,320 | $6,843,344 | $5,793,975 | $17,824,639 | |
| Otter Tail Corporation | Charles MacFarlane | $3,363,331 | $3,341,624 | $5,758,533 | $12,463,488 | |
| Black Hills Corporation | David Emery (former CEO) | $5,563,935 | $4,623,698 | $5,455,069 | $15,642,702 | |
| PNM Resources | Patricia Collawn | $4,425,922 | $4,754,536 | $5,031,193 | $14,211,651 | |
| Hawaiian Electric Industries | Constance Lau | $5,913,746 | $5,725,431 | $4,902,901 | $16,542,078 | |
| Allete | Alan Hodnik (former CEO) | $3,464,083 | $3,493,458 | $4,706,014 | $11,663,555 | |
| Avista Corporation | Scott Morris (former CEO) | $4,239,914 | $3,817,420 | $4,652,473 | $12,709,807 | |
| Portland General Electric Company | Maria Pope | $3,785,253 | $3,216,062 | $4,065,948 | $11,067,263 | |
| Unitil Corporation | Thomas Meissner Jr. | $3,434,309 | $2,441,144 | $3,592,108 | $9,467,561 | |
| Cleco Corporation | William Fontenot | $3,404,238 | $1,385,218 | $3,576,742 | $8,366,198 | |
| Northwestern Corporation | Robert Rowe | $2,848,279 | $3,165,931 | $3,298,304 | $9,312,514 | |
| Madison Gas and Electric (MGE Energy) | Jeffrey Keebler | $1,558,941 | $1,501,606 | $2,381,012 | $5,441,559 | |
| Totals | $363,100,687 | $356,002,165 | $449,482,507 | $1,168,585,359 |
The data is also available here.
Notes for compensation figures received by former CEOs in 2017 and/or 2018:
William Johnson became CEO of PG&E in May 2019, and the 2019 figure is compensation he received. The 2017 and 2018 figures are compensation received by former CEO Geisha Williams.
Kevin Fletcher became CEO of WEC Energy in February 2019, and the 2019 figure is compensation he received. The 2018 figure is compensation received by former CEO Gale Klappa. The 2017 figure is compensation received by former CEO Allen Leverett.
John Larsen became CEO of Alliant in July 2019, and the 2019 figure is compensation he received. The 2017 and 2018 figures are compensation received by former CEO Patricia Kampling.
Maria Pope became CEO of Portland General Electric in January 2018, and figures for 2018 and 2019 are compensation she received. The 2017 figure is compensation received by former CEO Jim Piro.
Thomas Meissner became CEO of Unitil in February 2018, and figures for 2018 and 2019 are compensation he received. The 2017 figure is compensation received by former CEO Robert Schoenberger.
Notes for CEOs that have recently been replaced:
Gerard Anderson was CEO of DTE Energy until July 2019, when Gerardo Norcia became CEO.
Donald Brandt was CEO of Pinnacle West until November 2019, when Jeff Guldner became CEO.
Alan Hodnik was CEO of Allete until February 2020, when . Bethany Owen became CEO.
Scott Morris was CEO of Avista until October 2019, when Dennis Vermillion became CEO.
David Emery was CEO of Black Hills until December 2018, when Linden Evans became CEO. Emery “continues his full-time employment with the Company as Executive Chairman of the Board, through May 1, 2020,” so all figures are compensation he received.
Note on missing data
Berkshire Hathaway Energy did not publish compensation received by Gregory Abel in 2017, and a spokesperson said the company would not provide it.
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