Executive VP & COO, Cms
Search every verified Tonya Berry interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Tonya Berry, senior vice president of transformation and engineering at Consumers Energy, discussed the company’s reliability road map in a February 2024 interview. She said the plan includes increased undergrounding of power lines, tree trimming, and a commitment to restore power to all customers within 24 hours within five years. Berry noted that Consumers Energy spends $100 million per year trimming trees, which she described as the leading cause of outages. She also mentioned that the company provides meals and refreshments to customers during extended outages as part of its community service efforts. In a February 2022 podcast, Berry, then vice president of gas operations, outlined Consumers Energy’s goal to achieve net zero methane emissions by 2030, a decade ahead of the company’s broader carbon neutrality target of 2040. She stated that the company is “hardening, not expanding the system” and that natural gas will continue to play a role in the future. Berry, who holds a degree in industrial engineering from the University of Michigan, said she joined Consumers Energy after working in the automotive industry.
“Consumers Energy spends $100 million per year trimming trees.”
“We have a commitment in five years to be able to get everyone's power back on within 24 hours.”
“We filed a clean energy plan and it calls for us to be carbon neutral by 2040. Our natural gas goal is a decade ahead of that, so we're saying we're going to be net zero methane emissions by 2030.”
“We're hardening, not expanding the system. We know that natural gas will play a role in the future and people will continue to use and depend on it.”
Today we talk clean, natural, affordable gas energy with Consumers Energy’s Tonya Berry, VP of Gas Operations. In Michigan, there are nearly 28,000 miles of natural gas lines, that's the same distance as 1.2x around our planet's circumference. And Tonya counts herself lucky to work alongside a team of 2,000 corworkers to maintain this system - delivering safe, affordable and clean gas energy to 1.9 million homes and businesses, affecting nearly 4 million people. She also explains Consumers Energy's goal to decarbonize their natural gas system, working towards net zero methane emissions by 20…
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