USA Today interviews Tom Fanning, the CEO of Southern Company, from an Atlantic Council event on the future of the power industry:

But with the rapid spread of solar panels on residential and business roofs across the country, and the potential for breakthroughs in microgrids, storage systems and other technologies, the business model for electric utilities is coming under scrutiny like never before.

Among those dealing with the change is Tom Fanning, the CEO of Southern Company, the giant holding company for utilities in the Southeast.

“The answer’s no, at least not in the near term,” Fanning told me, following a talk to the Atlantic Council in Washington, where the question of utilities’ potential obsolescence came up. “There will always be a need for infrastructure in our business.”

Read the full article here.