A decade ago, Zach Borton had a lightbulb moment when studying energy economics at Ohio State University: the grid was trending toward decentralization. That realization set him on a path that would eventually lead him to Colorado, where he now serves as DER services manager at Platte River Power Authority.Platte River's 2024 integrated resource plan includes an ambitious goal: 30 megawatts of virtual power plant capacity by 2030. But building a VPP across multiple utility territories isn't just about technology -- it's about coordination, customer engagement, and breaking down organizational silos.This week on With Great Power, Zach explains the technical architecture behind Platte River's VPP strategy, which relies on two interconnected systems: grid derms and edge derms. He also discusses the challenges of aligning five different organizations, the importance of seamless customer enrollment, and why he believes curiosity-driven leadership is his superpower in the energy transition.With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.  Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.TRANSCRIPT:Brad Langley: Back in the early 2010s, apps skyrocketed in popularity. Apple had just launched its famous "There's an app for that" commercial, and within a few years, more than a million apps were available for download in the app store.Commercial clips: Ever wish you could really read people's emotions? Well, now there's an app for that. Don't have a great voice or any real musical talent? Well, there's an app for that too. You want to get the potholes filled? Well, there's an app for that. There's an app for that...Brad Langley: Zach Borton's family was right there with the rest of America, feverishly downloading apps to manage finances or track the weather or achieve personal fitness goals.Zach Borton: Fitbits were becoming popular and my mom and dad would all compete against different steps, and we wanted to bring that kind of competitive element to the energy space.Brad Langley: At the time, Zach was studying business and sustainability at The Ohio State University.Zach Borton: Most of my classmates were going down the road of corporate social responsibility, sustainability reporting, but I took an energy economics course and that kind of shifted my path.Brad Langley: As part of that course, Zach was presented with some graphics of the power system. One showed the traditional energy value chain with big centralized generation. Another showed the declining cost of rooftop solar and an upward trend for installations.Zach Borton: I realized at that moment we're going from this horse and buggy to car event. Every few generations will have that shift, and I wanted to be a part of that shift.Brad Langley: After graduation, Zach and two friends decided to launch their own energy-focused app, the idea was to show people the impact of their environmentally focused investments.Zach Borton: What we were trying to build is a visualization tool to track environmental metrics such as carbon saved or trees planted, and also kind of that competitive nature of seeing what your friends were investing, what types of projects they were investing in, and then competing with your friends or tracking that with your friends to drive that competitiveness.Brad Langley: Unfortunately, for Zach and his friends, their app didn't make millions, but it did motivate Zach to keep working on some of the big complex problems unfolding in the power sector. So he took a job at American Municipal Power in Columbus, Ohio.Zach Borton: I was a power supply engineer. There was learning kind of the nuts and bolts on how to serve a community with generation, really how to stack those assets for energy, capacity, and transmission. But really despite everything I was learning, I kept going back to those two graphics from that energy economics course.Brad Langley: He just couldn't get one question out of his head. How would the legacy power system interact with all these new DERs? And he wasn't the only one thinking about it.Zach Borton: There was utility of the future white paper coming out of MIT, and so we were really going through that and understanding rather than a centralized approach from these large generators, how can we hedge against energy, capacity, and transmission from within the load?Brad Langley: Once Zach locked into this problem, he just couldn't let it go. So he headed west to Colorado where he now works at a public power utility helping build a virtual power plant.Zach Borton: My job is to take distributed energy resources and make use of them as we transition to a non-carbon grid.Brad Langley: This is With Great Power, a show about the people building the future grid, today. I'm Brad Langley. Some people say utilities are slow to change, that they don't innovate fast enough, and while it might not always seem like the most cutting edge industry, there are lots of really smart people working really hard to make the grid cleaner, more reliable and customer centric. This week I'm talking to Zach Borton, the DER service manager at Platte River Power Authority, a public power utility that serves the communities of Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont, and Loveland in Colorado. Platte River provides wholesale electricity generation and transmission for its member communities, each of which has its own local electric utility. So a major part of Zach's job is figuring out how to build a VPP across all of those different utilities.Zach Borton: So each have their own technology suite, which makes integrations maybe a little bit more difficult. So we're all at different paths in this integration and technology suite, but getting there is going to require more collaboration and breaking down those silos.Brad Langley: I wanted to dive into the mechanics of building this kind of VPP, but first I asked Zach how the initiative came about and how Platte River planned to break down those utility silos. So let's dig into your work at Platte River. Platte River's 2024 Integrated resource plan includes 32 megawatts of VPP by 2030, which is a significant amount. Tell us about that project. How did the initiative come about?Zach Borton: Yeah, so it can all kind of go back to the 2018 resource diversification policy. In that policy, there's a few things that line out how we can get to a non-carbon future, but it really suggests better integration and coordination across the systems from the generation transmission system down to the distribution. So senior managers, utility directors, and a few different public engagement sessions really sparked this vision and guiding principles for a DER strategy. Next came kind of a gap analysis, so we tried to understand what systems we have today and what we need, and so this really showed us where we need to go with how to make this technology work. Finally, we got to that potential study, which you saw in the 2024 IRP. This showed us kind of the market size and the potential and really gives us a goal to hit. It tells us what types of programs we should run and where we should head into that 2030 mark that you said, 30 megawatts.Brad Langley: And what is your role as DER services manager on the project? What are you specifically tasked with?Zach Borton: It's really trying to coordinate and develop these programs with our owner communities. We can think about our strategy in two different approaches. It's really that best thinking available today, which you can see in the SEPA article Decoding DERMS. It's going to require two different systems, and that's the grid DERMS and the edge DERMS. But really I want to circle back to VPP isn't just a piece of software, it's a utility strategy. It's a system level approach that brings together people, technology and data to orchestrate this cleaner and more flexible grid.Brad Langley: So we've established there's two main components to this. There's the grid DERMS and there's the edge DERMS. Talk me through specifically what the grid DERMS is doing as well as what the edge DERMS is doing.Zach Borton: Absolutely, yeah. So we can think about the grid DERMS as the brain of the future utility operation. It's going to hold our network model. It's going to monitor the state of the distribution in real time, say watching for those stress points and identifying where flexibility could be made available. Some of this technology is in place today, but a lot of this needs to be developed over the next several years, whereas the edge DERMS manages the customer side. It's going to help us enroll devices into the programs, optimize them, and then deliver those optimized energy shapes, load shapes or blocks into the grid DERMS as kind of like, here's a block at this hour. Here's the shape that you can use here for this stress point, and together these two systems kind of coordinate those individual devices into actionable blocks.Brad Langley: Can you go into more detail in terms of what those components are? I assume it's a mix of hardware and software, but any specific technologies you're able to call out.Zach Borton: When we think about our owner communities, they're kind of laying the foundation for the grid DERMS for that distribution system awareness, whether that's smart metering, switching, things like that. We need to build out that process with our owner communities to bring in those data points and make that distribution grid a little bit more intelligent. We can think about the future of advanced distribution management. When we think about the edge DERMS, there's a lot of processes and people involvement: enrolling customers and engaging with those customers. Obviously there's a lot of software optimization on the backend, but that's where we lean on our partners.Brad Langley: So two distinct yet connected systems for owner communities. What kind of challenges are you either experiencing or do you foresee in making this program a reality?Zach Borton: There's quite a bit of challenges. I'd say one of our biggest challenges is aligning across the five organizations. It's sometimes hard enough to break down the department silos, but then breaking down the five organization department silos is really complicated. So everyone might agree on this goal of a functional customer friendly VPP, but getting there in sync is the hard part, which kind of brings us to the next challenge, which is a unified vision and consistency. Like I said, we have incredibly talented people working on this from all sides, but aligning on a common path with consistency is critical. We may ask, why is that so important? Well, we risk confusing the customer if we're changing things as we go or sending mixed messages. So we need to really build that trust and participation with our customers and our own communities. That brings us kind of to the third point, which is the customer patience and experience.We're building something new and with that comes unavoidable, really growing pains. So making the enrollment and engagement process as smooth as possible in that first year is going to be so important for us to scale to that 2030, 30-megawatt goal. And that's the last piece is that OEM maturity and industry coordination. Like OEMs are learning how to build and design for flexibility, but it's a learning curve and everyone's taken their unique approach. Whereas the utilities, I can call up a utility that has a similar goal to us and they'll share the lessons learned where I feel like some of the OEMs aren't sharing those lessons learned with each other.Brad Langley: It's an interesting point. We're big believers in partnerships in this space. I think partnerships are super important. Are you encouraging the OEMs to talk to each other? Because it's tricky, they might be competitive, but they're implementing similar programs, so lessons shared can be important. How do you navigate that? Are you finding openness for OEMs to be more collaborative or is it kind of a walled garden so to speak?Zach Borton: It seems like a walled garden, but I would like for all of us utilities to try to break that down and share like, Hey, we're trying to get to this non-carbon future and open up all of these opportunities for flexibility. And so I think if a lot of us will say that to the OEMs, maybe they'll start listening. So I think if we can band together and really get the OEMs to listen, we can get to this non-carbon flexibility future.Brad Langley: You mentioned you'll start enrolling customers early next year. Does that mean the project is complete? What are some of those stages or milestones that kind of happen before or after that? Maybe give us the one to two year look into the various stages of the program following customer enrollment?Zach Borton: Yeah, so I mentioned the two types of DERMS and there's kind of different working paths for each of those, but I'll kind of talk about the edge DERMS really enrolling customers there early next year. So I think we're breaking this strategy out into three different years. First year we really want to boost up the enrollment and awareness of these programs. So enrolling customers, boosting up satisfaction and increasing that program awareness. It's going to take many actions to get there, like streamlining that DER onboarding process and establishing incentive structures and engagement methods with our customer base. That's going to be critical for scaling the VPP all testing in that first year dispatches with a small number of megawatts and devices. In that next year, we're really going to be looking for analytics and post-event insight, so leveraging event data to better understand how we're forecasting and modeling DR.So we're going to lay out the infrastructure needed to capture dispatch data and analyze that across the systems, whether it's on the distribution or the generation transmission system. And then that third year is going to be building out scale. To get to that 2030 goal in the third year, we're really going to be trying to grow those legs and pick up our speed, and it's all going to be about scalability of the dispatch and optimization. I think this is where the edge DERMS becomes integrated with the grid DERMS. So as the grid DERMS is getting intelligent and connecting to all of those devices in the field, we'll build out that integration to kind of build this full VPP fully integrated using those historical insights. And really in that year, we start to see the real time grid data and the integrations.Brad Langley: How did the customers react to the VPP announcement? Are they excited about the prospect of integrating this type of technology? What was their overall sentiment towards the program when it was announced?Zach Borton: Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of excitement around this. When we think about our customer base, they love technology. We have a lot of EVs in our service territory. We have a lot of solar. We're starting to see that solar being paired with storage. So I think there's a lot of interest in helping us get to that non-carbon goal. And it's really the foundation we've built over the past 50 years, our community ownership, our collaborative mindset, and a long-term vision. We're not just building it alone, we're building it with our members, our partners, and every customer who chooses to be part of the solution. And it's really great to see a lot of those customers show up to the stakeholder meetings and suggest really great ideas to get to this VPP.Brad Langley: How many customers are you initially targeting and what's the scale of that look like over time?Zach Borton: Yeah, so the first few years, our big focus is on seamless integration, enrollment and engagement with those customers. We're going to most likely start within three different program groups, so EVs, batteries and thermostats and expand offerings from there. We hope to have roughly one megawatt in that first year, but again, I want to focus mostly on building out the seamless enrollment process and engagement. We can't build that 30 megawatts by 2030 without the customers and the devices, so having that poor engagement or poor enrollment process isn't going to help us scale. So we really need to build out the processes we have and kind of scale up to that 30 megawatt number by 2030.Brad Langley: Well, hey, we call this show With Great Power, which is a nod to the energy industry. It's also a famous Spider-Man quote. With great power comes great responsibility. So Zach, what superpower do you bring to the energy transition?Zach Borton: That's a really great question. I would say that curiosity-driven leadership. I'm highly adaptable and I have this ability to connect with all types of people, meet them where they're at, and build that real trust through kind of empathy, curiosity. I find common ground and help bring out the best in others, whether it's a technical person, strategic customer focus, I know how to relate and inspire those folks and share a sense of purpose. The ability to connect with folks is key when bringing together a diverse team with the single vision that we have.Brad Langley: And I'd add a great sense of fashion. I know our listeners can't see it, but I love the VPP hat you're rocking. It's right on point. So nicely done with that. Well, Zach, thank you so much for coming on the show and we wish you the best of luck with the program.Zach Borton: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you having me, Brad.Brad Langley: Zach Borton is the DER service manager at Platte River Power Authority. With Great Power is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. Delivering on our clean energy future is complex. GridX exists to simplify the journey. GridX is the enterprise rate platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future. We design and implement emerging rate structures and we increase consumer investment in clean energy all while managing the complex billing needs of a distributed grid. Our production team includes Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O'Connor. Anne Bailey is our senior editor. Steven Lacey is our executive editor. Sean Marquand composed the original theme song and mixed the show. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and me, Brad Langley.If this show is providing value for you and we really hope it is, we'd love it if you could help us spread the word. You can rate or review us on Apple and Spotify, or you can share a link with a friend, colleague, or the energy nerd in your life. As always, we thank you for listening. I'm Brad Langley.

Since her first power sector job with Pacific Gas & Electric, Hannah Bascom knew she wanted to focus on people and clean energy — not on what she calls “the pipes and wires part of the business.”That interest led her to Nest in early 2014, just a few months after Google had acquired it. Almost a decade later, she moved on to SPAN and then Uplight, a technology partner for energy providers. Today, as Uplight’s chief growth officer, Hannah thinks more than ever about how people interact with energy — and how to better manage that demand.This week on With Great Power, Hannah talks with Brad about the vital role of demand side management, also known as DSM, for managing load growth, and why she thinks leveraging the demand stack can help utilities to better manage that growth. They also discuss how Puget Sound Energy is using a VPP and rate program to reduce peak demand. And she talks about the important role that rate design can play in encouraging consumers to electrify their homes.With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.  Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

If you’re a With Great Power fan, you know that we launched this show over two years ago to explore how people are tackling some of the biggest problems in the power sector – from grid reliability and resilience to skyrocketing electricity demand. Over four seasons, we’ve told you stories about the people working to make the grid cleaner, more reliable, and more equitable. And we’re just getting started. In our upcoming season, you’ll hear from some of the biggest names in grid-management; utilities building brand new programs from scratch; and non-profits pursuing their clean energy goals in a chaotic, dynamic market.   Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts for the latest episodes when season 5 drops.With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.  Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

During her early days in Quaker schools, Alexina Jackson learned to question everything and examine how systems work. Years later, those same principles are guiding her work to help build a clean, resilient, and modern electric grid.Following an 11-year run at AES, Alexina recently launched a clean energy advisory called Seven Green Strategy, a reference to the seven greenhouse gases that cause climate change. As a lawyer and utility innovation leader, Alexina founded Seven Green Strategy to help large and small organizations accelerate their efforts to decarbonize. And sometimes, that starts by questioning the status quo.This week on With Great Power, Alexina talks with Brad about what excites and frustrates her about grid enhancing technologies; why she thinks data efficiency and a strong data architecture are essential for the digital grid; and why she wants to see utilities change how they think about everything from competition to customer data. With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.  Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Dan Yates co-founded Opower in 2007, based on the belief that consumers want to use less energy—and that their utilities could actually help them do it. He was right. Opower took off, and Oracle bought the customer engagement platform in 2016. A year later, Dan became interested in another startup focused on residential energy: Dandelion Energy. Spun out of GoogleX, Dandelion developed a system for using geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings. Electrifying buildings is a major tenant of decarbonizing the power sector, but air-source heat pumps can be expensive. Installation costs are even higher with geothermal heat pumps, but they offer energy efficiency advantages. Dan is a big fan. After investing in Dandelion and serving on its board, he became CEO in 2023.This week on With Great Power, Dan talks about the potential for residential geothermal heating and cooling, why it could be the clean energy that gains instead of loses federal support in the near term, and the role he thinks utilities can play in the technology’s deployment.With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.  Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. Sean Marquand composed the original theme song and mixed the show. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Destenie Nock knows what it’s like to struggle with the high cost of energy. When she was in grad school, her electricity got cut off because she couldn’t afford to pay the bills. At the time, she was pursuing her doctorate in engineering with a focus on the power sector at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  She knew many others struggled to pay their utility bills, and she wanted to find solutions. So years later, after joining the engineering faculty at  Carnegie Mellon University, she launched Peoples Energy Analytics –a startup working to improve how utilities connect with customers in need of bill assistance. This week on With Great Power, Dr. Nock describes the research behind Peoples Energy Analytics’ products and how Peoples Natural Gas is piloting them. She also shares why she thinks government programs for bill assistance are so important — and why she worries about the outlook for future funding.With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.  Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. Sean Marquand composed the original theme song and mixed the show. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Keith Collins knows electricity markets. After a stint consulting for the New York Independent System Operator, he joined FERC in 2004. After that, he spent years working for the California ISO and the Southwest Power Pool. But it wasn’t until he  joined the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) as vice president of commercial operations last summer that he started making waves. Unlike many electricity markets in the U.S., ERCOT is deregulated, and its grid is isolated from other systems. It drew a great deal of attention — and ire from some Texans — after a major grid failure during Winter Storm Uri back in 2021. But now, all eyes are on ERCOT as it turns to battery storage as a way to help meet surging demand for power. This week on With Great Power, Keith explains what makes ERCOT's approach to electricity different from other markets and how the incredible growth of solar generation and battery energy storage systems have changed the Texas grid. They also cover the role of ancillary services and look ahead to how ERCOT’s energy mix will continue to evolve.With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.  Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. Sean Marquand composed the original theme song and mixed the show. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Right now, there’s not much growing in Iowa. But Nick Peterson, strategic partnerships manager for Alliant Energy, is already thinking about next summer’s yields. He’s spearheading a collaboration with Iowa State University, an Alliant customer, to evaluate a practice called agrivoltaics, which marries farming with solar energy generation.Across ten acres, the utility installed a 1.35 megawatt solar installation, using both fixed arrays and tracker panels. Along with a team from Iowa State University’s agriculture and engineering schools, Alliant Energy is looking at the potential for growing high-value crops under the panels. One year into the four-year project supported by a $1.8 million Department of Energy grant,  early food and power generation results are promising.This week on With Great Power, Nick tells Brad what scientists are learning from the project, why it could change how utilities think about agrivoltaics, and why one of the hardest parts of his job is addressing the fears some farmers have about the practice.With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.  Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Sean Marquand composed the original theme song and mixed the show. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Chéri Smith  is a descendant of the Mi'kmaq Nation, native to northeastern North America. She has worked in clean energy for most of her career, but it took a 2016 visit to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana to understand the severity and persistence of energy poverty on tribal lands.For 14% of households on tribal lands, electrification isn’t about replacing gas appliances with electric ones. It’s about having electricity at all. Chéri launched the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy in 2016 to change that reality.This week on With Great Power, Chéri explains why – despite a historic commitment of federal funds for clean energy development – tribes still face significant hurdles to building clean energy projects. The Alliance is working with philanthropic donors to raise $100M for the  Indigenous Power and Light Fund for Energy Sovereignty to address those challenges. This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

With their short, predictable routes and large battery size, electric school buses are well suited for vehicle-to-grid applications, especially since they’re available during periods of high electricity demand. Last year, bus maker Zum launched a fleet of 74 electric school buses — the country’s largest — for the Oakland Unified School District in California. It worked with Pacific Gas & Electric to build a network of chargers and integrate the buses to the local grid to form a virtual power plant. This week on With Great Power, Rudi Halbright – expert product manager on vehicle-grid integration at PG&E – shares insights from launching the V2G program with Zum as well as lessons learned on how to deploy vehicle-grid infrastructure.This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

When Winter Storm Uri hit Texas in 2021, it led to more than 240 deaths and hobbled the electric grid for days. At the time, Arushi Sharma Frank was working on Tesla’s U.S. energy policy team, trying to convince Texas regulators to allow it to connect a 100 megawatt battery to the grid. It was part of a larger effort to encourage distributed energy resources (DERs) as a means of improving grid resiliency. After Uri, regulators greenlit Tesla’s pilot projects.Today, Arushi runs her own grid resiliency consultancy and recently helped community groups in New Orleans draft a proposal for a $32M virtual power plant and microgrid project. The  city council quickly approved the proposal after hearing from locals and advocates from other cities that have already seen the benefits of grid resiliency projects.  This week on With Great Power, Arushi tells Brad why she thinks experiencing grid failures has turned stakeholders – from regulators to politicians to consumers – into advocates for grid resiliency. This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

In 2014, Nathan Shannon was working for a community land trust in Georgia, building affordable housing. But following his interest in behavioral economics, he attended the Behavior, Energy, and Climate Change conference. That event piqued his interest in how and why consumers make economic decisions related to their homes, and that led him to the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC), a nonprofit that surveys energy consumers in North America and works across the industry to share best practices in consumer engagement.One of the key insights he brought to SECC — where he is now president and CEO — is that housing affordability is tied inextricably to energy affordability. That’s evident in SECC’s research, too. This week on With Great Power, Nathan discusses the findings of SECC’s latest consumer survey and Modern Energy Messaging report. It shows that as energy costs have risen in recent years, consumers are less motivated by environmental messaging — and what it takes for energy providers to keep consumers engaged in clean energy programs. You can learn more about SECC’s research here.This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Toby Ferenczi used to work for an energy provider that marketed 100% clean energy but also ran a demand response program. When customers started asking him why they should shift their energy use to certain times of day if their energy was totally clean, he didn’t have a good answer.During the pandemic he spent a lot of time ruminating on this disconnect and ultimately helped develop a new standard for tracking the renewable energy credits behind clean energy claims. He says his startup Granular Energy, which grew out of that work, ensures companies buying those credits are really moving the needle on a cleaner electric grid. This week on With Great Power, Toby shares his journey into the world of RECs and explains why there’s a big debate among some of the world’s biggest tech companies about the best path forward.This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Sonia Aggarwal spent the early years of her career moving between nonprofits and the private sector, supporting renewable energy deployment. But after watching early climate policies fail in Washington D.C., she realized her energy modeling skills could better serve the clean energy transition. In 2012, she co-founded Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan energy and climate research organization that works with policymakers on policy design. Today, after a two-year stint advising Biden’s climate team, Sonia leads Energy Innovation’s team of nearly 45 policy analysts, economists, and energy modelers. Kicking off the fourth season of With Great Power, Sonia tells Brad why the 2024 election is likely to send the energy transition down one of two very different paths. But, she explains, some areas of progress will continue, regardless of shifts in the White House.This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Over the past three seasons of With Great Power, we've met some of the incredible people working to make our power grid smarter, cleaner, and more resilient. We've examined the complexity of policy and regulation. We tackled the challenges of adopting new technologies like artificial intelligence. And we've heard powerful stories of both personal and professional transformation. We need to build the grid of the future today – but it’s not easy.In the coming weeks and months, we'll profile some of the most innovative utilities and technology providers. We'll learn about cutting-edge approaches to energy storage and vehicle-to-grid deployments. And we'll hear from regulators and energy providers grappling with growing demand, rising rates, and increasing climate threats.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast app to get fresh episodes when the new season drops.

Marc Spieler had been at the oil and gas giant Halliburton for 13 years when he first saw inklings of the energy transition – like Shell’s investment in geothermal and Exxon Mobil’s wind and solar PPAs. Once EVs started to go mainstream in 2019, he knew the energy transition was for real. And he wanted in. So he got a job at NVIDIA the same year the tech giant launched a new line of semiconductor chips specifically designed for processing artificial intelligence. Now, Marc works with other software companies and utilities to use technology to drive down the cost of the energy transition and speed up decarbonization. This week on With Great Power, Marc tells Brad about how advanced processing and artificial intelligence are changing utility operations, and why not all technology solutions need to be built from scratch. This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Hudson Gilmer worked in telecom in the 90’s when the industry transformed how data moved. And it didn’t take long for him to realize that a similar transformation would happen with electric utilities – and he needed to be a part of it.So he started a dynamic line rating company, LineVision, that uses sensors and data to show what is happening on transmission lines in real time. But, like other start-ups in the power sector, LineVision was stuck in pilot purgatory for years, until 2022 when they were awarded a big contract from a utility in the northeast. Now they are working on projects with utilities across the country. In this episode of With Great Power, Hudson tells Brad why dynamic line rating technology is picking up momentum, and how it can help meet growing electricity demand. This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

In Nigeria, tens of millions of people live without access to reliable power. Utibe Bassey grew up in Lagos, and knows what it’s like to not have electricity to perform simple daily tasks. When she moved to the United States as a teen, she didn’t think much about electric utilities. But she did think about how managers treat employees – a thought spurred by an unfortunate instance she witnessed while working at a fast food chain. Ever since then, Utibe has refined her personal philosophy, “Love as a KPI,” which prioritizes kindness and human connection in the workplace. In this episode of With Great Power, Utibe tells Brad about how she puts her personal philosophy to work at Dominion Energy, where she is vice president of customer experience. She also talks about what it means to work in the power industry, having lived without access to reliable power in her youth. This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Sarah Kapnick has always been drawn to solving complex problems, and as a kid she dreamed of being a mathematician. But a stronger desire to work on more tangible things, led her to blaze a career path that combined climate science and financial risk. Since becoming NOAA’s chief scientist in 2022, one way that Kapnick has applied her unique skill set is by helping utilities better leverage climate data and predictions in resiliency and operational expenditures.In this episode of With Great Power, Sarah tells Brad how NOAA is supporting the Electric Power Research Institute, how she has seen utilities’ response to climate threats evolve, and why the power sector needs to monitor another possible threat: space weather.This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Luis Reyes is a lifer at Kit Carson Electric, a rural energy co-operative in northern New Mexico. He grew up in a home powered by the utility and has been its CEO for 30 years. Under his leadership – and the direction of co-op members – Kit Carson has moved all of its daytime energy needs to renewables.Now, in a push to hit 100% round-the-clock renewable energy, he wants to develop a green hydrogen project for long-duration storage – at a Superfund site, of all places. In this episode of With Great Power, Luis tells Brad how this Superfund site project originated, and how it fits into the bigger vision for transitioning a community of 30,000 members away from fossil-based energy.This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Mark Waclawiak was tuned into energy issues at an early age. Both his parents worked in the industry: his mom designed electrical systems for buildings and his dad worked at the utility. So the importance of electricity was always apparent to him.When he started working for a utility in 2015, he quickly identified an opportunity to use data to improve reliability, which led to running the operational performance team. The team moved data out of Access and Excel into SQL databases, which now serve as the foundation for AI applications. This week, Mark talks with Brad about how Avangrid replaced legacy data management systems with SQL databases to support AI projects.On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX will host a Frontier Forum to examine the importance of good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register at latitudemedia.com/events. See you there!This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Kim Getgen moved to Silicon Valley from Washington D.C. in 2000, just in time for the dot com bubble burst. Despite her timing, she fell hard for the excitement and opportunity of startups and technology innovation. Kim launched and worked at many startups, but also took roles in larger organizations where she gravitated toward “intrapreneurship.” But after suffering burnout four years ago, she started thinking about ways to encourage innovation among intrapreneurs in risk-averse sectors like utilities.In 2021 she founded InnovationForce to guide innovators, and their teams, through a repeatable, rigorous, and democratic process for vetting and testing new technologies. Kim’s goals are to promote workplace psychological safety for intrapreneurs and to help utilities keep new decarbonization technologies out of pilot purgatory. On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX will host a Frontier Forum to examine the importance of good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register at latitudemedia.com/events. See you there!This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Ahmad Faruqui has been researching electricity pricing since the mid 1970’s, when the cost of a kilowatt-hour was flat. But in the 80’s and 90’s, he started working on dynamic pricing – pioneering the concept of time-of-use rates.The big breakthrough for time-of-use rates came during the fallout from the California energy crisis. Later, thanks to the rollout of smart meters, more power providers started experimenting with dynamic rates.Now, new technology is making time-of-use rate design more transparent. This week, Ahmad talks with Brad about why dynamic pricing is gaining momentum among electric utilities – and what makes for good rate design. On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX will host a Frontier Forum to examine the imperative of good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register at the link in the show notes, or go to latitudemdia.com/events. See you there!This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Heather Rock has always liked grappling with big, existential questions. Knowing she wanted to “serve a carbon-neutral future,” she left Chevron in 2018 to become senior director of strategy for Pacific Gas & Electric. When she joined PG&E, it was on the brink of bankruptcy due to billions of dollars in liability after its equipment sparked wildfires. But Heather says the utility is now building a safer grid that is more resilient to climate change. In her current role she’s also scaling innovations to improve the customer experience and lower costs.This week, Heather talks with Brad about how PG&E is using batteries to resolve a service bottleneck in northern California. She also weighs in on being an agent for change in a large organization. “Because of the size and the scope and the scale, if you can make change internally, you can really steer a ship in a different way,” she says. This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

From his early days working on regulatory policy on the Hill to his current role as president of Grid Strategies, Rob Gramlich has been focused on future-proofing the electrical grid.  Twenty years ago, utilities invested heavily in load demand forecasting. But as load growth fell precipitously in the 2000s, those departments shrank. Now, with load growth skyrocketing from increasingly-electrified manufacturing, burgeoning data centers, and electrified homes, planners are struggling to keep up. The grid simply isn’t ready for what’s coming. This week, Rob talks with Brad about how to mitigate the risks of this impending load demand, including how recent federal funding could help improve grid planning. They also dig into some  systemic fixes that could improve the grid’s health in the long term. This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

In 2016, Dr. Kyri Baker was a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory working on a new home energy management system. Called Foresee, the system reduced energy usage through machine learning algorithms that tracked consumption patterns and grid conditions. Today, Kyri is an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she continues her research on machine learning applications for the power grid. Her work has expanded beyond home energy management to the transmission and distribution grids, and she is pioneering new techniques for power flow optimization. This week, Kyri talks with Brad about how utilities can use neural networks to reduce outage times with data they already have available. She also describes the machine learning algorithms she’s training to make power flow predictions more accurate. This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

In early 2023, things were moving along as planned for a rate restructuring plan at Holy Cross Energy, a rural electric co-op in Colorado. The board of directors had approved the plan, which would separate the cost of energy from the cost of delivering that energy to the customer.The change meant rooftop solar customers could continue to sell their excess electricity back to Holy Cross, just at a much lower rate that would slow their return on investment.  The pushback from solar customers and the solar industry was swift. And soon, Holy Cross CEO Bryan Hannegan got a call from the Governor, asking for a meeting with Holy Cross and solar industry representatives.Speaking on the With Great Power podcast, Hannegan joked that it felt a bit like “being called to the principal’s office” for fighting in the hallway. But the result — an ongoing series of meetings with energy industry stakeholders from across the state — brought positive change.In Colorado, the rift that formed over the Holy Cross rate restructuring plan will take time and community engagement to repair. But ultimately, the utility business model needs to change, Hannegan says. Rather than selling electricity, he envisions utilities becoming infrastructure operators, essentially becoming “the FedEx of electricity in the sense that wherever it comes from, wherever it needs to go, we'll get it there on time and at an affordable price and in a reliable manner,” he said. In this first episode of season 3 of With Great Power, host Brad Langley talks with Bryan Hannegan about Holy Cross Energy’s rate restructuring plan and his vision for a new utility business model.This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Over the past two seasons of With Great Power, you've heard stories from all kinds of people working at the front lines of change on the power grid. We've covered the rise of electric vehicles, explored the dawn of long-duration storage, unpacked the utility digital transformation, and asked: how can power companies learn from other industries about change?In March, we’re coming back for another season on the tech, business, and market forces that are changing the grid. Season three will feature stories from some of the nation’s biggest utilities and most nimble cooperatives; we’ll hear from analysts and researchers following tech trends, like artificial intelligence and virtual power plants; and we'll dive into the massive federal efforts to make the grid more agile and resilient.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast app to get fresh episodes when the new season drops.

There are more than 250 million cars on U.S. roads today. Only about 1% of them are electric. But with seven million more EVs projected to hit the road by 2030, that percentage is changing.The problem? Access to all those EVs isn't equal. The majority of EV owners in the country are high-income and white. But to cut transportation emissions in the U.S., we need to make EV ownership and charging a staple in all communities.That's where Dr. Shelley Francis and her team at EVNoire come in. They're working to combat the lack of diversity in EV ownership by collaborating with utilities, automakers, and other stakeholders on national and regional projects.The data and insight EVNoire collects and presents to stakeholders isn't just for show. They can easily hone in on where there's a need for resources like EV chargers, which influences funding decisions down the line.This week, Brad speaks to Dr. Shelley Francis, co-founder and managing partner at EVNoire, about the state of EV adoption and ownership in communities of color and the policies and practices needed to help address it.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Over the past 20 years, Kerri Carnes has worked a lot of different jobs at Arizona Public Service, or APS. She's been an administrative assistant, real-time trader, and regulation manager. Today, she serves as the director of customer-to-grid solutions. Besides maintaining service, Kerri and her colleagues are determined to increase customer adoption of technologies like solar, EVs, and smart thermostats.They're leveraging all the resources at their disposal to meet customer demand for electrification. That includes making technologies more affordable to customers who struggle with accessibility.This week, Brad speaks to Kerri Carnes about the strategies APS is using to make that a reality.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

A wave of extreme weather this year has left Jim Kapsis questioning whether utilities are prepared for more frequent, intense weather events in the future.There's a growing group of startups that are more than ready to provide solutions, but they've struggled to break into the space. They need help figuring out a business model that works in the unique market that is the utility industry. Jim's response? A new company called the Ad Hoc Group, founded in 2016 with the goal of helping those newcomers succeed.This week, Brad speaks with Jim Kapsis, CEO and founder of the Ad Hoc Group, about its extensive work helping climate tech startups navigate the highly regulated world of utilities.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Rappahannock Electric Cooperative recently received a $38 million grant through the Department of Energy's Grid Innovation and Partnership Program. The grant will fund a  massive rollout of technologies that will serve as the backbone of the energy transition. Peter Muhoro is one of the executives at REC that will oversee these projects. The money will be used to implement a new distributed energy resources management system, deploy smart meters, and install a fiber network. Since Peter is bullish on clean energy technology, he's making sure REC's long-term strategy is built around it. This week, Brad speaks with Peter Muhoro, the chief strategy, technology, and innovation officer at Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, about why electric cooperatives need to evolve and how to bring that about.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

In 2016, Edison International was rethinking how to boost their efforts toward fighting climate change. As the parent company behind Southern California Edison, they were making strides in the power sector. But Edison International wanted to tackle decarbonization in other sectors. So they added clean energy consulting into the mix with their new venture, Edison Energy.This past summer, Drew Murphy decided to take the reins over at Edison Energy, managing risk and reaping rewards for those involved. With executive roles at NRG and Edison under his belt, and his work on energy project finance at law firm Hunton & Williams, Drew understands how to make big climate goals a reality.This week, Brad speaks with Drew Murphy, CEO of Edison Energy, about how they help some of the world’s biggest companies form long-term clean energy plans.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

In January, Illinois' largest utility released ComEd 2030 – their roadmap for providing clean power for more than 4 million customers.   For CEO Gil Quiniones and the company, that means hitting big marks like enabling almost 2 million EVs by 2030, $1 billion in energy assistance for customers, integrating DERs, and procuring more clean power.If done right, ComEd's path would be a big win for the state's clean energy goals, and energy equity in the region.Before joining the utility in 2021, Gil tackled problems of energy and sustainability in another major American city, New York. He served as a part of Mayor Bloomberg's administration working on clean energy and climate policy, and held roles at ConEd and New York Power Authority.Now he's spearheading Chicago's energy transition, with an emphasis on equity for the city's underserved communities.This week, Brad speaks with Gil Quiniones, CEO of ComEd, about taking into account customer affordability and equity as they move ahead with their low-carbon plan.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Renewables are having a moment. Wind and solar capacity in the US went up 13 gigawatts last year, now totaling more than 238 gigawatts nationwide. And last year's Inflation Reduction Act is helping to move the needle in a big way.But there's a problem. For wind and solar to meet the demands of the energy transition, we need some way to store all those electrons for use during peak hours or when production is low.It's something Janice Lin knew early on. When Janice and her colleagues researched what solution could fill that gap, one fuel stood out above all else: hydrogen.Under the right circumstances green hydrogen, produced via electrolysis powered by renewables, could be the long-term storage solution the energy transition needs. Once produced, the gas could be stored and moved around like we do now with natural gas. But when burned for power or in industrial settings, it'd be much cleaner than any fossil fuel.This week, Brad speaks with Janice Lin, founder and President of the Green Hydrogen Coalition and founder and CEO of Strategen, about increasing the scale and adoption of green hydrogen.

America’s new renewable power capacity is expected to triple each year through 2030. To decarbonize the grid, there needs to be a way to store those clean electrons. That’s where long duration energy storage (LDES) comes into play. These technologies can store energy for 12 hours, a full day, or even weeks at a time. Unfortunately, long duration storage is not widely used today. Julia Souder is working to solve that problem. As the head of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council, her team is working with the Department of Energy to develop and deploy LDES. But it will be a tough job. The goal is to deploy a gigawatt this year, but reach eight terawatts of capacity by 2040. That means cranking out 500 gigawatts annually for the remaining sixteen years.This week Brad talks with Julia, CEO of the LDES Council about how they plan to meet these goals.

EVs are a huge piece of the decarbonization puzzle. But as Apoorv Bhargava realized over his career working in the power business, utilities across the country aren’t prepared for the cost of onboarding the millions of EVs needed on the road. A 2019 report from Boston Consulting Group found that it could cost a utility that serves two to three million customers, anywhere between $1,700 to $5,800 in grid upgrades per EV.Apoorv wants to avoid that. As CEO and co-founder of WeaveGrid, his team provides utilities with the software to connect and manage EVs, while getting more EVs on the grid by using data to anticipate demand in different areas. After more than a decade working on the energy transition in different capacities, Apoorv combined his experience in tech, consulting, and business by launching WeaveGrid with co-founder John Taggart in 2018.This week, Brad talked with Apoorv about how WeaveGrid's technology is built to serve the interest of customers and utilities alike, and the levers needed to spur change in the private sector.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

After the city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power asked NREL to help them figure out what would it take to get LA's entire grid running on 100% renewable energy by 2045, their study called the LA100 said it wasn't just possible to make the switch; it was possible to do it a decade sooner. So LADWP changed their goal. Instead of converting the grid by 2045, they'd do it by 2035. The scale of that transition is immense. Almost 4 million residents live within the city limits. Pulling it off would make LADWP the largest municipal utility in the country to run on 100% renewable energy.As director of power system planning at the utility, Jason Rondou and his team are tasked with figuring out how to deploy hundreds of gigawatts worth of wind, solar, and long term storage to meet the city's growing energy demands.And if done right, the city's transition could create nearly 10,000 new jobs and bring in $60 to $90 billion of new investment for the city.This week, Brad talked with Jason about the policies and programs LADWP is using to clean up the city's grid, and the ways that a public utility like theirs is uniquely suited to the challenge.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

The 2018 Camp fire was the most destructive wildfire in California's history. By the time the smoke cleared, more than 150,000 acres had burned. Damages surpassed $16 billion. Dozens had died. Thousands more were displaced. So how did it all happen? The increasingly hot and dry conditions in the region coupled with the high Diablo winds turned the forest floor into a powder keg. Within hours, thousands of homes were destroyed in Butte County and the surrounding areas. Katherine Blunt was just a few days into her new role as a reporter covering renewable energy and utilities for the Wall Street Journal when the fire blew up.She chronicled how the blazed occurred and the aftermath for Pacific Gas & Electric — the utility whose equipment caused the fire — in her 2022 book “California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric and What it Means for America’s Power Grid.” This week, Brad talks with Katherine about reporting on the Camp fire and its ramifications for the local community and PG&E, and what it all means for the utility industry.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

A third of the world's largest companies now have net-zero targets in place for carbon emissions. Google was ahead of the curve. Back in 2007, it had already achieved its goal of going carbon neutral across all of its offices and data centers around the globe. But as demand for Google's services expanded, it knew that it had to overhaul its energy goals. At the time, Raiford Smith served as Google's global head of energy and location strategy. And part of his job was jump-starting this massive effort.In 2021, Google launched one of the most ambitious corporate energy strategies ever. And Raiford and his team made it possible.After a career spanning more than 30 years at utilities like Duke Energy, CPS, Entergy, and Southern company, and two years at Google, Raiford knows firsthand that change is possible at power companies.This week, Brad talked with Raiford, now the chief innovation officer at AES, about what's needed to spur tech innovation at utilities, and the technologies that will be integral to the energy transition.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Over the last 12 episodes, we have heard some fascinating personal and professional stories about people who are pushing innovation on the grid – from smart meters to electric cars to culture shifts.And we have great news: we are hard at work on another season that will feature more executives and deep thinkers who are moving the utility business into a dynamic, digital, distributed era. There are now many thousands of you who listen to the show. And as we develop the next season, we want to hear from you.We have a brief survey for our listeners.  It’s just a few questions that will help us gauge your interests and expertise. And we are randomly giving away three $100 Patagonia gift cards to listeners as a token of appreciation.So stay tuned for a new season. If you want to email us directly with some ideas for guests, you can send Brad a note at brad.langley@gridx.com.As we like to say: when an industry that’s remained the same for almost 100 years starts to change quickly, there are a lot of questions to answer. And we’re here to ask – and answer – them.

In 2005, Lisa Schwartz was stunned when a colleague at the Oregon Public Utility Commission told her utility distribution planning budgets never saw the light of day. She thought it was a missed opportunity for consumer and stakeholder feedback on planning the future of the grid. Ever since, she has worked to increase transparency in utility planning. “In my view, having really meaningful stakeholder engagement can improve outcomes because you can get good input and a review from stakeholders. And sometimes utilities move the needle in response.”Lisa is a senior energy policy researcher and strategic advisor at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She's spent her career studying utility distribution systems. Now, she works with state commissions to make grid planning more transparent and forward looking.This week, Brad talks with Lisa about distribution plan filings, the extensive outlines for  how utilities plan to spend money maintaining and upgrading power infrastructure. The filings create an opportunity for non-utilities and other stakeholders to share their ideas for the future of the grid. This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

For Katherine Hamilton, working at Dominion Virginia Power ran in the family. Her grandfather Leon built a career there. As a young engineer, she learned the ins and outs of the electric utility business, and was inspired by the problem solving and creativity her job required. “It was a very innovative place to be. It wasn't that they were necessarily innovative because they wanted to be creative. It was out of necessity. They had to be because they had to serve their customers.”But over time, creativity faded into the background for many power providers. Katherine is pushing utilities to bring innovation back to the forefront – and she believes policy can help do that. Katherine is the co-founder and chair of 38 North Solutions, a public policy firm focused on promoting clean energy policy at the state and federal level. She has a storied career in energy, ranging from utilities to finance to trade groups. And she has played an instrumental role in passing ambitious pro-clean energy policies.This week, Brad talks with Katherine about her policy work  – like the recent infrastructure bill and the historic Inflation Reduction Act – and how it will push utilities to be more innovative.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

The smart meter unlocked a trove of data on how people use energy in their homes. And it created the opportunity for utilities to offer more services based on customers' individual needs and consumption habits. These demand-side services are crucial for decarbonizing the grid, enhancing reliability, and integrating more renewables.But many utilities are still in the early stages of digitizing their operations. As director of industry marketing for energy and utilities at Salesforce, Sharon Talbott is helping power providers get more digitally sophisticated. “Utilities still keep a lot of their data in different silos, and then a lot of their processes are done on spreadsheets and with people handing packets of paper to each other with wet signatures and things like that. So a lot of utilities want to change that,” explains Sharon.This week, Brad talks with Sharon about how she works with electricity companies to provide more digital services and products to their customers in order to modernize their operations.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Climate change is making extreme weather events more intense and more frequent, which strains the electric grid. As an employee of Southern California Edison, Katie Sloan is familiar with these events. From 2019 to 2021, the state had 44 weather-related power outages.Katie knows cleaning up the grid is a vital part of slowing climate change. She also knows it’s important for improving resiliency as extreme weather worsens, and helping customers when the grid is strained.This week, Brad talks with Katie Sloan, vice president of customer programs and services at Southern California Edison, about making the grid cleaner and more reliable. This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

There's a saying in the business world that if you're not innovating, you're dying. For Josh Gould, that applies to utilities, too.In the risk-averse utility industry, it can be hard to push for change, or do things unconventionally. Josh believes that getting people motivated around an idea is the key to success, which he learned in his time as an energy technology researcher for the government. This week, Brad talks with Josh Gould, director of innovation at Duquesne Light Company, about how he puts innovation into practice at the company.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Everything around us can be personalized. Our homes, our cars, our online shopping experience. And that’s what consumers have come to expect. As utilities work to grow their business, they're also thinking about personalization – designing programs for specific groups of people and not just mass offerings for all customers.But serving the needs of everyone means collecting more than just a few data points.Angie Ostaszewski spends a lot of time listening to customers. As an energy efficiency consultant at Ameren Illinois, it’s her job to make sure people enroll in the programs they offer. And she believes the best way to get customers to enroll in a utility program is to deliver what she calls non-energy benefits.This week, Brad talks with Angie about how to serve each customer as an individual as utilities ramp up their efficiency, demand response, and smart home offerings.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Buildings account for nearly 40% of America’s CO2 emissions, making the built environment critical for meeting net-zero goals. Utilities are starting to use efficiency measures and electrification to cut gas consumption and increase consumption of electricity. But these efforts also change the way they make money – and many utilities are still figuring out how to make the shift.As the strategic business planner for building electrification and energy efficiency at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Scott Blunk is working on how to electrify every home in Sacramento. “My job's about transforming the built environment. We're in a clean energy revolution right now, and really moving away from burning gas in our buildings. My job is to make sure that we land our customers on that path to zero so that we're, we're all moving in the same direction,” says Scott.This week, Brad speaks with Scott about how a utility like SMUD is structuring programs to electrify homes, while also making them more efficient. This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Distributed energy resources, or DERs, can be a powerful tool for managing the local grid. They’re more complicated to manage than traditional electricity delivery from central power plants, but they are vital for making the grid cleaner, more dynamic, and more resilient.Brenda Chew has been researching this concept for years. Now, she's helping put it into practice as the Director of Product Management at Virtual Peaker.“I think we're past the early adopting phase. It's just a lot more approachable or available for utilities of all different shapes and sizes to be thinking about how to stand up a program,” she explains.Grid management is constantly evolving. This week, Brad speaks with Brenda about her research on demand response, how it shapes her work as an innovative technology provider, and what it means for the future of the electricity system.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Finding the local value of renewables can be a complex exercise. If rates don't properly reflect the value of distributed energy and the central grid together, it can create an imbalance in economic benefits.Rooftop solar is one prominent example of a technology disrupting the utility business model – changing the way utilities make money and spread costs among consumers. Lon Huber has spent his career figuring out how to make shift work for everyone.As the Senior Vice President for Pricing and Customer Solutions at Duke Energy, Lon is working on new solutions that can benefit customers, distributed energy providers, and the central grid.“I continue my advocacy for fair treatment to all customers, while at the same time encouraging new technology and maximizing the benefits,” he says.This week, Brad speaks with Lon about how his team analyzes and creates new rates to build programs and services for specific groups of customers – including efficiency and distributed energy.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

The grid is no longer the biggest source of carbon emissions in America. It's transportation.Electric vehicles are a key part of decarbonizing the transportation sector – making utilities an important force in growing EV adoption.Electric cars will create a new opportunity for power providers to scale their business. But first, they need to get people to buy them. And that's where people like Karl Popham come in.“The mindset is how can we get EVs to your customers as quickly as possible and as profitable for the salesperson as possible,” explains Karl, who is manager of electric vehicles and emerging technologies at Austin Energy.This week, Brad speaks with Karl about Austin Energy’s work in making electric cars as accessible as possible by taking a dealership-centric approach.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

This summer, a combination of extreme heat and soaring natural gas prices hit electricity customers hard along the gulf coast. And Tara Seavers had a front row seat.Tara oversees the customer experience at Entergy. And this was one of the highest-stakes customer problems imaginable. Record numbers of people were calling the utility with a dire choice: do they buy groceries or pay their utility bills?Tara and the Entergy executive team jumped into action, creating a “bold and aggressive” plan to relieve the financial burden on customers. It’s one example of the connection that Tara’s team is forging between the utility and the people it serves. “I'm not in the business of just getting a piece of paper or an email to a customer. I want folks to feel confident [in the utility]. That's important to me, and I think it's important to customers,” explains Tara.This week: the shifting utility-customer experience. Inflation, extreme weather, digitization, distributed energy are all changing expectations around how power companies interact with and serve their customers.Brad talks with Entergy's Tara Seavers about how this is playing out in the American south.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

When smart meters came on the scene, the industry talked about them in transformational ways. And while smart meters have given utilities more insights into the distribution grid through digitization, they haven't transformed grid management, or the customer experience. That's why Carlos Nouel decided he needed a new type of meter – one that could recognize every single device in the home. With this level of information, he believed utilities could offer better insights to customers that would save more energy and money. Carlos is the Vice President of Transformation Programs at National Grid. Part of his job is educating customers to make better energy choices. The other part of his job is offering them personalized experiences to make it as easy as possible to change their behavior. This week, Brad speaks with Carlos about how he makes this a reality at National Grid. How can utilities make cutting-edge technologies just a normal part of operations?This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

When an industry that’s remained the same for almost 100 years starts to change quickly, there are a lot of questions to answer. And every other week, Brad Langley talks with the executives, engineers, technicians, and big thinkers who are harnessing the forces reshaping the electric grid. Episodes drop in mid-November. Subscribe everywhere you get your podcasts.