With Great Power Taming explosive load growth with rates
12 snips
Aug 5, 2025 Scott Engstrom, co-founder and chief customer officer at GridX, shares his journey from skepticism to admiration of the utility sector. He discusses how time-of-use rates emerged as a game-changer for utilities and explains the critical role of sophisticated rate design in managing unprecedented load growth, especially from AI data centers. Scott highlights strategies like demand flexibility and virtual power plants to handle peak energy use and emphasizes that 'growth pays for growth' to protect existing customers from rising infrastructure costs.
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Underestimating Utility People
- Scott initially thought utilities were bureaucratic and unambitious.
- He found employees were hardworking, loyal, and focused on customers.
Smart Meters Sparked Rate Innovation
- Smart meters enabled new time-varying rates and programs for utilities.
- GridX built software to support those rates but utilities were slow to adopt.
Five Years Before Product-Market Fit
- GridX spent five years demonstrating rate software before winning customers.
- California's 2015 default time-of-use mandate created the market they needed.