With Great Power

Hannah Baskin, Chief Growth Officer at Uplight, has dedicated her career to enhancing the connection between people and clean energy. She discusses the crucial role of demand side management in handling load growth and introduces the concept of the demand stack to better align energy generation with demand. Hannah highlights Puget Sound Energy's innovative rate program aimed at reducing peak demand, and emphasizes how effective rate design can motivate homeowners to electrify. Her insights showcase the future of sustainable energy practices through technology and collaboration.

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.

Alexina Jackson, founder of 7Green Strategy, is a trailblazer in clean energy with over a decade of experience at AES. She discusses her journey of questioning the status quo in energy and the critical role of data efficiency in modernizing the electric grid. Alexina highlights how innovative technologies like dynamic line rating (DLR) can enhance decision-making and competition among utilities. Her passion for resilience in the grid structure aims to accelerate decarbonization efforts across various organizations.

In this engaging discussion, Dan Yates, co-founder of Opower and CEO of Dandelion Energy, sheds light on the transformative power of geothermal heating and cooling. He shares insights on how this clean energy solution can significantly reduce emissions in buildings and the hurdles of high installation costs. Dan highlights potential federal support for geothermal technology and its role in managing energy loads for utilities. He emphasizes collaboration with home builders and the need for utility partnership to unlock geothermal's full potential.

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, Vice President of Commercial Operations for ERCOT, dives into Texas's impressive shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. He discusses how battery storage is key to managing the grid's surging demand, especially following past failures like Winter Storm Uri. The conversation reveals the intricate workings of ERCOT's deregulated market, the role of conservation, and innovations in battery technology. Collins also emphasizes the evolving energy mix in Texas and the importance of adaptability in this dynamic landscape.

Nick Peterson, the Strategic Partnerships Manager at Alliant Energy, discusses his work on an innovative agrivoltaics project in collaboration with Iowa State University. They explore how solar panels can coexist with agriculture, potentially enhancing crop yields while generating energy. The conversation touches on the challenges of addressing farmers' concerns, the economic benefits of combining farming with solar power, and insights from early results that suggest promise for both food production and renewable energy generation.

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.

Rudy Halbright, expert product manager at PG&E, shares his insights on turning electric school buses into a virtual power plant. He discusses the challenges and innovations involved in implementing an all-electric fleet in Oakland, including partnerships between school districts and utilities. Rudy delves into advanced charging solutions and the complexities of energy cost modeling, emphasizing the economic implications of vehicle-to-grid technologies. His passion for sustainability shines through as he navigates the hurdles of energy innovation.

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.