With Great Power

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.