With Great Power

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.