You’ve probably heard about Nat Bullard’s massive decarbonization slide decks, filled with charts and insights into decarbonization drawn from climate and energy data.
This time he's waded through piles of utility regulatory filings — countless PDFs that hint at the inner workings of utilities and large customers — to find clues about everything from gas plant costs to new large-load tariffs.
In this episode, Shayle and Nat, cofounder of the climate tech market research firm Halcyon, cover topics like:
How utilities — especially small ones — are handling eye-popping interconnection requests
New tariff structures that utilities are developing for large-load customers like data centers
Historical precedents for this level of change on the power grid, like the 2000s Enron bubble and the 1930s buildout of the West
How factories and other large-load customers are battling against data centers for sites
Shayle’s greatest fear about energy in the next few years: That electricity rates will rise dramatically unless we tackle large-load requests and the cost of new infrastructure
What industries to bet on in a world of rising rates
What filings reveal about the cost of new gas generation
Resources:
Catalyst: The US power demand surge: The electricity gauntlet has arrived
Catalyst: Making DERs work for load growth
Latitude Media: High costs, delays prompt withdrawal of five more Texas gas plants
Latitude Media: In Georgia, stakeholders still can’t agree on data center load growth numbers
Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
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