With Great Power

There are more than 250 million cars on U.S. roads today. Only about 1% of them are electric. But with seven million more EVs projected to hit the road by 2030, that percentage is changing.The problem? Access to all those EVs isn't equal. The majority of EV owners in the country are high-income and white. But to cut transportation emissions in the U.S., we need to make EV ownership and charging a staple in all communities.That's where Dr. Shelley Francis and her team at EVNoire come in. They're working to combat the lack of diversity in EV ownership by collaborating with utilities, automakers, and other stakeholders on national and regional projects.The data and insight EVNoire collects and presents to stakeholders isn't just for show. They can easily hone in on where there's a need for resources like EV chargers, which influences funding decisions down the line.This week, Brad speaks to Dr. Shelley Francis, co-founder and managing partner at EVNoire, about the state of EV adoption and ownership in communities of color and the policies and practices needed to help address it.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 past 20 years, Kerri Carnes has worked a lot of different jobs at Arizona Public Service, or APS. She's been an administrative assistant, real-time trader, and regulation manager. Today, she serves as the director of customer-to-grid solutions. Besides maintaining service, Kerri and her colleagues are determined to increase customer adoption of technologies like solar, EVs, and smart thermostats.They're leveraging all the resources at their disposal to meet customer demand for electrification. That includes making technologies more affordable to customers who struggle with accessibility.This week, Brad speaks to Kerri Carnes about the strategies APS is using to make that a reality.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 wave of extreme weather this year has left Jim Kapsis questioning whether utilities are prepared for more frequent, intense weather events in the future.There's a growing group of startups that are more than ready to provide solutions, but they've struggled to break into the space. They need help figuring out a business model that works in the unique market that is the utility industry. Jim's response? A new company called the Ad Hoc Group, founded in 2016 with the goal of helping those newcomers succeed.This week, Brad speaks with Jim Kapsis, CEO and founder of the Ad Hoc Group, about its extensive work helping climate tech startups navigate the highly regulated world of utilities.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Rappahannock Electric Cooperative recently received a $38 million grant through the Department of Energy's Grid Innovation and Partnership Program. The grant will fund a massive rollout of technologies that will serve as the backbone of the energy transition. Peter Muhoro is one of the executives at REC that will oversee these projects. The money will be used to implement a new distributed energy resources management system, deploy smart meters, and install a fiber network. Since Peter is bullish on clean energy technology, he's making sure REC's long-term strategy is built around it. This week, Brad speaks with Peter Muhoro, the chief strategy, technology, and innovation officer at Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, about why electric cooperatives need to evolve and how to bring that about.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

In 2016, Edison International was rethinking how to boost their efforts toward fighting climate change. As the parent company behind Southern California Edison, they were making strides in the power sector. But Edison International wanted to tackle decarbonization in other sectors. So they added clean energy consulting into the mix with their new venture, Edison Energy.This past summer, Drew Murphy decided to take the reins over at Edison Energy, managing risk and reaping rewards for those involved. With executive roles at NRG and Edison under his belt, and his work on energy project finance at law firm Hunton & Williams, Drew understands how to make big climate goals a reality.This week, Brad speaks with Drew Murphy, CEO of Edison Energy, about how they help some of the world’s biggest companies form long-term clean energy plans.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

In January, Illinois' largest utility released ComEd 2030 – their roadmap for providing clean power for more than 4 million customers. For CEO Gil Quiniones and the company, that means hitting big marks like enabling almost 2 million EVs by 2030, $1 billion in energy assistance for customers, integrating DERs, and procuring more clean power.If done right, ComEd's path would be a big win for the state's clean energy goals, and energy equity in the region.Before joining the utility in 2021, Gil tackled problems of energy and sustainability in another major American city, New York. He served as a part of Mayor Bloomberg's administration working on clean energy and climate policy, and held roles at ConEd and New York Power Authority.Now he's spearheading Chicago's energy transition, with an emphasis on equity for the city's underserved communities.This week, Brad speaks with Gil Quiniones, CEO of ComEd, about taking into account customer affordability and equity as they move ahead with their low-carbon plan.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

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 [email protected] 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.

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.

This summer, a combination of extreme heat and soaring natural gas prices hit electricity customers hard along the gulf coast. And Tara Seavers had a front row seat.Tara oversees the customer experience at Entergy. And this was one of the highest-stakes customer problems imaginable. Record numbers of people were calling the utility with a dire choice: do they buy groceries or pay their utility bills?Tara and the Entergy executive team jumped into action, creating a “bold and aggressive” plan to relieve the financial burden on customers. It’s one example of the connection that Tara’s team is forging between the utility and the people it serves. “I'm not in the business of just getting a piece of paper or an email to a customer. I want folks to feel confident [in the utility]. That's important to me, and I think it's important to customers,” explains Tara.This week: the shifting utility-customer experience. Inflation, extreme weather, digitization, distributed energy are all changing expectations around how power companies interact with and serve their customers.Brad talks with Entergy's Tara Seavers about how this is playing out in the American south.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

When smart meters came on the scene, the industry talked about them in transformational ways. And while smart meters have given utilities more insights into the distribution grid through digitization, they haven't transformed grid management, or the customer experience. That's why Carlos Nouel decided he needed a new type of meter – one that could recognize every single device in the home. With this level of information, he believed utilities could offer better insights to customers that would save more energy and money. Carlos is the Vice President of Transformation Programs at National Grid. Part of his job is educating customers to make better energy choices. The other part of his job is offering them personalized experiences to make it as easy as possible to change their behavior. This week, Brad speaks with Carlos about how he makes this a reality at National Grid. How can utilities make cutting-edge technologies just a normal part of 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.

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 every other week, Brad Langley talks with the executives, engineers, technicians, and big thinkers who are harnessing the forces reshaping the electric grid. Episodes drop in mid-November. Subscribe everywhere you get your podcasts.