With Great Power

Fifteen years ago, Scott Engstrom thought utilities were boring, bureaucratic organizations where people went for job security. But after co-founding GridX in 2010 during the smart meter era, he discovered an industry full of dedicated people tackling complex challenges. GridX went the next five years without a paying customer. Then, in 2015, California mandated time-of-use rates, and the start-up found its footing. Today, Scott helps utilities nationwide design and implement sophisticated rates for a variety of programs, from electric vehicle charging to demand response programs and virtual power plants. Because as load growth from AI data centers and industrial customers strains the grid, sophisticated rate design has become more critical than ever. This week on With Great Power, Scott outlines how rate design helps utilities manage unprecedented load growth from data centers and why "growth pays for growth" protects existing customers from new infrastructure costs. 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 GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Audrey Zibelman’s first job as a trial lawyer in a male-dominated firm in Minneapolis wasn’t a good fit. So she moved to the state’s attorney general office, a place known for being more supportive of working mothers like her. But she never would have guessed that the shift would lead her into the power sector. But it did. After a dynamic career as a utility executive, regulator, and founder, Audrey now serves  on corporate boards and in advisory roles where she advocates for designing responsive power systems and focusing on consumers’ needs.  This week on With Great Power, Audrey Zibelman talks about lessons learned and walks Brad Langley through the distributed energy resource (DER) policy and research tools she recently helped develop as part of the Distributed Energy Resources Initiative Advisory Council for the Pew Charitable Trusts. Those tools include a state-by-state policy explorer that tracks how states are advancing DERs, as well as a DER policy playbook. Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

In 2007, Apple released its first iPhone. That same year, Seth Frader-Thompson co-founded EnergyHub, planning to leverage smartphones to help consumers save energy.   But over time, the startup realized there was actually a bigger opportunity: helping  utilities centralize and control the growing list of distributed energy resources, like smart thermostats and rooftop solar, that their customers were installing. In fact, EnergyHub was so early to the build-out of virtual power plants and distributed energy resource management systems that Seth has been called the OG of DERMS. This week on With Great Power, Seth tells Brad Langley what EnergyHub has learned about how virtual power plants mature – and the test they’ve developed to track maturity – as well as how EnergyHub plans to meet its goal of bringing 100 gigawatts of dispatchable flexibility online by 2035. Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

In 2019, when Julia Hoos moved to Houston for a role with Boston Consulting Group, she had no interest in the energy industry. For one thing, it was — and largely remains — a boy’s club. For another, energy just didn’t excite her. But as she started learning about the energy transition, Julia became curious. Before long, she was crunching numbers for an oil and gas client looking to understand how California’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate would impact demand for its fuel products. Then, in 2022, Julia joined power market analytics firm Aurora Energy Research, where she focuses on the eastern U.S. and the PJM power market. This week on With Great Power, Julia talks to Brad Langley about the pressures that PJM is facing, and its reform efforts. They also discuss how demand flexibility could support more data centers without adding new generation, and how utilities are using large load tariffs to manage costs and grid reliability. Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Growing up in Silicon Valley, Varun Sivaram didn’t look to Elon Musk or Sergey Brin to learn about success stories. He looked to his dad, a material scientist who immigrated from India.  But Varun’s own dreams of pursuing a career in technology took a circuitous path. His physics lab at Oxford discovered a promising new solar material, but when he emerged from graduate school in 2012, it was no time to launch a renewables startup. After a successful early career pursuing his other love, foreign relations, he pivoted to tech. In 2024, Varun founded Emerald AI, which helps data centers adjust their workloads to use energy more efficiently. This week on With Great Power, Varun explains why he thinks AI can help save the grid. Varun and Brad talk about the demonstration pilots Emerald AI has completed and Varun’s vision for a massive AI factory the company is helping to build, in Virginia. Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

From his early days as a paper boy and eagle scout to his time as a naval officer decades later, Casey Kirkpatrick has always believed in service. Today, after more than 25 years with the energy giant National Grid, he’s still serving.   Casey directs National Grid’s strategic engineering team, where he focuses on an emerging threat that most of its east coast ratepayers don’t think much about: wildfires. To get ahead of that growing risk, National Grid has partnered with Rhizome, a company that helps utilities understand their wildfire vulnerabilities. This week on With Great Power, Casey tells Brad what National Grid has learned from its work with other utilities and with Rhizome — including a few surprises. They also explore how wildfire preparedness fits into National Grid's broader climate resilience planning, and why the threat looks somewhat different across the utility's UK operations. Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Most kids don’t think much about how buildings are powered or how much energy they waste. But growing up in an old, inefficient apartment building in New York, Ben Brown did. From an early age he knew he wanted to work on climate solutions and energy efficiency. That interest led him to Google, where he worked on Nest Renew, which allowed Nest thermostat users to adjust their energy usage to times when electricity is cleaner or cheaper. In 2024, Nest Renew merged with the demand response platform OhmConnect to form a new venture, Renew Home. In November, Renew Home released a study showing that small shifts in five million of its smart thermostats across the U.S. can provide utilities with four gigawatts of energy capacity.This week on With Great Power, Ben Brown dives into how Renew Home conducted its study, what it says about the bigger potential for shifting capacity nationwide, and why he says thermostats are just the beginning when it comes to connecting utilities with available energy capacity inside homes. Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Nikki Bruno learned early in her career that debates over climate change – and how to respond – are seldom black and white. Progress comes from honest discourse and collaboration.At Eversource, where she leads the utility's thermal solutions and operational services, Nikki manages a geothermal project that has brought together environmental activists, the utility’s gas infrastructure team, ratepayers, and government leaders in Framingham, Mass. The result is the first utility-led geothermal network in the country, which came online in 2024.This week on With Great Power, Nikki Bruno describes how the gas and electric utility Eversource uses geothermal energy to power 140 homes and businesses. She talks about challenges and successes of the project, how Eversource is now expanding it with Energy Department funding, and how the utility is measuring success.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Heather O’Neill’s career in energy started in a pretty unusual place: working for a Republican billionaire. But in 2004 she joined the Robertson Foundation as a program officer just as it was exploring clean energy investments. In 2012, Heather joined Advanced Energy United — an industry association that promotes grid-scale and distributed energy innovations — to focus on state-level and regional energy policy. Today, she leads the organization as president and CEO.This week on With Great Power, Heather O’Neill reflects on some state-level clean energy policy wins from an otherwise dark 2025. She describes Advanced Energy United’s strategies for supporting policy in 2026, and explains why she’s focused on the 36 gubernatorial races and midterm elections in the coming year.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

At age 10, Neil Chatterjee found common ground with his immigrant father through politics. Watching then-Vice President George H. W. Bush spar with Michael Dukakis during a presidential debate on TV,  Neil and his dad connected in a way they hadn’t before.  Years later, after serving as Senator Mitch McConnell’s energy advisor and appointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, he found that he needed to shed his partisan views — and his reputation as McConnell’s coal guy — to become a convener. Doing so helped him enact policies to make a more resilient electric grid with more renewable and distributed energy resources.This week on With Great Power, Neil Chatterjee explains why he thinks energy policy has gotten so politicized in the U.S. and what could change that trajectory. He and Brad delve into some of the weedy issues  FERC will be addressing in 2026 and some “wonky solutions" to load growth and other grid challenges. Neil also talks about his current role as chief government affairs officer at Palmetto, a provider of residential renewable energy products. Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

The power sector is at an inflection point.  Skyrocketing load growth and rising energy prices are converging with an aging electric grid, inadequate power supply, and regulatory hurdles. It’s a perfect storm that’s forcing utilities to take a serious look at their business models. But new innovations focused on meeting energy demand and confronting the affordability crisis are tackling these challenges head on.If you’ve been a With Great Power listener over the past five seasons, you’ve heard stories from many of the people behind those innovations. This season, we’re digging even deeper.You’ll hear from some of the leading voices in the power sector, from utilities and energy management companies to developers, community advocates, and grid planners.Stay tuned for all new episodes about the superheroes building the future electric grid, today. Season 6 launches soon. Subscribe to With Great Power on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.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 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.

In Nigeria, tens of millions of people live without access to reliable power. Utibe Bassey grew up in Lagos, and knows what it’s like to not have electricity to perform simple daily tasks. When she moved to the United States as a teen, she didn’t think much about electric utilities. But she did think about how managers treat employees – a thought spurred by an unfortunate instance she witnessed while working at a fast food chain. Ever since then, Utibe has refined her personal philosophy, “Love as a KPI,” which prioritizes kindness and human connection in the workplace. As we prepare for our season six launch, we bring you one of our favorite episodes from season three of With Great Power. In this rerun episode, Utibe tells Brad about how she puts her personal philosophy to work at Dominion Energy, where she is vice president of customer experience. She also talks about what it means to work in the power industry, having lived without access to reliable power in her youth.  Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Chris Black had always planned on being an architect. But during his freshman year in college, he pivoted to computer science. On the surface, it looked like a strange change of course. But Chris saw parallels in the importance of form and function in both fields. Computer science eventually led Chris to the energy sector, where he brought his passion for making great digital products to the world of utility rates and programs. In 2022, Chris became the CEO of GridX.This week on With Great Power, Chris Black talks about why he’s so focused on product design and creating great user experiences. He also discusses GridX’s recent acquisition of energy data analytics company InnoWatts, and explains why and how GridX will continue to grow through mergers and acquisitions. Chris also shares his views on the ways that utilities are evolving and why he considers them to be product companies.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

During a visit to Silicon Valley in 2015, Nick Woolley realized that the many Teslas he saw whizzing past him were not just new cars, they could also be distributed energy resources. He was working for National Grid in his native England at the time, but he couldn’t shake the idea that EVs could provide demand flexibility to the grid in a way that could benefit drivers and utilities alike.In 2018, he founded ev.energy to develop a platform for managed EV charging using real-time, dynamic price signals. Today, ev.energy works with utilities, drivers, and charger manufacturers to automate EV charging in order to shift demand from peak hours and reward drivers in the process.This week on With Great Power, Nick Woolley talks about the ChargeWise pilot program in California, which is using dynamic price signals to optimize EV charging. So far, it has saved consumers more money than time-of-use rates while evening out grid demand. Nick also describes what it would mean to scale dynamic charging nationwide.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

 In 2015, Laura Sherman and her colleagues from Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet’s office rode horses into a special part of the Rocky Mountains called the Thompson Divide. Laura had landed in Sen. Bennet’s office after grad school as part of a policy fellowship with the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. At the time she was a legislative assistant to Sen. Bennet. She and her colleagues were working on legislation to protect federally-owned portions of the Divide from future energy and mineral extraction. It was all part of a plan she made years earlier, while studying geochemistry at the University of Michigan. Laura realized that to influence climate policy, she needed to connect her research to policymakers. Today, Laura continues to connect people and policy as president of  the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council, a trade association that’s advancing clean power in the state.This week on With Great Power, Laura Sherman talks about the state of advanced metering infrastructure in Michigan, why she wants utilities to deploy next-generation smart meters, and the value the technology provides to Michiganders and consumers everywhere.Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Mike Kramer has always liked puzzles. But in 2017 he faced one harder than any sudoku. This one involved the livelihoods of hundreds of American families. As director of business operations and the chief financial officer for Exelon Corporation’s eastern region, Mike Kramer was accountable for the financial health of seven nuclear generation facilities across four states. And things were not looking good.The trend lines for nuclear power had been heading down. In much of the country, renewables had reached grid parity and cheap natural gas was edging out nuclear power. He couldn’t make the math work at one of the reactors Exelon had operated for nearly 50 years – Three Mile Island Unit One. So in September 2019, it shut down. But last fall, things started turning around. Exelon spin-out Constellation, where Mike is now VP of data economy strategy, is restarting the plant as the Crane Clean Energy Center. And things are looking up at Constellation’s nuclear plant in Clinton, Illinois, which it is relicensing to operate for another 20 years.This week on With Great Power, Mike shares his take on the nuclear energy renaissance, what it’s been like to go from decommissioning to recommissioning a plant, and what growing demand for emissions-free power means for Constellation’s nuclear fleet across the country.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 Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

In the early 2000s, when she was doing legal work in her native Texas, Sheri Givens held state government roles that put her in the thick of energy policy-making. And in 2009, Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Sheri the chief executive of Public Counsel of the Texas Office of Public Utility Counsel. That made her, in effect, the consumer advocate for all 20 million Texas utility ratepayers.To do that job well, Sheri wanted to sit down with consumers across the state. So she spent days crisscrossing the state in her truck advising consumers on their energy utility choices.Sheri went on to consultancy and executive roles in the energy sector. Now, as president and CEO of the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), a non-profit organization for energy sector professionals, she still has that same enthusiasm for empowering people. Amid tremendous demand for clean energy and deep uncertainty around federal energy policy, SEPA convenes folks from across the sector, the country, and the world to learn from each other. This week on With Great Power, Sheri shares why she’s bullish on states' progress toward clean energy goals despite federal headwinds, and what strategies utilities are using to advance policy and innovation right now.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.

Fifteen years ago, Scott Engstrom thought utilities were boring, bureaucratic organizations where people went for job security. But after co-founding GridX in 2010 during the smart meter era, he discovered an industry full of dedicated people tackling complex challenges.GridX went the next five years without a paying customer. Then, in 2015, California mandated time-of-use rates, and the start-up found its footing. Today, Scott helps utilities nationwide design and implement sophisticated rates for a variety of programs, from electric vehicle charging to demand response programs and virtual power plants. Because as load growth from AI data centers and industrial customers strains the grid, sophisticated rates have become more critical than ever.This week on With Great Power, Scott outlines how rate design helps utilities manage unprecedented load growth from data centers and why "growth pays for growth" protects existing customers from new infrastructure costs.

In December 2001, Carrie Simpson sat at her desk on the trading floor of Enron confused, disenchanted, and unsure of what would happen next. A recent college graduate and brand-new power trading analyst at the company, she could barely wrap her head around the news that the power trading giant had just filed for bankruptcy. So she left the world of electricity and became a teacher at her hometown high school just outside of Houston. But she knew she didn’t want to be a teacher for the rest of her life. In 2007 Carrie went back to the power sector, and since then has developed deep expertise in the arena of organized electricity markets. Today, as vice president of markets at Southwest Power Pool, she is helping implement SPP’s newest offering to the utilities of the American West: Markets+. This week on With Great Power, Carrie explains why utilities in the West are finally ready for more organized power markets; and how Markets+ was designed and is being implemented today. 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. 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.

A Jurassic Park clip at an audio-visual store in Indianapolis got Seth Little thinking about smart homes as a teenager in the 1990s. That moment led him to a career in energy efficiency. Today, he's the director of market development and partnerships at CLEAResult, one of North America's largest energy efficiency implementation firms.Seth has a provocative take on the energy transition: attic insulation is a grid-responsive asset. While the industry has been moving toward digital solutions, Seth argues that traditional efficiency measures should complement, not replace, active technologies. Unlike demand response programs that require internet connectivity, a well-insulated attic is always working to reduce peak demand—and it's often more cost-effective than deploying multiple digital systems.This week on With Great Power, Seth explains why we need a full set of solutions to achieve grid responsiveness, how high-resolution meter data is changing program design, and why utilities need to do more with customer data.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. 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.

Adam Helman has spent his entire career in emergency management. But after working for the New York State Department of Health during the COVID pandemic, he wanted something new. So in 2023, Adam moved from responding to a public health emergency to responding to the climate emergency, in addition to other hazards utilities have dealt with for decades. Just two years into his role as director of emergency services for the energy services company Avangrid, he’s already seen a number of back-to-back emergencies caused by everything from winter storms to gas leaks.This week on With Great Power, Adam shares with Brad some of the ways that Avangrid’s emergency response operations are evolving as intense weather and other hazards put more physical and mental stress on first responders. They also discuss why  meteorologists play an increasingly vital role in utility emergency response, and how utilities are integrating new threats, like wildfires in the Northeast, into their planning.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.

In 1994, Joaquin Ramirez took a job with a wildland fire-fighting crew in his native Spain. That year, Spain saw some of the most destructive fires in its history, and Joaquin quickly realized he just wasn’t cut out to be a wildland firefighter.He left the crew, but he kept thinking about the outdated maps his fellow firefighters had relied on, and wondering how better sensing and mapping technologies could make fighting wildfires safer and more effective. That curiosity led him to found Technosylva in 1998 to provide firefighters with advanced fire mapping and prediction tools. In 2007, the company expanded to the U.S.This week on With Great Power, Joaquin tells Brad how Technosylva provides wildfire risk analysis services to utilities and fire agencies, and how incorporating AI into its wildfire risk forecasting tools can help utilities make more informed decisions in managing power infrastructure.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.

A decade ago, Zach Borton had a lightbulb moment when studying energy economics at Ohio State University: the grid was trending toward decentralization. That realization set him on a path that would eventually lead him to Colorado, where he now serves as DER services manager at Platte River Power Authority.Platte River's 2024 integrated resource plan includes an ambitious goal: 30 megawatts of virtual power plant capacity by 2030. But building a VPP across multiple utility territories isn't just about technology -- it's about coordination, customer engagement, and breaking down organizational silos.This week on With Great Power, Zach explains the technical architecture behind Platte River's VPP strategy, which relies on two interconnected systems: grid derms and edge derms. He also discusses the challenges of aligning five different organizations, the importance of seamless customer enrollment, and why he believes curiosity-driven leadership is his superpower in the energy transition.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.TRANSCRIPT:Brad Langley: Back in the early 2010s, apps skyrocketed in popularity. Apple had just launched its famous "There's an app for that" commercial, and within a few years, more than a million apps were available for download in the app store.Commercial clips: Ever wish you could really read people's emotions? Well, now there's an app for that. Don't have a great voice or any real musical talent? Well, there's an app for that too. You want to get the potholes filled? Well, there's an app for that. There's an app for that...Brad Langley: Zach Borton's family was right there with the rest of America, feverishly downloading apps to manage finances or track the weather or achieve personal fitness goals.Zach Borton: Fitbits were becoming popular and my mom and dad would all compete against different steps, and we wanted to bring that kind of competitive element to the energy space.Brad Langley: At the time, Zach was studying business and sustainability at The Ohio State University.Zach Borton: Most of my classmates were going down the road of corporate social responsibility, sustainability reporting, but I took an energy economics course and that kind of shifted my path.Brad Langley: As part of that course, Zach was presented with some graphics of the power system. One showed the traditional energy value chain with big centralized generation. Another showed the declining cost of rooftop solar and an upward trend for installations.Zach Borton: I realized at that moment we're going from this horse and buggy to car event. Every few generations will have that shift, and I wanted to be a part of that shift.Brad Langley: After graduation, Zach and two friends decided to launch their own energy-focused app, the idea was to show people the impact of their environmentally focused investments.Zach Borton: What we were trying to build is a visualization tool to track environmental metrics such as carbon saved or trees planted, and also kind of that competitive nature of seeing what your friends were investing, what types of projects they were investing in, and then competing with your friends or tracking that with your friends to drive that competitiveness.Brad Langley: Unfortunately, for Zach and his friends, their app didn't make millions, but it did motivate Zach to keep working on some of the big complex problems unfolding in the power sector. So he took a job at American Municipal Power in Columbus, Ohio.Zach Borton: I was a power supply engineer. There was learning kind of the nuts and bolts on how to serve a community with generation, really how to stack those assets for energy, capacity, and transmission. But really despite everything I was learning, I kept going back to those two graphics from that energy economics course.Brad Langley: He just couldn't get one question out of his head. How would the legacy power system interact with all these new DERs? And he wasn't the only one thinking about it.Zach Borton: There was utility of the future white paper coming out of MIT, and so we were really going through that and understanding rather than a centralized approach from these large generators, how can we hedge against energy, capacity, and transmission from within the load?Brad Langley: Once Zach locked into this problem, he just couldn't let it go. So he headed west to Colorado where he now works at a public power utility helping build a virtual power plant.Zach Borton: My job is to take distributed energy resources and make use of them as we transition to a non-carbon grid.Brad Langley: This is With Great Power, a show about the people building the future grid, today. I'm Brad Langley. Some people say utilities are slow to change, that they don't innovate fast enough, and while it might not always seem like the most cutting edge industry, there are lots of really smart people working really hard to make the grid cleaner, more reliable and customer centric. This week I'm talking to Zach Borton, the DER service manager at Platte River Power Authority, a public power utility that serves the communities of Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont, and Loveland in Colorado. Platte River provides wholesale electricity generation and transmission for its member communities, each of which has its own local electric utility. So a major part of Zach's job is figuring out how to build a VPP across all of those different utilities.Zach Borton: So each have their own technology suite, which makes integrations maybe a little bit more difficult. So we're all at different paths in this integration and technology suite, but getting there is going to require more collaboration and breaking down those silos.Brad Langley: I wanted to dive into the mechanics of building this kind of VPP, but first I asked Zach how the initiative came about and how Platte River planned to break down those utility silos. So let's dig into your work at Platte River. Platte River's 2024 Integrated resource plan includes 32 megawatts of VPP by 2030, which is a significant amount. Tell us about that project. How did the initiative come about?Zach Borton: Yeah, so it can all kind of go back to the 2018 resource diversification policy. In that policy, there's a few things that line out how we can get to a non-carbon future, but it really suggests better integration and coordination across the systems from the generation transmission system down to the distribution. So senior managers, utility directors, and a few different public engagement sessions really sparked this vision and guiding principles for a DER strategy. Next came kind of a gap analysis, so we tried to understand what systems we have today and what we need, and so this really showed us where we need to go with how to make this technology work. Finally, we got to that potential study, which you saw in the 2024 IRP. This showed us kind of the market size and the potential and really gives us a goal to hit. It tells us what types of programs we should run and where we should head into that 2030 mark that you said, 30 megawatts.Brad Langley: And what is your role as DER services manager on the project? What are you specifically tasked with?Zach Borton: It's really trying to coordinate and develop these programs with our owner communities. We can think about our strategy in two different approaches. It's really that best thinking available today, which you can see in the SEPA article Decoding DERMS. It's going to require two different systems, and that's the grid DERMS and the edge DERMS. But really I want to circle back to VPP isn't just a piece of software, it's a utility strategy. It's a system level approach that brings together people, technology and data to orchestrate this cleaner and more flexible grid.Brad Langley: So we've established there's two main components to this. There's the grid DERMS and there's the edge DERMS. Talk me through specifically what the grid DERMS is doing as well as what the edge DERMS is doing.Zach Borton: Absolutely, yeah. So we can think about the grid DERMS as the brain of the future utility operation. It's going to hold our network model. It's going to monitor the state of the distribution in real time, say watching for those stress points and identifying where flexibility could be made available. Some of this technology is in place today, but a lot of this needs to be developed over the next several years, whereas the edge DERMS manages the customer side. It's going to help us enroll devices into the programs, optimize them, and then deliver those optimized energy shapes, load shapes or blocks into the grid DERMS as kind of like, here's a block at this hour. Here's the shape that you can use here for this stress point, and together these two systems kind of coordinate those individual devices into actionable blocks.Brad Langley: Can you go into more detail in terms of what those components are? I assume it's a mix of hardware and software, but any specific technologies you're able to call out.Zach Borton: When we think about our owner communities, they're kind of laying the foundation for the grid DERMS for that distribution system awareness, whether that's smart metering, switching, things like that. We need to build out that process with our owner communities to bring in those data points and make that distribution grid a little bit more intelligent. We can think about the future of advanced distribution management. When we think about the edge DERMS, there's a lot of processes and people involvement: enrolling customers and engaging with those customers. Obviously there's a lot of software optimization on the backend, but that's where we lean on our partners.Brad Langley: So two distinct yet connected systems for owner communities. What kind of challenges are you either experiencing or do you foresee in making this program a reality?Zach Borton: There's quite a bit of challenges. I'd say one of our biggest challenges is aligning across the five organizations. It's sometimes hard enough to break down the department silos, but then breaking down the five organization department silos is really complicated. So everyone might agree on this goal of a functional customer friendly VPP, but getting there in sync is the hard part, which kind of brings us to the next challenge, which is a unified vision and consistency. Like I said, we have incredibly talented people working on this from all sides, but aligning on a common path with consistency is critical. We may ask, why is that so important? Well, we risk confusing the customer if we're changing things as we go or sending mixed messages. So we need to really build that trust and participation with our customers and our own communities. That brings us kind of to the third point, which is the customer patience and experience.We're building something new and with that comes unavoidable, really growing pains. So making the enrollment and engagement process as smooth as possible in that first year is going to be so important for us to scale to that 2030, 30-megawatt goal. And that's the last piece is that OEM maturity and industry coordination. Like OEMs are learning how to build and design for flexibility, but it's a learning curve and everyone's taken their unique approach. Whereas the utilities, I can call up a utility that has a similar goal to us and they'll share the lessons learned where I feel like some of the OEMs aren't sharing those lessons learned with each other.Brad Langley: It's an interesting point. We're big believers in partnerships in this space. I think partnerships are super important. Are you encouraging the OEMs to talk to each other? Because it's tricky, they might be competitive, but they're implementing similar programs, so lessons shared can be important. How do you navigate that? Are you finding openness for OEMs to be more collaborative or is it kind of a walled garden so to speak?Zach Borton: It seems like a walled garden, but I would like for all of us utilities to try to break that down and share like, Hey, we're trying to get to this non-carbon future and open up all of these opportunities for flexibility. And so I think if a lot of us will say that to the OEMs, maybe they'll start listening. So I think if we can band together and really get the OEMs to listen, we can get to this non-carbon flexibility future.Brad Langley: You mentioned you'll start enrolling customers early next year. Does that mean the project is complete? What are some of those stages or milestones that kind of happen before or after that? Maybe give us the one to two year look into the various stages of the program following customer enrollment?Zach Borton: Yeah, so I mentioned the two types of DERMS and there's kind of different working paths for each of those, but I'll kind of talk about the edge DERMS really enrolling customers there early next year. So I think we're breaking this strategy out into three different years. First year we really want to boost up the enrollment and awareness of these programs. So enrolling customers, boosting up satisfaction and increasing that program awareness. It's going to take many actions to get there, like streamlining that DER onboarding process and establishing incentive structures and engagement methods with our customer base. That's going to be critical for scaling the VPP all testing in that first year dispatches with a small number of megawatts and devices. In that next year, we're really going to be looking for analytics and post-event insight, so leveraging event data to better understand how we're forecasting and modeling DR.So we're going to lay out the infrastructure needed to capture dispatch data and analyze that across the systems, whether it's on the distribution or the generation transmission system. And then that third year is going to be building out scale. To get to that 2030 goal in the third year, we're really going to be trying to grow those legs and pick up our speed, and it's all going to be about scalability of the dispatch and optimization. I think this is where the edge DERMS becomes integrated with the grid DERMS. So as the grid DERMS is getting intelligent and connecting to all of those devices in the field, we'll build out that integration to kind of build this full VPP fully integrated using those historical insights. And really in that year, we start to see the real time grid data and the integrations.Brad Langley: How did the customers react to the VPP announcement? Are they excited about the prospect of integrating this type of technology? What was their overall sentiment towards the program when it was announced?Zach Borton: Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of excitement around this. When we think about our customer base, they love technology. We have a lot of EVs in our service territory. We have a lot of solar. We're starting to see that solar being paired with storage. So I think there's a lot of interest in helping us get to that non-carbon goal. And it's really the foundation we've built over the past 50 years, our community ownership, our collaborative mindset, and a long-term vision. We're not just building it alone, we're building it with our members, our partners, and every customer who chooses to be part of the solution. And it's really great to see a lot of those customers show up to the stakeholder meetings and suggest really great ideas to get to this VPP.Brad Langley: How many customers are you initially targeting and what's the scale of that look like over time?Zach Borton: Yeah, so the first few years, our big focus is on seamless integration, enrollment and engagement with those customers. We're going to most likely start within three different program groups, so EVs, batteries and thermostats and expand offerings from there. We hope to have roughly one megawatt in that first year, but again, I want to focus mostly on building out the seamless enrollment process and engagement. We can't build that 30 megawatts by 2030 without the customers and the devices, so having that poor engagement or poor enrollment process isn't going to help us scale. So we really need to build out the processes we have and kind of scale up to that 30 megawatt number by 2030.Brad Langley: Well, hey, we call this show With Great Power, which is a nod to the energy industry. It's also a famous Spider-Man quote. With great power comes great responsibility. So Zach, what superpower do you bring to the energy transition?Zach Borton: That's a really great question. I would say that curiosity-driven leadership. I'm highly adaptable and I have this ability to connect with all types of people, meet them where they're at, and build that real trust through kind of empathy, curiosity. I find common ground and help bring out the best in others, whether it's a technical person, strategic customer focus, I know how to relate and inspire those folks and share a sense of purpose. The ability to connect with folks is key when bringing together a diverse team with the single vision that we have.Brad Langley: And I'd add a great sense of fashion. I know our listeners can't see it, but I love the VPP hat you're rocking. It's right on point. So nicely done with that. Well, Zach, thank you so much for coming on the show and we wish you the best of luck with the program.Zach Borton: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you having me, Brad.Brad Langley: Zach Borton is the DER service manager at Platte River Power Authority. With Great Power is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. Delivering on our clean energy future is complex. GridX exists to simplify the journey. GridX is the enterprise rate platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future. We design and implement emerging rate structures and we increase consumer investment in clean energy all while managing the complex billing needs of a distributed grid. Our production team includes Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O'Connor. Anne Bailey is our senior editor. Steven Lacey is our executive editor. Sean Marquand composed the original theme song and mixed the show. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and me, Brad Langley.If this show is providing value for you and we really hope it is, we'd love it if you could help us spread the word. You can rate or review us on Apple and Spotify, or you can share a link with a friend, colleague, or the energy nerd in your life. As always, we thank you for listening. I'm Brad Langley.

Since her first power sector job with Pacific Gas & Electric, Hannah Bascom knew she wanted to focus on people and clean energy — not on what she calls “the pipes and wires part of the business.”That interest led her to Nest in early 2014, just a few months after Google had acquired it. Almost a decade later, she moved on to SPAN and then Uplight, a technology partner for energy providers. Today, as Uplight’s chief growth officer, Hannah thinks more than ever about how people interact with energy — and how to better manage that demand.This week on With Great Power, Hannah talks with Brad about the vital role of demand side management, also known as DSM, for managing load growth, and why she thinks leveraging the demand stack can help utilities to better manage that growth. They also discuss how Puget Sound Energy is using a VPP and rate program to reduce peak demand. And she talks about the important role that rate design can play in encouraging consumers to electrify their homes.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.

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.

During her early days in Quaker schools, Alexina Jackson learned to question everything and examine how systems work. Years later, those same principles are guiding her work to help build a clean, resilient, and modern electric grid.Following an 11-year run at AES, Alexina recently launched a clean energy advisory called Seven Green Strategy, a reference to the seven greenhouse gases that cause climate change. As a lawyer and utility innovation leader, Alexina founded Seven Green Strategy to help large and small organizations accelerate their efforts to decarbonize. And sometimes, that starts by questioning the status quo.This week on With Great Power, Alexina talks with Brad about what excites and frustrates her about grid enhancing technologies; why she thinks data efficiency and a strong data architecture are essential for the digital grid; and why she wants to see utilities change how they think about everything from competition to customer data. 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.

Dan Yates co-founded Opower in 2007, based on the belief that consumers want to use less energy—and that their utilities could actually help them do it. He was right. Opower took off, and Oracle bought the customer engagement platform in 2016. A year later, Dan became interested in another startup focused on residential energy: Dandelion Energy. Spun out of GoogleX, Dandelion developed a system for using geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings. Electrifying buildings is a major tenant of decarbonizing the power sector, but air-source heat pumps can be expensive. Installation costs are even higher with geothermal heat pumps, but they offer energy efficiency advantages. Dan is a big fan. After investing in Dandelion and serving on its board, he became CEO in 2023.This week on With Great Power, Dan talks about the potential for residential geothermal heating and cooling, why it could be the clean energy that gains instead of loses federal support in the near term, and the role he thinks utilities can play in the technology’s deployment.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 Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

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 knows electricity markets. After a stint consulting for the New York Independent System Operator, he joined FERC in 2004. After that, he spent years working for the California ISO and the Southwest Power Pool. But it wasn’t until he  joined the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) as vice president of commercial operations last summer that he started making waves. Unlike many electricity markets in the U.S., ERCOT is deregulated, and its grid is isolated from other systems. It drew a great deal of attention — and ire from some Texans — after a major grid failure during Winter Storm Uri back in 2021. But now, all eyes are on ERCOT as it turns to battery storage as a way to help meet surging demand for power. This week on With Great Power, Keith explains what makes ERCOT's approach to electricity different from other markets and how the incredible growth of solar generation and battery energy storage systems have changed the Texas grid. They also cover the role of ancillary services and look ahead to how ERCOT’s energy mix will continue to evolve.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 Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Right now, there’s not much growing in Iowa. But Nick Peterson, strategic partnerships manager for Alliant Energy, is already thinking about next summer’s yields. He’s spearheading a collaboration with Iowa State University, an Alliant customer, to evaluate a practice called agrivoltaics, which marries farming with solar energy generation.Across ten acres, the utility installed a 1.35 megawatt solar installation, using both fixed arrays and tracker panels. Along with a team from Iowa State University’s agriculture and engineering schools, Alliant Energy is looking at the potential for growing high-value crops under the panels. One year into the four-year project supported by a $1.8 million Department of Energy grant,  early food and power generation results are promising.This week on With Great Power, Nick tells Brad what scientists are learning from the project, why it could change how utilities think about agrivoltaics, and why one of the hardest parts of his job is addressing the fears some farmers have about the practice.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. Sean Marquand composed the original theme song and mixed the show. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

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.

With their short, predictable routes and large battery size, electric school buses are well suited for vehicle-to-grid applications, especially since they’re available during periods of high electricity demand. Last year, bus maker Zum launched a fleet of 74 electric school buses — the country’s largest — for the Oakland Unified School District in California. It worked with Pacific Gas & Electric to build a network of chargers and integrate the buses to the local grid to form a virtual power plant. This week on With Great Power, Rudi Halbright – expert product manager on vehicle-grid integration at PG&E – shares insights from launching the V2G program with Zum as well as lessons learned on how to deploy vehicle-grid infrastructure.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.

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.

In 2014, Nathan Shannon was working for a community land trust in Georgia, building affordable housing. But following his interest in behavioral economics, he attended the Behavior, Energy, and Climate Change conference. That event piqued his interest in how and why consumers make economic decisions related to their homes, and that led him to the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC), a nonprofit that surveys energy consumers in North America and works across the industry to share best practices in consumer engagement.One of the key insights he brought to SECC — where he is now president and CEO — is that housing affordability is tied inextricably to energy affordability. That’s evident in SECC’s research, too. This week on With Great Power, Nathan discusses the findings of SECC’s latest consumer survey and Modern Energy Messaging report. It shows that as energy costs have risen in recent years, consumers are less motivated by environmental messaging — and what it takes for energy providers to keep consumers engaged in clean energy programs. You can learn more about SECC’s research here.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.

Toby Ferenczi used to work for an energy provider that marketed 100% clean energy but also ran a demand response program. When customers started asking him why they should shift their energy use to certain times of day if their energy was totally clean, he didn’t have a good answer.During the pandemic he spent a lot of time ruminating on this disconnect and ultimately helped develop a new standard for tracking the renewable energy credits behind clean energy claims. He says his startup Granular Energy, which grew out of that work, ensures companies buying those credits are really moving the needle on a cleaner electric grid. This week on With Great Power, Toby shares his journey into the world of RECs and explains why there’s a big debate among some of the world’s biggest tech companies about the best path forward.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.

Sonia Aggarwal spent the early years of her career moving between nonprofits and the private sector, supporting renewable energy deployment. But after watching early climate policies fail in Washington D.C., she realized her energy modeling skills could better serve the clean energy transition. In 2012, she co-founded Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan energy and climate research organization that works with policymakers on policy design. Today, after a two-year stint advising Biden’s climate team, Sonia leads Energy Innovation’s team of nearly 45 policy analysts, economists, and energy modelers. Kicking off the fourth season of With Great Power, Sonia tells Brad why the 2024 election is likely to send the energy transition down one of two very different paths. But, she explains, some areas of progress will continue, regardless of shifts in the White House.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.

Over the past three seasons of With Great Power, we've met some of the incredible people working to make our power grid smarter, cleaner, and more resilient. We've examined the complexity of policy and regulation. We tackled the challenges of adopting new technologies like artificial intelligence. And we've heard powerful stories of both personal and professional transformation. We need to build the grid of the future today – but it’s not easy.In the coming weeks and months, we'll profile some of the most innovative utilities and technology providers. We'll learn about cutting-edge approaches to energy storage and vehicle-to-grid deployments. And we'll hear from regulators and energy providers grappling with growing demand, rising rates, and increasing climate threats.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast app to get fresh episodes when the new season drops.

Marc Spieler had been at the oil and gas giant Halliburton for 13 years when he first saw inklings of the energy transition – like Shell’s investment in geothermal and Exxon Mobil’s wind and solar PPAs. Once EVs started to go mainstream in 2019, he knew the energy transition was for real. And he wanted in. So he got a job at NVIDIA the same year the tech giant launched a new line of semiconductor chips specifically designed for processing artificial intelligence. Now, Marc works with other software companies and utilities to use technology to drive down the cost of the energy transition and speed up decarbonization. This week on With Great Power, Marc tells Brad about how advanced processing and artificial intelligence are changing utility operations, and why not all technology solutions need to be built from scratch. 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.

Hudson Gilmer worked in telecom in the 90’s when the industry transformed how data moved. And it didn’t take long for him to realize that a similar transformation would happen with electric utilities – and he needed to be a part of it.So he started a dynamic line rating company, LineVision, that uses sensors and data to show what is happening on transmission lines in real time. But, like other start-ups in the power sector, LineVision was stuck in pilot purgatory for years, until 2022 when they were awarded a big contract from a utility in the northeast. Now they are working on projects with utilities across the country. In this episode of With Great Power, Hudson tells Brad why dynamic line rating technology is picking up momentum, and how it can help meet growing electricity demand. 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.

In Nigeria, tens of millions of people live without access to reliable power. Utibe Bassey grew up in Lagos, and knows what it’s like to not have electricity to perform simple daily tasks. When she moved to the United States as a teen, she didn’t think much about electric utilities. But she did think about how managers treat employees – a thought spurred by an unfortunate instance she witnessed while working at a fast food chain. Ever since then, Utibe has refined her personal philosophy, “Love as a KPI,” which prioritizes kindness and human connection in the workplace. In this episode of With Great Power, Utibe tells Brad about how she puts her personal philosophy to work at Dominion Energy, where she is vice president of customer experience. She also talks about what it means to work in the power industry, having lived without access to reliable power in her youth. 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.

Sarah Kapnick has always been drawn to solving complex problems, and as a kid she dreamed of being a mathematician. But a stronger desire to work on more tangible things, led her to blaze a career path that combined climate science and financial risk. Since becoming NOAA’s chief scientist in 2022, one way that Kapnick has applied her unique skill set is by helping utilities better leverage climate data and predictions in resiliency and operational expenditures.In this episode of With Great Power, Sarah tells Brad how NOAA is supporting the Electric Power Research Institute, how she has seen utilities’ response to climate threats evolve, and why the power sector needs to monitor another possible threat: space weather.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.

Luis Reyes is a lifer at Kit Carson Electric, a rural energy co-operative in northern New Mexico. He grew up in a home powered by the utility and has been its CEO for 30 years. Under his leadership – and the direction of co-op members – Kit Carson has moved all of its daytime energy needs to renewables.Now, in a push to hit 100% round-the-clock renewable energy, he wants to develop a green hydrogen project for long-duration storage – at a Superfund site, of all places. In this episode of With Great Power, Luis tells Brad how this Superfund site project originated, and how it fits into the bigger vision for transitioning a community of 30,000 members away from fossil-based energy.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.

Mark Waclawiak was tuned into energy issues at an early age. Both his parents worked in the industry: his mom designed electrical systems for buildings and his dad worked at the utility. So the importance of electricity was always apparent to him.When he started working for a utility in 2015, he quickly identified an opportunity to use data to improve reliability, which led to running the operational performance team. The team moved data out of Access and Excel into SQL databases, which now serve as the foundation for AI applications. This week, Mark talks with Brad about how Avangrid replaced legacy data management systems with SQL databases to support AI projects.On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX will host a Frontier Forum to examine the importance of good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register at latitudemedia.com/events. See you there!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.

Kim Getgen moved to Silicon Valley from Washington D.C. in 2000, just in time for the dot com bubble burst. Despite her timing, she fell hard for the excitement and opportunity of startups and technology innovation. Kim launched and worked at many startups, but also took roles in larger organizations where she gravitated toward “intrapreneurship.” But after suffering burnout four years ago, she started thinking about ways to encourage innovation among intrapreneurs in risk-averse sectors like utilities.In 2021 she founded InnovationForce to guide innovators, and their teams, through a repeatable, rigorous, and democratic process for vetting and testing new technologies. Kim’s goals are to promote workplace psychological safety for intrapreneurs and to help utilities keep new decarbonization technologies out of pilot purgatory. On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX will host a Frontier Forum to examine the importance of good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register at latitudemedia.com/events. See you there!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.

Ahmad Faruqui has been researching electricity pricing since the mid 1970’s, when the cost of a kilowatt-hour was flat. But in the 80’s and 90’s, he started working on dynamic pricing – pioneering the concept of time-of-use rates.The big breakthrough for time-of-use rates came during the fallout from the California energy crisis. Later, thanks to the rollout of smart meters, more power providers started experimenting with dynamic rates.Now, new technology is making time-of-use rate design more transparent. This week, Ahmad talks with Brad about why dynamic pricing is gaining momentum among electric utilities – and what makes for good rate design. On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX will host a Frontier Forum to examine the imperative of good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register at the link in the show notes, or go to latitudemdia.com/events. See you there!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.

Heather Rock has always liked grappling with big, existential questions. Knowing she wanted to “serve a carbon-neutral future,” she left Chevron in 2018 to become senior director of strategy for Pacific Gas & Electric. When she joined PG&E, it was on the brink of bankruptcy due to billions of dollars in liability after its equipment sparked wildfires. But Heather says the utility is now building a safer grid that is more resilient to climate change. In her current role she’s also scaling innovations to improve the customer experience and lower costs.This week, Heather talks with Brad about how PG&E is using batteries to resolve a service bottleneck in northern California. She also weighs in on being an agent for change in a large organization. “Because of the size and the scope and the scale, if you can make change internally, you can really steer a ship in a different way,” she says. 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.

From his early days working on regulatory policy on the Hill to his current role as president of Grid Strategies, Rob Gramlich has been focused on future-proofing the electrical grid.  Twenty years ago, utilities invested heavily in load demand forecasting. But as load growth fell precipitously in the 2000s, those departments shrank. Now, with load growth skyrocketing from increasingly-electrified manufacturing, burgeoning data centers, and electrified homes, planners are struggling to keep up. The grid simply isn’t ready for what’s coming. This week, Rob talks with Brad about how to mitigate the risks of this impending load demand, including how recent federal funding could help improve grid planning. They also dig into some  systemic fixes that could improve the grid’s health in the long term. 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.

In 2016, Dr. Kyri Baker was a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory working on a new home energy management system. Called Foresee, the system reduced energy usage through machine learning algorithms that tracked consumption patterns and grid conditions. Today, Kyri is an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she continues her research on machine learning applications for the power grid. Her work has expanded beyond home energy management to the transmission and distribution grids, and she is pioneering new techniques for power flow optimization. This week, Kyri talks with Brad about how utilities can use neural networks to reduce outage times with data they already have available. She also describes the machine learning algorithms she’s training to make power flow predictions more accurate. 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.

In early 2023, things were moving along as planned for a rate restructuring plan at Holy Cross Energy, a rural electric co-op in Colorado. The board of directors had approved the plan, which would separate the cost of energy from the cost of delivering that energy to the customer.The change meant rooftop solar customers could continue to sell their excess electricity back to Holy Cross, just at a much lower rate that would slow their return on investment.  The pushback from solar customers and the solar industry was swift. And soon, Holy Cross CEO Bryan Hannegan got a call from the Governor, asking for a meeting with Holy Cross and solar industry representatives.Speaking on the With Great Power podcast, Hannegan joked that it felt a bit like “being called to the principal’s office” for fighting in the hallway. But the result — an ongoing series of meetings with energy industry stakeholders from across the state — brought positive change.In Colorado, the rift that formed over the Holy Cross rate restructuring plan will take time and community engagement to repair. But ultimately, the utility business model needs to change, Hannegan says. Rather than selling electricity, he envisions utilities becoming infrastructure operators, essentially becoming “the FedEx of electricity in the sense that wherever it comes from, wherever it needs to go, we'll get it there on time and at an affordable price and in a reliable manner,” he said. In this first episode of season 3 of With Great Power, host Brad Langley talks with Bryan Hannegan about Holy Cross Energy’s rate restructuring plan and his vision for a new utility business model.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.

Over the past two seasons of With Great Power, you've heard stories from all kinds of people working at the front lines of change on the power grid. We've covered the rise of electric vehicles, explored the dawn of long-duration storage, unpacked the utility digital transformation, and asked: how can power companies learn from other industries about change?In March, we’re coming back for another season on the tech, business, and market forces that are changing the grid. Season three will feature stories from some of the nation’s biggest utilities and most nimble cooperatives; we’ll hear from analysts and researchers following tech trends, like artificial intelligence and virtual power plants; and we'll dive into the massive federal efforts to make the grid more agile and resilient.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast app to get fresh episodes when the new season drops.