The federal government is poised to transform the United States' electric grid at an unprecedented, massive clip to fight climate change and embrace sustainability.

That’s according to Sasha Mackler, head of the Bipartisan Policy Center energy program who is the guest on the latest episode of Grid Talk. 

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act are really two major achievements from a federal policy perspective,” said Mackler. 

“They’re very focused on the developments and in particular the deployment of clean energy technologies across the American economy.”  

The result will unleash an enormous amount of new capital from the federal government into this energy transition and into energy modernization. 

“Dollars are being spent; small grants have gone out the door. Big grants and funding programs have been established and funding commitments have been made but the actual large dollars that are going to flow into the economy, those are still really getting setup because projects take time to sort of work through the commercial permitting phase, to get the consortiums together, to get the contracts in place so that they can actually get out into the market and attract the capital and start the construction.” 

Sasha Mackler has worked for more than two decades at the intersection of energy policy and commercial markets. Prior to leading the Energy Program, he spent nearly 10 years in the private sector, first as vice president of Summit Power Group’s carbon capture business and then overseeing market development activities for Enviva, the largest biomass fuel supplier to the global utility industry. His professional work has focused on the innovations necessary to scale emerging energy technologies along with developing the business models and policy frameworks that support the deployment of low carbon energy systems.

Mackler holds both a Master of Science in Earth Resources Engineering and Master of Public Administration from Columbia University. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Geomechanical Engineering from the University of Rochester.