How do utilities decide what they want — and need — to build? It’s one of the most important problems driving the data center and clean energy conversations right now. But it’s hard to get a sense of what constraints and ideas actually drive utility decisionmaking from the inside.

Alice Yake is the vice president of GRIDS at Breakthrough Energy, and the former senior vice president of system strategy and chief planning officer at Xcel Energy in Colorado. On this episode of Shift Key, she walks us through a half century of the grid’s biggest decisions — what constraints utilities and planners thought they faced, what choices they made, and what it means for the future. She also discusses Breakthrough’s work to build an open-source grid planning tool and how it could

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

California Burning, by Katherine Blunt

Jesse’s paper on uncertainty-aware grid planning in the real world

James Bonbright’s landmark work on public utility rates

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Lunar Energy is building the technology to turn homes into active participants in the power system. Learn more about Lunar’s vision of the future at lunarenergy.com.

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