On The Grid

We've got an episode packed to the gills. We have Rod Hilburn from Ameren Illinois and David Chiesa from S&C returning to talk about their microgrid project in Champaign Illinois, the first of its kind to receive PEER certification.

We talk about what this certification means and how others can replicate this kind of project in other places. We also talk about the project journey and what road bumps one can come across in the planning and execution of a project this size, as well as ideas about selecting potential partners.

This episode as sponsored by USGBC

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We come to you live (in the past) at Itron Utility Week to discuss the intersection of water and electricity with University of Texas Professor Michael Webber.

How do water and electricity fuel each other? What can we learn about building for the future from the experiences of the different utilities? All that and more on this jam-packed episode.

This episode was sponsored by Itron.

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It's our first ever live show! We bring Richard Amato up on stage at the One World Theater in Austin to talk about startups and the future of energy. We also force our audience to play a game! If you missed out on Start@ETS, you don't want to miss out on this podcast!

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This week we talk with David Graham who works for the city of San Diego. We talk about what the roles and goals of cities are in the energy space. We also talk about how innovation is driven by community more than technology (though technology still plays an important role).

This podcast was sponsored by Itron.

If you haven't checked out our podcast survey go to www.surveymonkey.com/r/onthegrid

This week we have Grid 20/20 President and Founder Alan Snook on to talk about how unexpected additions on the grid edge can threaten distribution infrastructure.

We delve into how electric vehicle home charging, marijuana cultivation and power theft combine to create unexpectedly large strains on the grid. Also I make a bad pun.

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to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/onthegrid

Our guest this week is Kumi Premathilake from Aclara and we talk with her about vision: the vision of the energy industry's future, the vision to see trends on an enterprise level, and our own personal visions of utility futures we would like to see and be a part of. Kumi also gives helpful tips for building and sticking to roadmaps to achieve these visions.

We also discuss how planning for the energy future differs from region to region and what level of globalism we should apply to our models for innovation. Then we wrap up with a thought experiment where we sit the industry down and talk some sense into it.

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Erin and Dylan talk with Utility Dive Senior Reporter Gavin Bade about the resignation of Scott Pruitt as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. We discuss his legacy, who in energy benefited under him and who is happy to see him gone, and what to expect under the new acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler.

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Now that Puerto Rico has returned power to 99.9% of its residents, we take a look at what went wrong in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and what lessons we can learn about how we clean up disasters. We also discuss with our guest, Seyi Fabode, how utilities need to change their organizational structure so something like Puerto Rico won't happen again to any US grid system.

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On this episode we talk researcher-to-researcher with Matthew Futch from NREL. We talk about the relationship that research-based companies have with the energy industry and why this kind of research is important for utilities and customers.

As a pertinent example, we talk about Net Zero initiatives and how the planning, execution and associated problems of such measures are being facilitated by research or a lack thereof.

Dr. Erfan Ibrahim joins the podcast today to discuss cybersecurity in the electric utility space. Where are the threats coming from? What are the different types of threats and solutions? We discuss this as well as some best practices utilities can take to have a healthier culture of cybersecurity.

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