Power Flow

Energy access affects health, safety, and education. Seventy-five percent of Africa’s population live without access to modern energy, and women are affected the most.

Our guest this week is Katherine Lucey, who is bringing the light to communities in Africa – literally. Her non-profit organization, Solar Sister, recruits women in sub-Saharan Africa and trains them in business skills. This provides women opportunities to distribute clean energy in underserved, off grid communities and to generate income for themselves and their families.

When people can access clean, renewable energy, families are healthier, children can study longer, and communities are more stable.

I’m a huge fan of entrepreneurship and using business as a force for good - not only to support the planet and see more clean energy fueling our world, but to support actual humans with the revenues coming in from the business…and this is the ultimate holistic solution.

Quotables

“Going green is not just a luxury. In this case, going green is beneficial for economics, for health, for safety.”

“These women are transforming the lives of their communities. People who were lighting their homes with candles or kerosene now have clean energy, solar powered lights, home systems, clean cookstoves that they can use in their homes...The two big impacts are access to energy for the community, and the economic opportunity for women entrepreneurs.” 

“From an equity point of view, it's women and children who bear the brunt of the negative impacts of climate change.”

“I think the inertia caused by our privilege is one of our biggest challenges.”

-          All above quotes by Katherine Lucey

This week’s guest

Katherine Lucey is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Solar Sister. Katherine is a Schwab Foundation Entrepreneur of the Year, an Ashoka Fellow, and a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur. She has received recognition and awards for her work with Solar Sister including Forbes “50 Over 50 Women of Impact”, Clinton Global Initiative, Social Venture Network, C3E, and International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) Champion of Change Award. 

She holds an M.B.A. from Georgia State University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Georgia. Prior to becoming a social entrepreneur, Katherine spent over 20 years as an investment banker on Wall Street providing structured finance solutions to the energy sector.

Resources:

Book discussed: Donut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist by Kate Rayorth

Connect with Solar Sister on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Check out Solar Sister’s website.

If you enjoyed the conversation, please share the episode with other innovators. Leave us a positive review and subscribe to Power Flow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

You can follow Power Flow Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tik Tok. 

Thank you for listening. See you at the whiteboard!

The path to a clean energy future is likely not a straightforward one, strewn with complexities. Luckily, engineers love unpacking complexity. 

Our guest this week is Una Nowling, a study in paradox. Una is a fuels engineer who knows so much about coal, she has been nicknamed by colleagues and clients "The Coal Goddess." Even so, Una is relentlessly committed to decarbonization. She takes a refreshingly balanced approach to decarbonization and the clean energy transition, bringing the practical wisdom of over 30 years of experience in the energy industry. 

During our conversation, we consider the complexity that we'll need to hold in order to make the transition -- reliability, new technology blending with old technology, grid stability, and the need for more evolution than revolution.

Note: Episode 1.04 is referenced often- Episode 1.04: On EV Infrastructure and Green Workforce Development with Kameale Terry 

Quotables

"Take some hope, combine it with passion, and apply our skills to come together and tackle these technical challenges."

"Think about all the challenges we overcame, all the first of a kind work we did, all everyone coming together, and we made it work. This, my friend, is engineering. This is the heart, the soul, the spirit of what engineering is all about."

"Try not to make the same mistake more than twice."

-          All the above are by Una Nowling

“Hope is the key. And to channel passion behind that hope. That’s the motivating, driving force behind all of it.” – Amy Simpkins

This week’s guest

Ms. Una Nowling is a Project Manager and the Technology Leader for Fuels, Risk, and Reliability at Black & Veatch. She assists utilities and energy companies with decarbonization and efficiency improvement studies; fossil fuel to renewable energy conversion projects, environmental compliance and pollution reduction, research and development for the Electric Power Research Institute, National Energy Technology Laboratories, and others; and conducts technical and scientific training on various topics, as well as human resources training on gender equity and LGBTQIA+ equity in STEMM. 

Ms. Nowling has managed more than 200 projects in her 28-year career at Black & Veatch, and is also an Adjunct Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) campus. 

Ms. Nowling is a frequent technical author and a radio producer of two weekly social justice programs on Kansas City Public Radio.

Resources:

Listen to Ms. Nowling at KKFI 90.1FM and check out the Black & Veach website.

If you enjoyed the conversation, please share the episode with other innovators. Leave us a positive review and subscribe to Power Flow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out our awesome merch! And hey, we’re new, so you can even apply to be a sponsor or a guest.

You can follow Power Flow Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tik Tok. 

Thank you for listening. See you at the whiteboard!

Battery energy storage is getting a great deal of press because of the way it is revolutionizing transportation and vehicle electrification as well as how it enables higher penetration of non-dispatchable renewable energy generation, both in front of and behind the meter. 

But questions about battery end of life plague the technology. 

Are batteries recyclable? What happens to batteries whose performance is no longer sufficient for the rigors of electric vehicles? Could EV batteries have a second life in a stationary application? 
 
 In order to answer these questions, we need to be able to assess the health of batteries. Zora Chung is doing exactly that with ReJoule -- greatly expanding and standardizing battery state of health measurements to give batteries a second life and create a circular economy for batteries. 

As a data scientist, I believe that knowledge is power, and more data allows us to make better decisions for consumers and for the planet.

 Episode 1.04: On EV Infrastructure and Green Workforce Development with Kameale Terry is referenced often. 

Quotables

 “We need to open up that black box [on measuring battery life] and understand it. One way we need to do that is through standards. If everybody is speaking a different language, opening that black box is more like a Pandora’s box.”  

 "People think in binaries, that either it works or it doesn't work. But how do you define what works?" 

“Everybody has a role they can play... you can have an impact. As long as you get started, your impact will start to grow.”

All quotes above by Zora Chung

This week’s guest

Zora is the cofounder and CFO at ReJoule, a battery diagnostics and optimization startup with a mission to reduce battery waste and enable the circular economy for batteries. 

Before founding ReJoule in 2017, she spent 13 years in corporate finance at Clorox and Walmart eCommerce. She's created long-range strategic and financial plans, negotiated contracts, and evaluated new and existing business models and optimized them for scalable growth. 

At ReJoule, she manages "all things non-technical" and has helped ReJoule secure almost $5M in non-dilutive grants. Their biggest grant is a $3M project funded by the California Energy Commission to repurpose used electric vehicle batteries in a second-life application.

Resources:

Connect with ReJoule on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Check out ReJoule’s website and watch this micro documentary on ReJoule.

If you enjoyed the conversation, please leave us a positive review and subscribe to Power Flow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can follow Power Flow Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tik Tok. 

Thank you for listening. See you at the whiteboard!

As an energy industry professional, I know that energy policy is important, but policymaking itself remains something of a black box. 

State representative Liana Cassar of Rhode Island is pulling back the curtain for us today. 

Liana's professional background is systems thinking and design for the health care sector, but as a legislator, she balances myriad legislative priorities including energy policy. 

On this episode, Liana shares with us how she learns about domain specific issues, how she helps educate constituents on the issues at hand, and how she looks for holistic solutions that are integrative and solve multiple issues facing communities at once.

*Note: Episode 1.04 with Kameale Terry is referenced often. Check it out: Episode 1.04: On EV Infrastructure and Green Workforce Development with Kameale Terry 

Quotables

 "There's that space between shutting down the old and turning on the new. It's really a rich and important space, and we need to get it right."

"My bottom line for how we make change: we engage."

“So much mythology is getting in the way of good work.”

“What is going to be the right thing that is best for the well-being of all?”

- All quotes above by Liana Cassar

“Energy is an intersectional issue that touches every single aspect of our human lives and it affects our planet.” – Amy Simpkins

This week’s guest

Representative Liana Cassar is in her second term in the Rhode Island House of Representatives. Her legislative priorities are good government, economic justice, reproductive justice, and environmental stewardship. She currently serves on the House Committees on Health and Human Services, and Small Business. 

Rep. Cassar has spent the past 20+ years working across the health care and public health sectors in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 

With a background in public health, operations and systems, she currently consults with mission-driven and women-led businesses, mainly in the care economy, on operations planning, change management and systems development. She holds a Masters in Public Health from Boston University and a Masters in Business Administration from Simmons College.

Resources:

Connect with Liana Cassar on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Check out Cassar Consulting’s website.

If you enjoyed the conversation, please share the episode with other innovators. Leave us a positive review and subscribe to Power Flow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out our awesome merch! And hey, we’re new, so you can even apply to be a sponsor or a guest.

You can follow Power Flow Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tik Tok. 

Thank you for listening. See you at the whiteboard!

What can regular citizens possibly do about climate change? To move the clean energy transition forward? 

Leslie Glustrom was a humble scientist who "belongs in a lab working on a problem only one or two other people understand." But as a mom she couldn't shake the feeling that she needed to do something, anything, to leave a cleaner planet for her kids. 

She dedicated herself to citizen advocacy -- working hard to rally communities to get energy policy passed at local, state, and federal levels, and engaging large companies to change their approach. 

If you have been wondering what one person can do, I invite you to listen to Leslie and get inspired. She's proof that all of us can make a difference.

Quotables

 "Every minute you spent in despair is a minute you didn't spend in leadership." 

“I was no kind of mother if I didn’t do everything I could to turn around what we now call the climate crisis. All those soccer games and ballet lessons and everything else you do for your kids – all of that was useless if we didn’t leave them a liveable planet.”

“I bring the perspectives of a scientist, a mother and an organizer to bear on the defining issue of our time.” 

-all Leslie Glustrom

This Week’s Guest

Leslie is trained as a biochemist and scientist but resigned her job in 2004 to work as a full-time (unpaid) climate advocate at the local, state and national level. She has close to 20 years of experience at the Colorado PUC and working with communities throughout the country to accelerate our transition to a cleaner, more resilient energy future. She has won numerous awards for her climate work.

Resources:

Connect with Leslie Glustrom on LinkedIn and check out the Clean Energy Action website . 

If you enjoyed the conversation, please share the episode with other innovators. Leave us a positive review and subscribe to Power Flow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out our awesome merch! And hey, we’re new, so you can even apply to be a sponsor or a guest.

You can follow Power Flow Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tik Tok. 

Thank you for listening. See you at the whiteboard!

One of the biggest concerns I have heard from laypeople about the electric vehicle transition is about the availability of charging stations. Kameale Terry is helping to address that need with ChargerHelp! which boasts a specialized workforce of charging station maintenance professionals, able to troubleshoot non-working EV charging stations and get them back online. 

In doing so, Kameale is not only contributing to the electric vehicle revolution, she is developing the new green workforce - providing solid middle class jobs that advance clean energy and provide healthy, safe work environments with excellent stability for her team. 
 
I also loved talking to Kameale about collaborative ideation and making sure people are "in the room" with lived experience and expertise when decisions are made.

Quotables

“It’s a beautiful thing that one day we'll be able to look back and say we were part of the generation that really changed the trajectory of the health of our nation in regard to air quality.” -Kameale Terry

“Let's have the future right now. Let's reimagine transportation, let's reimagine how we take care of the environment and the things that we create, and the impact of the things that we create. It’s time to do it.” -Kameale Terry

This week’s guest

Kameale is the Co-Founder and CEO of ChargerHelp, Inc. an app that enables on-demand repair of electric vehicle charging stations. As the former Director of Programs at EV Connect, an electric vehicle charge station network provider, Kameale structured and led teams to execute electric vehicle infrastructure projects and programs in the United States, Australia, and Canada for commercial and government entities. 

Her most notable projects include the Electrify America – Phase One Program, the Southern California Edison Charge Ready Pilot, and the New York Power Authority portfolio. Prior to this role Kameale created, hired, and oversaw the Customer Experience Department at EV Connect, by partnering with the Southbay Workforce Investment Board to employ candidates from the local community. 

As a South Central Los Angeles native, Kameale believes that an equitable green economy can be achieved through impactful workforce development and realignment.

Resources:

Connect with Kameale Terry on LinkedIn and check out her website. 

Follow ChargerHelp! on LinkedIn and check out their website.

If you enjoyed the conversation, please share the episode with other innovators. Leave us a positive review and subscribe to Power Flow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out our awesome merch! And hey, we’re new, so you can even apply to be a sponsor or a guest.

You can follow Power Flow Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tik Tok. 

Thank you for listening. See you at the whiteboard!

As we transition to an all-electric future, we are presented with an unprecedented opportunity to control individual device usage to be more efficient.  How do edge devices “decide” whether it’s efficient to operate?  Perhaps the answer lies in proper economic incentive. Transactive energy is a concept where the instantaneous price of energy allows the grid to communicate its challenges to users and for users to communicate back to the grid their priorities.

How does it work?  This week we are talking to Kay Aikin at Dynamic Grid for a crash course in how transactive energy works and how it could shape the grid of the future.

Quotables

"I think that people are starting to understand that the decisions they make with their finger [on their devices] make a difference." – Kay Aikin

"We have to start thinking beyond the edge of envelopes. Everyone has a different envelope, and as long as you are thinking past the edge of yours, you are contributing to the solution." 
- Kay Aikin and Amy Simpkins

This Week’s Guest:

Kay Aikin is the co-founder of Introspective Systems LLC. and Chief Product Officer of Dynamic Grid, a software company based in Portland Maine. She is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and holds a degree in energy/sustainability engineering. She has spent her career as an energy engineer, architectural designer, and business development executive, currently Chief Product Officer of an AI-based complex systems software company focused on energy controls software.

Over the last few years working with partner, Dr. Caryl Johnson they studied the application of AI/complex systems to the integration of Distributed Energy Resources into the electrical grid as an expansion of her experience in sustainable technologies. She is a recognized Transactive Energy expert and is a regular speaker at conferences on this topic as well as distributed intelligence in the electrical grid. She is on the Board of the Grid Wise Architecture Council (GWAC), she is one of 13 members setting overall direction for the Department of Energy in the areas for grid modernization and smart grids. She is also a member of IEEE Power and Energy Society, Smart Electric Power Alliance, Seismological Society of America. She is an active participant in SEPA’s Transactive Energy Working Group, Microgrids and the Grid Edge group for the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.

Resources

• Connect with Kay Aikin on LinkedIn and Twitter
• Follow DynamicGrid on LinkedIn and Twitter, and check out their website.

If you enjoyed the conversation, please share the episode with other innovators. Leave us a positive review and subscribe to Power Flow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out our awesome merch! And hey, we’re new, so you can even apply to be a sponsor or a guest.

You can follow Power Flow Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tik Tok. 

Thank you for listening. See you at the whiteboard!

In this episode, we get nerdy about batteries and how battery technology has the power to drive the energy transition.

Energy storage is a crucial piece of the clean energy future. It mitigates the intermittency of nondispatchable renewable generation like solar or wind and allows us to shift energy to when it is truly needed while also providing grid stability. 

Lithium-based batteries are currently the front-running energy storage candidate due to their wide use in personal electronics over the past 25 years, their high energy density, and high cycle lifetimes. But lithium-based batteries are not without challenges - from accessibility of materials to fire hazards during operation to a lack of recyclability, there are plenty of opportunities to challenge lithium's dominance as a battery chemistry. 
 
Eloisa de Castro and her company, Enerpoly, are looking to do just that with humble zinc-manganese -- the same type of chemistry as your standard alkaline battery. They are looking to make this workhorse both rechargeable and scalable so they can beat lithium in material availability, manufacturability, safety, recyclability, and yes, affordability. 

Quotables:

“The innovation that needs to happen in the energy industry is around the integration of technology more than around the technology itself.” 
 -Eloisa de Castro and Amy Simpkins

“One of the challenges around trying to find solutions in the energy industry is that we, as humans, have this common desire to simplify problems or solutions into a single metric that we have to reference. 

But, when you're solving an integrated engineering problem, there are a lot of different factors that you can play with. So you have to choose the ones that are the most important to you.”

-Eloisa de Castro

This Week’s Guest

Eloisa de Castro is CEO of Enerpoly, the Swedish zinc-ion battery technology company that is generating buzz in Europe's energy industry and has been selected as one of 2021's Top 5 Battery Tech Challengers by the Energy Tech Summit. 

Eloisa comes with a wealth of experience in technology leadership, having spent over 10 years in engineering and operations in the energy and aerospace industries. Prior to Enerpoly, she served as Director of Market Operations and Program Management at Modern Energy. Eloisa earned her bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and her MBA from INSEAD in France.

Resources:

Connect with Eloisa de Castro on LinkedIn.

Follow Enerpoly on LinkedIn and check out their website.

If you enjoyed the conversation, please share the episode with other innovators. Leave us a positive review and subscribe to Power Flow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out our awesome merch! And hey, we’re new, so you can even apply to be a sponsor or a guest.

You can follow Power Flow Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tik Tok. 

Thank you for listening. See you at the whiteboard!

In this episode, Power Flow host Amy Simpkins shares her vision for the podcast and the importance of collaboration in innovation. 

Featuring conversations with energy experts, Power Flow showcases all things energy: the new energy economy, the all-electric future, sustainability, resilience, and equity.

Learn how microgrid project development is similar to spacecraft acquisition. Also: sustainability, community resilience, the new energy economy, all-electric future, and moving from centralized to distributed architectures.

Amy’s objective is to start conversations that dream a new dream in the context of collaboration, understanding that no one person has all the answers to the energy crises that are facing our world right now. Using the power of collaboration to save the planet together, we can tap many people’s zones of genius and learn about the exciting solutions all around us.

Quotables 

“The way that we innovate, the way we move forward is not just diversity for the sake of diversity, but it’s a diversity of conversation and experience, bringing the vast experience and knowledge and inspiration from all different kinds of people together. Those are the keys to changing the world.” 

“I believe that the most potent form of innovation is collaborative, where you get multiple minds to the whiteboard to solve problems together. We need to have conversations with people who don’t think like us.” 

This Week’s Guest

Amy Simpkins is Co-Founder, Host, and Chief Architect of the Power Flow Podcast. She is the author of  Spiral: A Catalyst for Innovation and Expansion and is known as a speaker and thought leader in innovation.

Amy is CEO of the renewable energy startup muGrid Analytics, who solves problems at the edge of energy technology and economics using math and modeling. She is dedicated to creating a sustainable energy future for the planet, one project at a time. 

Previously, Amy designed, integrated, and operated spacecraft at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. During her tenure as an aspiring Spacecraft Systems Architect, she contributed to programs such as Juno, Stardust-NExT, Orion, and Space Radar, and worked in dynamic idea incubation groups for advanced aerospace innovation.

Amy holds an SB in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MS in Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California. She is a messy chef, a world traveler, a taekwondo green belt, a homeschooling mom of three, and a tough cookie in the Colorado backcountry.

Connect with Amy on LinkedIn and Instagram. 

Follow Power Flow on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tik Tok. 

Follow muGrid Analytics on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and check out their website.

If you enjoyed the conversation, please share with other innovators. Leave us a positive review and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. See you at the whiteboard!

The energy revolution is coming, and it's all hands on deck. Amplifying the expertise of the leaders in the new energy economy and inviting diverse voices to the table, we'll talk solar power, battery storage and battery alternatives, microgrids, renewable energy, distributed energy architectures, energy policy, energy equity, and all things energy.

I'm your host, Amy Simpkins, renewable energy CEO (and Rocket Scientist) and I am passionate about creating sustainable change. I believe that access to electricity is no longer a luxury -- it's a human right. I'm driven by the desire to leave this world better than I found it. I believe in the power of collaboration -- that innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum. 

And innovation is the only way humanity will survive. 

Recent natural disaster events impacting access to power, like the Texas Power Crisis during the winter storms of 2021 or the raging California wildfires of 2018-2020, combined with concern over anticipated future events, like a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake in Oregon, have elevated conversations about resilience, independence, and sustainability to new, more urgent heights.

If we are truly going to meet the challenges to the energy revolution and to achieve these ideals, we need to bring all minds to the whiteboard.  

That’s why Power Flow Podcast was born. 

I've always worked in male-dominated environments. Yet, the more I engage with women, the more I witness very different approaches to innovation, problem solving, and solution implementation. We possess a treasure trove in untapped riches of expertise from female, non-binary, and BIPOC professionals, all relentlessly working to make this new energy future a reality, yet too often unseen and unheard. 

Solving the challenges we face in the energy industry can solve intersectional problems for Earth and its residents. A shift from fossil fuels to renewables not only increases sustainability -- an important component of slowing and reversing climate change -- it will also reduce pollution near low-income or racially diverse neighborhoods. 

A shift to distributed energy improves community resilience through microgrids and minigrids. Community resilience and distributed energy lead to energy equity - ensuring access to clean, reliable energy for all. 

Join me in a deep dive exploring the solutions clean energy can offer to our earth as we bring more voices to the microphone and more minds to the whiteboard, shining a spotlight on new ideas and perspectives, tapping into the vast expertise and intersectional thinking that's already here. As we thoughtfully consider the tremendous challenges of the energy revolution, we can collaborate to achieve sustainability, equity, and resilience. It’s time to amplify new ideas that can help us innovate more efficiently, with better outcomes, harmonizing the threads of collaboration so we can build the future together.

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