PowerTalking by E Source

PowerTalking by E Source is back with an all-new season. And we’re turning up the energy.

From policy shifts and technology innovations to the latest in utility management, PowerTalking by E Source offers unique perspectives from experts and leaders in the utility industry. If it’s topical, processing, relevant, challenging, and exciting, it has our interest.

We’ll publish new episodes every two weeks, and this time we have video! You can subscribe to PowerTalking by E Source wherever you get your podcasts.

We’re witnessing storms growing in intensity and severity in recent years. Whether they’re facing hurricanes and wildfires or prolonged heatwaves and flooding, utilities find themselves with a growing need for resources to manage their emergency outage operations. The way utilities have been managing their storm operations is shaping up to be unsustainable in the years to come. Host Bryan Jungers welcomes E Source Data Science colleagues Josh Denzler, director of sales innovation, and Devon Grodkiewicz, solutions adviser, to discuss the storm and outage challenges utilities are up against and identify opportunities for improvement.

Storm preparedness, response, and recovery is part of E Source's grid and asset optimization. You can learn more here: https://www.esource.com/public/grid-and-asset-optimization

Host Bryan Jungers welcomes to the podcast Kierra Thomas, senior consultant at E Source, and Eddy Hernandez, director of enterprise solutions for Brownsville Public Utilities Board. They’ll discuss what helped them secure the win and explain what utilities need to know before they apply for grants.

Interested in applying for a WaterSMART grant? E Source can help. Learn more here.

Host Bryan Jungers is joined by Stephanie Leach, Principal Business Analyst at Baltimore Gas and Electric, and Jesse Hitchcock, Senior Analyst of Customer Energy Solutions at E Source, to discuss the concerns surrounding how EV charging may impact the grid.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion isn’t a new concept for utilities, but there’s a new energy equity movement sweeping the utility sector. Who better than Dr. Tony Reames, senior adviser of energy justice at the US Department of Energy (DOE) to explain how energy equity can benefit utilities, cities, and customers. Ben Nathan, lead analyst for Customer Energy Solutions at E Source, and Bryan Jungers, E Source director of mobility, discuss with Dr. Reames how to create successful collaborations between utilities and the DOE, how utilities can get federal funding to help with equity efforts, and how we can measure success.

Tony’s and Ben’s beginnings (1:13)

How can utilities improve their efforts with low- and moderate-income (LMI) customers? (5:38)

How can utilities collaborate with local governments and the DOE? (10:04)

Federal funding through an equity lens (12:59)

Specific examples of energy equity programs (15:34)

How can we maintain momentum with work around energy equity? (18:13)

How do we measure success in energy justice? (23:18)

How can utilities better collaborate with their communities? (27:41)

How utilities can shine with these opportunities (32:44)

Host Bryan Jungers, Director of Mobility at E Source, talks with Emily Hersh, CEO of Luna Lithium, and Sam Jaffe, Vice President of E Source Battery Solutions, to understand the ins and outs of batteries. Have you ever wondered how exactly batteries are made? Or where the lithium in lithium-ion batteries comes from? We hear from the experts as they discuss:

• The environmental impacts of EV battery manufacturing
• An overview of lithium extraction methods
• Whether hydrogen works as an alternative fuel for transportation
• Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investments
• Next-generation battery types
• Second-use battery applications

Host Bryan Jungers, director of mobility at E Source, talks with Laura Beavin-Yates, vice president of customer success for Immersion Neuroscience, and Rachel Cooper, director of E Source Market Research, to learn about a collaboration between Immersion Neuroscience and E Source that produced some exciting and useful results. They can help us better understand what consumers think of electric vehicles (EVs) and how to change their behavior around EV adoption by showing which ads and messages are most effective with certain audiences.

Join Ted Schultz, E Source CEO, and Adam Maxwell, Managing director of E Source consulting, in this deep-dive episode on ethnography versus data science.

What’s better for customer research? Data science identifies your target individuals at a macro level, while ethnography humanizes those insights. Is a blend the best option? Is one better than the other? Host, Bryan Jungers, Director of Mobility, talks with our experts to find out.

In our second episode of PowerTalking, host Bryan Jungers is joined by Rachel Buckley, vice president of Enterprise Strategy and New Products at E Source, and Mark Martinez, senior portfolio manager of emerging markets and technology at Southern California Edison. They deliver a brief history of demand response (DR), explain how data science is improving program participation, and describe some of the largest hurdles in the DR space today. Rachel and Mark’s combined decades of DR knowledge help to paint a complete picture of how the strategy works and where it’s headed in the future.