Microgrids Aren’t What They Used To Be
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2026
- How Your Home May Save the Grid
Ben Brown, CEO of Renew Home, to explore how millions of ordinary homes are being quietly transformed into virtual power plants (VPPs) — aggregated, AI-coordinated, and capable of delivering what a gas-fired peaker plant once did, at a fraction of the cost and with zero emissions. From Jimmy Carter’s thermostat appeals to today’s invisible, personalized energy shifting, Ben and Elisa talk about why the future of grid stability runs directly through your living room. - Jigar Shah’s Surprising Stand on This Utility Program
Jigar Shah is one of clean energy’s most influential — and outspoken — figures. In this episode, he takes a surprising stand on a utility battery program that has the distributed energy world divided, makes the case that the solar industry is now the battery industry, and lays out a policy blueprint for new governors that starts with one bold number: cut electricity bills 20% by 2030. - How Microgrid Finance Suffers from Stranded Abundance
Eliot Assimakopoulos, CEO of Realizse and former GE microgrid pioneer, discusses a critical barrier to clean energy deployment: “stranded abundance.” Despite available capital and valuable incentives, friction in finance prevents these resources from connecting, limiting microgrid and DER project development. - Gigawatt-Scale Data Centers Push the Grid to Its Limits. What’s the Fix? The explosive growth of AI training centers is creating unprecedented challenges for the electric grid. In this eye-opening conversation, Kay Aikin reveals why gigawatt-scale data centers like Stargate aren’t just about needing more power—they’re creating stability threats that could collapse entire grid systems. Learn why virtual power plants can’t solve this problem, what new technologies are needed, and how the regulatory landscape must adapt to handle loads that can spike by several gigawatts in seconds.
- The Many Ways Data Centers Try to Achieve Speed to Power This episode explores “speed to power” – the urgent need for data centers to access electricity quickly to support AI infrastructure growth. Anna Demeo explains why the fast-moving world of hyperscalers (Google, Meta, Microsoft) is colliding with the cautious, regulated utility industry, and what innovative solutions might bridge this gap.
2025
- An Energy Economist on the Abundance Agenda…Right now, the term “energy abundance” seems to be everywhere. It springs from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book Abundance, which argues that we have too many rules and procedures bogging down the construction of clean energy, housing, and other needed infrastructure. While the book has created debate in both the power industry and political arenas, this episode moves away from the politics of abundance to focus on the economics of abundance. Host Elisa Wood sits down with energy economist Mariko Geronimo Aydin to explore how the abundance agenda fits into an industry where markets traditionally make money via scarcity, not abundance.
- How to Make It Easier for American Families to Go Solar
Rooftop solar is far more affordable in other countries than it is in the United States, and the gap has little to do with technology. In this conversation, Elisa talks with Nick Josefowitz, Chief Executive of Permit Power, about why American families pay so much more for rooftop solar and how outdated permitting, utility requirements and fragmented local rules create unnecessary barriers. - Data Centers: Bring Your Own Capacity Instead of Building Power Plants Adam Scarsella, vice president of digital infrastructure sales at Voltus, describes a new approach to accelerating data center interconnection: Bring Your Own Capacity
- The Coolest Stuff Happening on the Electric Grid
Energy Changemakers host Elisa Wood joins Jennifer Zajac on Clean Energy Shorts to talk about the most exciting innovations reshaping the electric grid. - Why Energy Companies Struggle To Tell Their Story
- Jay Hodgkins, freelance energy writer and editor, and Scott Smith, president and chief podcasting officer at Penbury Consulting.
- What It Takes to Curb Data Center Energy Use
- Mike Slevin, business unit manager at Fluke, an international company that tests, measures, and monitors facilities, including data centers and power plants.
- Is Utility Corruption Impeding Energy Innovation?
- Dick Munson, veteran clean-energy advocate and author of Power Corrupts: Cleaning Up America’s Biggest Industry
- How to Speed Microgrid Development for Data Centers
- Jim Mozell, senior director of strategic partnerships at Siemens Energy, and Juan Colina, data center and IT segment leader at Eaton
- What It Really Takes to Make a Customer-Centric Electricity System
- Bruce Nordman, Retired Research Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Less Waste, More Productivity: An Economist’s Take on Our Energy Dilemma
- International energy economist, Skip Laitner
- Is Small Town America Ready for Climate Migration?
- Hillary Brown, author of Revitalize Resettle: How Main Street USA Can Offer New Beginnings for America’s Climate Displaced
- Maximizing the Value of Your Molecule: An Interview with Mark Feasel
- Mark Feasel, founder & principal consultant, VisRete
- Grids Are the Center of Everything
- Ruben Llanes, CEO of the Digital Grid Business at Schneider Electric
- How Can Microgrids Achieve the Holy Grail of Scalability?
- Alok Singhania, Senior Partner at Gridscape
- DERs and the Abundance Agenda: What Comes After Federal Funding Falls Short
- Tim Hade, co-founder of Scale Microgrids
- Microgrids Aren’t What They Used To Be
- Journalists Lisa Cohn and Peter Asmus
- The Battle for the Grid: How the Public Can Regain Control of Electricity
- Sandeep Vaheesan, author of Democracy in Power
- US Political Parties Agree on One Thing: Utility Bills
- Charles Hua, founder and executive director of PowerLines
- How to Make Distributed Solar Projects Pencil without the Federal Tax Credit
- Gareth Evans, CEO of VECKTA
- Solar on Wheels – How a Family-Run Startup is Transforming Driveways into Clean Power Stations
- Antonia Ginsberg-Klemmt, CEO, electrical engineer Achim Ginsberg-Klemmt and operations specialist Erika Ginsberg-Klemmt.
- Distributed Energy Is Misunderstood and Underrepresented. What Do We Do About It?
- Erika Ginsberg-Klemmt, vice president of operations, Gizmo Power
- Bill Prindle, principal, Better Energy Advisors
- Lorenzo Kristov, grid architect
- Cameron Brooks, policy advisor, E9 Insights
- What it Took to Build one of the US’ Largest Community Choice Aggregations
- Cody Hooven, principal and co-founder of Evolution Affairs
- How Should the Power Industry Think about the DeepSeek Announcement?
- Rich Miller, former editor and founder of Data Center Knowledge and Data Center Frontier
- What Utilities and DER Companies Don’t Get about Each Other Part 2
- Bill Prindle, principal of Better Energy Advisors
- Equal Pay for Equal Work: Treating Energy Efficiency Fairly in Wholesale Capacity Markets
- Paula Glover, president of the Alliance to Save Energy
2024
- Incorporating Non-Energy Benefits in Energy Planning: A Path Forward
- Roger Lin, Senior Attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity
- Why this Energy Changemaker is Trying to Bring Community Choice Energy to Arizona
- Russell Lowes from Arizonans for Community Choice
- Off Grid and Urban: An Apartment Building that Signals the Future
- Steve Pullins, CEO of ResSET
- Making the Crush of Utility Data Usable: Awesense
- CEO and Founder Mischa Steiner
- What Utilities and DER Companies Don’t Get about Each Other – Part 1
- Bill Prindle, principal of Better Energy Advisors
- An Entrepreneur’s Journey from Russia and Oil to the US and Clean Energy: Lumin
- Alex Bazhinov, Lumin
- A Campaign to Create a Distributed Energy Utility in Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Missy Stults, Ann Arbor’s Sustainability and Innovations Director
- The Economics of Community Solar: How Profits are Made and Consumer Energy Costs Lowered
- Rob Hong of Sapling Financial Consultants
- Are We Expecting Too Much from Virtual Power Plants?
- Lorenzo Kristov, Kay Aikin, and Mark Paterson
- What’s Next for Community Solar?
- Nate Owen, CEO of Ampion
Have an idea for a good Energy Changemakers podcast? Contact elisawood@energychangemakers.com
