WEBVTT
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Resiliency isn't a new concept for electric utilities.
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It's long been a foundational pillar of the grid.
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But while the default playbook for resiliency efforts has historically been about everything from hardened poles to upgraded substations to underground and cables, that approach is no longer enough on its own.
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True resilience is evolving in a way that's changing conversations and decisions that have previously all been about infrastructure and hardware into ones that incorporate operations and software.
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And that very topic is something that Charles Murray has been talking about in a big way of late.
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As a CEO and co-founder of Switch Source, Charles is helping utilities navigate the critical crossroads we're at as an industry, which is all about meeting rising energy demand while utilizing systems that have been built for different eras.
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Today he's joining us to explore why modern grid resilience requires an operational shift and how past infrastructure choices need to inform decisions in the present.
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So, Charles, thanks for taking the time to connect.
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Yeah, thanks for having me.
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So, you know, I will get into that concept of how resiliency is evolving.
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But, you know, first, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about Twitch Source?
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You know, at a high level, what does it mean for you to improve the last mile of electricity distribution?
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Yeah, so I am an electrical engineer by training.
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I'm a professional engineer, uh, studied electrical engineering uh with bachelor's and a master's degree.
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Um, and I kind of came out of school at around the time that folks were starting to lean a little bit more heavily on power electronics.
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Um, so power electronics were incorporated into you know wind generation.
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And then, you know, after several years, solar started getting adopted.
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And again, we're we're leaning on um, you know, solar more and more today.
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Uh, what I saw was an opportunity for new tools to be created for the utility toolkit.
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You know, we see a lot of utilities leaning on traditional poles and wires, you know, looking at undergrounding as forms of resilience, also looking at ways that they can incorporate more and more reclosers, motor operated switches, uh, and then also kind of shrink the footprint of those and move those out towards the grid edge.
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And we see a lot of that as important.
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And we think that you know, that incremental progress for those different types of equipment is important.
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But if we are going to meet the challenges for the next 10 to 20 years and meet them cost effectively and improve the reliability and resilience of the grid, we're gonna have to think about things a little bit differently and incorporate some new tools into that traditional utility toolkit.
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And so for those new tools that that you're creating or that you saw as as the opportunity to better serve the market, was that about creating an additional an additional way to solve an established challenge or I mean a really a new approach to a given challenge?
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You know, what did it mean to create and and enable some of those new tools?
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Yeah, I think we you know a big part of this stemmed from work that I was doing in energy storage development.
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And so I was working for a large-scale renewable energy developer.
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I was working on energy storage development.
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Um, there were some you know, ISO-level markets and PJM that were really catering to energy storage and the strengths that energy storage has in terms of fast charge and discharge.
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And we played in those markets, and then what we found after that was energy storage potentially had a role to play, helping distribution and transmission utilities as an asset to do some amount of peak shaving.
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A lot of the projects that we were targeting were around upgrade deferrals.
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And so this is just dealing with, you know, those hottest four hours of the day, you know, maybe 10 or 20 days of the year.
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You know, how can we get more throughput of the grid and maintain reliability of the grid through those peaks?
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Um, and what I found was, you know, there's certainly a value prop to be had there, uh, but the utilities were kind of struggling with a few things.
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One was regulatory frameworks for allowing uh utilities to own energy storage.
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Um, the energy storage at that time was still pretty pricey.
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Uh, there were concerns over the technology, both from a reliability perspective as well as from a safety perspective of some of the fires that happened in the early days of energy storage.
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And what I found when I looked at this was like, you know, there's there's actually a lot of capacity in the grid that we're just not using.
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And the power electronics that are the front end for a lot of these energy storage systems could just be used on their own in conjunction with um, you know, a little bit of bending to the different topologies so that we could like tap that underutilized capacity, get the same benefits, but actually shed the energy storage aspect of energy storage and just hang on to the power electronics.
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So that was the foundation for this this whole company was we are going to create tools specific to distribution utilities and how they operate the grid to enable them to bring out more capacity out of their existing buyers.
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Well, I and it goes into that that concept of how resiliency is evolving and how storage is evolving, what it what it meant to utilize those tools a few years ago is different to today.
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You know, that concept of how these these all of these things are evolving was really the baseline of the piece that you recently wrote for Power Magazine, why operations matter as much as infrastructure.
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And the piece was just really striking to me in terms of the perspective that you outlined when it comes to how efforts about making the grid stronger and more resilient is it it's necessary, but those established efforts, the way we've thought about it isn't isn't always enough.
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You know, can you can you talk a little bit about how you've seen the industry's baseline definition of what resiliency means evolve and change, even back to the to the founding of switch source to where it is today and where it's going?
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Yeah, I would say we we have seen a you know utilities embrace a lot of the legacy tools that you know were always at their fingertips, you know, things about you know hardening poles um undergrounding wherever possible.
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Um you we've seen utilities embracing more and more you know system-wide software packages, derns, ADMS that can enable better flizzer operation, um so you know, better system restoration, and and also point them to where they they need to do mitigation first to have the biggest impacts on their system.
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Um so I think a lot of the sort of software pieces are there, and then a lot of the traditional hardware pieces, there's kind of this question and tension here of you know, from a cost-benefit analysis, you know, are we trying to um you know, coming back to that fable about like either the oak tree or the reed, you know, do you want something that's flexible or do you want to build you know something that's incredibly, incredibly strong?
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And there's a balancing act there.
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And something that you know also plays into this is affordability of the grid.
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You know, what we I think we're seeing more recently in the last 18 months, 24 months is that undergrounding everything is is really, really expensive.
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Some utilities are going to be able to push forward with it.
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Again, a lot of this is uh dependent on soil conditions and you know processes internal to different utilities.
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But there's still more value to be had by adding tools to the toolkit, make the grid more flexible, make it easier to reconfigure the grid, uh, in addition to some of those investments in hardened infrastructure.
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Well, that that affordability piece is just so important because whenever people ask me, uh what's what's happening in the space, what are people talking about?
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Affordability is is front and center.
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Like that has been, I think when you mentioned what eight the past 18 months.
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I I know I wrote a piece about it in in mid-2025, and it's just it's just so critical.
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And like that's why some of those uh infrastructure investments, like they're they're they're costly.
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And when ratepayers or when some of the more mainstream media grabs those those billions of dollars of investment, like that's what makes the headlines, and it's just sometimes it gets lost of like the the value that that's creating because it's that that short-term cost that that that does make an impact on on how affordability is is being positioned and the reality of it as well.
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I think that's right.
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And I still think that there's some misunderstanding of where cost centers are on the grid.
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Um, you know, it feels like a lot of folks have have been thinking about AI and the impact that it's having on generation and transmission and saying, okay, you know, these are absolutely the cost centers for us.
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And if you look at you know, specific energy markets, you know, where you know there's a capacity demand issue, um, you know, absolutely.
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You know, we're seeing you know big demand is resulting in prices going up.
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Um, you know, I think the the other side of the coin there is if you look at the actual infrastructure, the delivery mechanism, distribution is always where the you know the majority of capital goes.
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It ends up going down to distribution.
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And you can kind of cut it any way you want.
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Distribution ends up owning a lot of that.
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And it just has to do with you know the amount of wire and what it takes to deliver power to customers.
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And so the the sort of framework that's been used for saying, you know, is a utility doing right by different investments.
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It feels like we're starting to have folks come out of the woodwork, either from you know, regulatory, you know, federal, state level, that are trying to take stronger positions on this.
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But it's also important to understand that there are some differences between transmission and generation and distribution in terms of how effectively we can use them, what tools are going to have the greatest impact, and where those cost centers are.
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And I think that's something that it feels like there's a little bit of jumping to conclusions about, you know, this is the best way to either measure utilization and things like that that align with reliability and are important because there's a balancing act here between um, you know, we don't want to always run the car in the red and have fantastic utilization and have like the lowest cost um at the cost of reliability.
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And so that's where you know we have to come back to the experts at the utilities to help us navigate um, you know, where the the sort of like middle ground is uh for those investments and the reliability that their customers expect.
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Well, and it goes back to just the the concept of of an all of the above approach.
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It's not about one or the other, but what it means to utilize those.
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I mean, undergrounding everything is not the solution, but undergrounding some things.
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You know, can you talk a little bit about the the limitation of relying on those those physical grid hardening efforts, though, and and focusing on investments that that are just on one side versus the other versus versus taking a more holistic consideration of, as you said, what does it mean to to bring more capacity out of what we what we have?
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And that that's not just a a physical uh hardware infrastructure question.
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Yes.
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So I think again, this is certainly a balancing act between these different options that the utilities have.
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And I think we've we've seen that um, as I mentioned, the regulators are trying to become you know more involved, support utilities in terms of embracing newer technologies, you know, maybe giving them a nudge here or there.
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I think one of the places where we've seen a lot of action over the last 24 months has been, you know, in VPPs.
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That's something that's been very popular, you know, kind of enabling customers at the grid edge to support the grid, and then also maybe you know incentivizing them so that they can have an asset that can improve their own reliability.
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We've seen some companies that are are really um you know making headway there.
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There's ways that those assets are playing in wholesale markets in certain parts of the country where that's that's a regulatory possibility that makes a lot of sense.
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And then there's some places where we see it as you know being described as a little bit of a silver bullet.
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It's like there's a lot of different complex issues in the actual distribution delivery system that you know aren't necessarily being taken into account with a specific single-phase asset sitting at a residential level.
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And it's a question of you know, is there a way for us to optimize for all of these different issues that we have?
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You know, for both generation constraints, delivery constraints, you know, grid edge reliability.
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Those are a lot of things to try to optimize for in a single given asset.
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And so I think that's again where it's like absolutely we do need an all of the above approach.
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Um, we don't want to get lost in this analysis paralysis.
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And so are there are there tools that can help speed up the delivery of you know reliability, um, meaning, you know, things that are faster than the traditional assets of you know, reconductoring or undergrounding, which again provide great benefits on the back end, but are costly and take lots and lots of time.
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And you know, we are at a point right now where we don't have great visibility into what load's gonna look like over the next three, five, 10 years.
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Like it is changing faster than it has ever changed before.
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And this is one of the big questions the utilities too.
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It's like they don't want to gold plate the system, they also want to be able to service the load and they have to do it reliably.
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So, yes, lots of constraints, and it's gonna require using every tool in the toolkit.
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Well, and these, but these these new tools really are are creating opportunities and capabilities that didn't exist before.
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I mean, you're talking about predictive AI models and dynamic sensor networks that are shifting utility storm prep from reactive damage mitigation to proactive operational positioning.
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You know, can you talk a little bit about how these tools are enabling different approaches, which I imagine can also unlock different efficiencies?
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Yeah, and I think this is something that we're we're always interested to see that you know, even the thought leaders that you know, we feel like are so far ahead of the game on the utility side, are still trying to add additional sensors and gain additional insights about what's going on in their grid.
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So I would say even those folks that you know have fully deployed AMI, that have fully deployed Flizzr, that have data that's being pulled off of this that can give them operational insights so that they can restore the grid as quickly as possible, they are still investing heavily in additional sensors.
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And I think what we're we're gonna find and what we're seeing with you know some earlier stage companies and also some mature companies is that you know there's a lot of value in terms of being able to digest that data and then provide insights from it.
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And I think about this kind of like that AI concept is you know, one of the ways that I like to think about AI and get comfortable with it is like it's this really great human-machine interface.
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There's a ton of information out there that is difficult for me to sift through.
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And AI is this great platform to be able to kind of coalesce that into something that's easier for me to digest.
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And I think that what we're seeing is there are some software solutions out there that are especially looking at kind of the sort of asset management optimization space, the distribution planning space.
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And they're saying, hey, you know what, the traditional way of doing things here with software platforms that can incorporate data from the field and update their models is different than something that can do this on a more real-time basis and it can incorporate some of the horsepower of AI.
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And I think that's something that we're going to continue to see evolve significantly over the next three to five years.
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The issue is, you know, at the end of the day, what is in the toolkit that we have to deploy to respond to those insights?
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And so that's where we feel it's like we need to broaden that.
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We need to make those new tools so that utilities can, you know, have more flexible operations and a traditional electromechanical device, you know, might not be um the end all be all uh for the types of problems that we're gonna see on the grid.
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And what does it mean to you to create and enable these tools in a way that that doesn't lead to a paralysis by analysis?
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I mean, you know, there's there's how much data that you can have, we just touched on on the better sensors that are that are out there, but I think it can be a challenge where sometimes sometimes a given uh engineer or given team can get caught up in all the different things that they could be doing or having all of this data to sift through and like what does it mean to take all of that data and impact a given decision or a given process?
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And like that's that's difficult to talk about in the abstract, but at the same time, being able to to underline and underscore like how is a given given tool creating value, and maybe it's about better asking better questions at the at the start of that process.
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Yeah, you know, there's there's important questions to be asked.
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I think this this also comes back to, you know, I think about this in the lens of you know distribution planners who are looking at what they think is going to happen over the grid in the next five to seven years, and they're trying to pick from a suite of 40-year assets that they're gonna deploy to try to resolve those, you know, near-ish-term constraints that they have.
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Um, and the way that, you know, you know, I kind of justify this is like if they pick from that toolkit um operationally, you know, it's it's something that is a sledgehammer and you know, they're fairly comfortable with how it's going to operate.
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When you talk about leveraging energy storage, when you talk about leveraging devices like ours for power flow control, where you're optimizing where power goes on the grid, um there's a little bit more of operational hands-on, you have to tell these devices what to do in some cases.
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And what you don't want that to end up being is a friction, right?
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Because we what we want is we want operation of the grid to be as fluid as possible.
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We like automation, you know, where it can increase um, you know, our reliability numbers.
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Um, and so I think that is something that you again, we started as a company that was focused on a particular product that we thought you know could have a very large impact to the grid, it's our tie controller product.
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And the whole idea was you know you you put this box out there and you're able to balance load between distribution circuits.
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And we did studies with organizations like EPRI, and we you know, we're able to prove out on paper like, hey, these are the the great benefits that the device can bring.
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When we were doing those, you know, we got a sense of like what it means to do distribution planning at a utility where you're placing a box here and you are planning for all sorts of different conditions.
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You know, you're doing studies as though all the distributed generation is off, as though it's on max, you're looking at different contingency situations.
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Some utilities, you know, some of them are able to do 8760s where they're looking at hourly or even 15-minute interval data and trying to see how the device would perform throughout the year.
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That is a big lift to just understand how this device would operate, you know, on sort of a typical year, not in all of the different types of contingency scenarios.
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And then to keep in mind that an average size investor-owned utility has a thousand distribution circuits.
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So it's it's kind of difficult to wrap your head around like, how are we going to do this?
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That is what kind of led us to our second tool in the toolkit, which which is our phase EQ.
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And what we found there is like as we talk to utilities, there are places on the grid where you can bolt on devices and they can just increase the performance of the grid in an automated way without having that utility interaction.
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And I think that there's still you know more tools than what we've developed now, but like that is a great way for us to just deploy something, set it and forget it, and see those benefits.
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And and I would say for for other hardware companies to have success, they should you know be thinking about that too.
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It's like it has to be a little bit of automation and passive benefit if you're if you're really going to get integration into the utility operations.
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Well, and that automation piece just just strikes me as something that that's so important because so often when it when it's about a new tool or new system or new process, it's about changing how a team operates or somebody having to do X uh X process in a different way.
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And like that's that's challenging just on a human level, just getting people to do something different.
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So, but something that that's automated that that just kind of opens up an opportunity for somebody to open up time on their on their schedule, that they'll then have uh be able to focus on different different tasks.
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Like that that just strikes me as a a different conversation that you can have with the the workforce then.
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And it's not about about taking a task or a job away, but enabling efficiency in a way that they can then they can then do something else with that time and that effort.
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100%.
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And we talk about that a lot in the in the aspects of system restoration.
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So, you know, just to to dig in a little bit, we've got this phase EQ product, it balances loading between the three phases of a distribution circuit.
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So if you look up at that wood power pole, you tend to see three phases across the top of it.
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We use three phase for you know big bulk power, think like big box stores, anything with spinning machines, but we actually tap one of those phases and we run it to a group of homes.
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And the reason that utilities have this system is so that we're not gold plating the electric grid by running three phase everywhere.
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It would just be too darn expensive.
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So the systems exist where it's a three-phase backbone and a bunch of these you know single phase taps.
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When you're going through a system restoration event and utilities are trying to restore power and these taps are laying on the ground, the linemen don't want to have to think about all right, how many homes exactly are connected to this line and which phase should I be connecting it to as I'm trying to restore system power.
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And what we find with a lot of utilities is even from a safety perspective, the utility linemen don't love you know reaching across multiple phases to retap a lateral.
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And so there's there's an operational benefit to this.
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It's like, okay, we can we can support that very fast system restoration and you can maintain reliability of that circuit even when you're just trying to get things back online as quickly as possible.
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The device can continue to optimize that circuit even in a non-optimal condition, and it can report back the information so that if you do want to go back and do some manual retapping, we can tell you where that needs to be done.
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So that's something where it's like an immediate fix.
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And how can we make that easier?
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And then how can we offer those operational insights so that the utility can go back and kind of you know reestablish baseline normal when they're not constrained with a storm and storm restoration?
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I love it because those are that there's there's short-term and long-term benefits with that kind of approach, with that kind of rollout, which just makes sense on on so many levels.
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But you know, connected to that is the is the biggest challenge with with using these these new tools or or enabling those sort of efficiencies, is it about a kind of this is the way we've always done it mentality or culture, or is it simply a lack of awareness of what's possible with some of these new new pieces of software and hardware and how they can actually create these efficiencies and what those look like and the sort of stuff studies that you just referenced with organizations like EPRI, or or is it something else?
00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:59.599
Yeah, I would I would say I think when we walk in the door to a new utility and we offer these these tools, I think sometimes at the utility they underestimate how prevalent this.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:06.559
You know, we we like to think of it as an opportunity, how prevalent imbalance is in the system and how prevalent congestion is in the system.
00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:24.000
And we we like to do these system surveys early on when we're talking to utilities where we say, hey, just go through and use your existing metrics for what a healthy circuit is, and let's look at how many are, you know, in the green, the yellow, and the red, in terms of like, you know, how many are within five percent of violating, how many are in violation.
00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:35.440
And what we we tend to find is like somewhere between, you know, call it 20 to 50 percent of distribution circuits are you know violating or outside the design criteria from what a healthy circuit is.
00:22:35.599 --> 00:22:37.920
And and that doesn't mean that utilities are doing a bad job.
00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:42.720
They're operating within the constraints of how much capital they can get to to kind of fix these circuits.
00:22:42.799 --> 00:22:44.160
And this is where it comes back to us.
00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:46.319
It's just like they just need new tools.
00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:55.920
And so that is something that I think we we find as an important conversation that like we're not showing up and telling the utility that their baby is ugly, that they've done a bad job for a long time.
00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:57.839
It's just it's just like you just haven't had this tool.
00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:00.160
Like, just just you know, a blank sheet of paper.
00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:03.920
You don't have a tool that can optimize for the loading across the phases.
00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:26.960
And and here it is, and let's go look at you know where we can have a big impact for you and you know, speed up the time to enabling uh more load to come on the grid, or speed up the time so that you can really embrace Flizzard and not be concerned that you're going to pull in a bunch of load, it's gonna imbalance your circuit and you're gonna dump everybody because you have a you know a high neutral current.
00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:34.240
Like these are are real things that we see utilities that are are constrained in terms of their operations and how quickly they can move into some of these programs.
00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:37.680
Um, yeah, just because they have a missing tool in the toolkit.
00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:43.759
Well, and it's it's it's systems and and approaches that can enable resilience in this whole new way.
00:23:43.839 --> 00:23:49.039
And it's it's something I've been been talking with folks about, just how resiliency is a concept that has evolved.
00:23:49.119 --> 00:23:56.240
I mean, five, ten years ago, if there was a big storm and power was out for a few days, people were generally okay with that.
00:23:56.480 --> 00:23:57.440
I mean, it's a big storm.
00:23:57.519 --> 00:23:58.960
That's uh that's what happens like today.
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:00.319
That's just not the reality today.
00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:05.759
Like power goes out and it's the next hour that needs to be up, otherwise that that's not okay.
00:24:05.839 --> 00:24:12.240
So, and I think utilities understand that and have have seen that this, that this, these expectations are are changing.
00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:14.160
But you know, what what are you looking out for?
00:24:14.319 --> 00:24:16.720
What are you seeing with those with those sort of shifts?
00:24:16.960 --> 00:24:25.680
And what's next in terms of how utilities need to be be thinking about about resilience and what they can do to to better and differently enable it.
00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:31.279
Yeah, I would say I think it it it is something where utilities are doing you know a great job out of the gate.
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:40.240
I think that we see a lot of utilities that are kind of chipping away at this program, or they're they're offering up programmatic ways that they're going to invest in reliability.
00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:42.240
And and you know, that is important.
00:24:42.559 --> 00:25:13.440
Um, I think you know, some of the things I mentioned about you know planning tools and asset management tools that can help optimize the grid and you know help make utilities um help them make better choices in terms of where to invest those dollars, whether it be like regionally where they see hot spots in terms of reliability issues, um, or whether it just comes down to you know cost centers in the grid and you know, where is it a good idea to invest in reconductoring circuit and where can I you know use a tool to just optimize where load is on that circuit and you know save a couple million bucks?
00:25:13.599 --> 00:25:21.440
And I think that's the the sort of question that you know we would like to see utilities um you know ask themselves.
00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:26.000
We'd also like to see regulators give utilities more space to embrace new tools.
00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:35.599
And that's something that I think we um you know we see that there's a lot of regulators that are interested in you know best possible outcomes for their customers, high reliability, low costs.
00:25:35.759 --> 00:25:40.880
We see a lot of utilities that are work trying their best to work within you know their existing capital constraints.
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:44.960
And yet there's not a lot of space for utilities to embrace new tools.
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:47.440
A lot of utilities do not have an RD budget.
00:25:47.519 --> 00:25:55.519
They don't have you know a specific innovation line where they can go out and do something and have it be on sort of a curve to adoption.
00:25:55.759 --> 00:25:58.640
We have seen some great programs out there from specific states.
00:25:58.720 --> 00:26:01.119
Um just name drop a few, you know, New York.
00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:04.799
We love New York and Nicerta as an organization has supported a lot of development.
00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:25.839
Um, Connecticut has this Connecticut IES program that's really a great on-ramp for new technology for a lot of different states as a sort of carrot for the utilities to you know adopt and and sort of bring up these new technologies and actually incorporate them into their grid.
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:27.440
Nice.
00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:37.519
And you know, I was gonna ask you about you know, kind of kind of pull your crystal ball out and looking looking three to five years out where the where some of the bigger changes or next leap in in resilience comes from.
00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:46.319
But maybe it's with those sort of the programs you just mentioned at different states being embraced by other states or in in a in a bigger way.
00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:48.480
I think that that's gonna be part of it.
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:53.039
I think we're we're gonna see you know utilities um looking for space to innovate.
00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:58.240
And I think that the regulators are going to um you know, hopefully give them a little bit more space to do that.
00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:08.480
I think the the other side of this is you know, I do expect that there's going to be some grid utilization metrics that are going to evolve over the next call it 12 to 24 months.
00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:18.720
And and that is you know, in large part thanks to what has happened with you know, you know, data centers pushing around transmission upgrades and fear of costs filtering down.
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:25.519
But we think um, you know, that the states are going to embrace that and you know develop those for the distribution system as well.
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:48.400
So I'd say that's the area where I think we we look to see the the biggest change is the frameworks for um utilities in terms of um utilization, uh hopefully developing some metrics there that you know are similar in in terms of like concreteness to what we've seen with reliability for Sadie, safety, KD type benefits, uh type metrics.
00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:49.200
Excellent.
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:50.880
Something to look out for for sure.
00:27:50.960 --> 00:27:54.640
Um so you know, I'm big on action items and and takeaways.
00:27:54.720 --> 00:28:05.119
So if there's one thing that you want a utility executive or engineer to take away from this conversation in a way that impacts their next prep meeting or maybe their next investment cycle, what would that be?
00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:20.880
Yeah, I think it would come back to you know understanding sort of near, mid, and longer term, you know, where do you have certainty and what tools, you know, do you think that you can use um in conjunction with where you have certainty to make the biggest impact?
00:28:21.119 --> 00:28:38.960
And you know, that's where you know these 40-year assets can be a really great tool and a great way to enhance reliability in places where you have high levels of certainty and embracing technologies that you know can help over the sort of like 20 to 30 year period, which still sounds long uh but is short in in utility speak.
00:28:39.039 --> 00:28:51.519
Um, this is a great tool, especially if they're redispatchable and quick to deploy for those hotspot areas where you might see quick load growth where things are changing quite a bit, but you need to maintain affordability of the system and reliability of the system.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:29:00.720
Yeah, that that affordability and reliability baseline, again, that's that's always been there, but it's just prominent in a way that is striking uh across the board.
00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:03.599
Um well, Charles, last uh last question for you.
00:29:03.680 --> 00:29:09.519
I'll wrap up with one that I love to ask industry leaders, which is to, you know, we're talking power, so tell me something powerful.
00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:19.839
Is there a piece of advice that anchors you or a or a perspective from the broad that the broader sector is missing or an insight from entirely outside the energy space that you want to leave us with?
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:27.599
Yeah, I think for for today, I think you know, there's there's a speed to power question right now, and there's a flexibility question uh right now.
00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:34.000
And and I would probably go to, you know, it is important for us to be able to uh service this this load in a speedy way.
00:29:34.079 --> 00:29:44.079
And I would also say, you know, come back to sort of ASAP fable of the the large oak and the reed, um, there's some questions to be to be answered there too about how we're making investments.
00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:45.359
So that's what I believe.
00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:46.559
Excellent.
00:29:46.640 --> 00:29:50.000
Well, Charles Murray, uh, you obviously have articles.
00:29:50.079 --> 00:29:54.480
Uh I referenced one with Power Magazine, but I know you're you're pretty active on on LinkedIn as well.
00:29:54.559 --> 00:29:56.559
So people can can check that out.
00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:01.200
But looking forward to to seeing what else you guys have in store for the rest of the year and beyond.
00:30:01.279 --> 00:30:02.799
So thanks again for taking the time.
00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:03.680
Yeah, appreciate it.
00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:04.480
Thanks, Jeremiah.
00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:05.039
Take care.
00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:10.480
As always, thank you for listening to the Factor This podcast.
00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:14.559
Please do like and subscribe wherever you find your favorite podcast.
00:30:14.799 --> 00:30:15.920
Let us know how we're doing.
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:17.759
You can find me on LinkedIn.
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:21.599
I'm Jeremiah Kerpelwit, and always looking forward to hearing your feedback.
00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:27.359
Tell us what we can do better with the show, or if you have an idea for an episode, please get in touch.
00:30:27.519 --> 00:30:28.559
Stay in touch.
00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:08.640
Resiliency isn't a new concept for electric utilities.
00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:11.199
It's long been a foundational pillar of the grid.
00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:21.839
But while the default playbook for resiliency efforts has historically been about everything from hardened poles to upgraded substations to underground and cables, that approach is no longer enough on its own.
00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:32.240
True resilience is evolving in a way that's changing conversations and decisions that have previously all been about infrastructure and hardware into ones that incorporate operations and software.
00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:36.960
And that very topic is something that Charles Murray has been talking about in a big way of late.
00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:49.359
As a CEO and co-founder of Switch Source, Charles is helping utilities navigate the critical crossroads we're at as an industry, which is all about meeting rising energy demand while utilizing systems that have been built for different eras.
00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:58.320
Today he's joining us to explore why modern grid resilience requires an operational shift and how past infrastructure choices need to inform decisions in the present.
00:00:58.479 --> 00:01:00.799
So, Charles, thanks for taking the time to connect.
00:01:01.119 --> 00:01:02.719
Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:08.239
So, you know, I will get into that concept of how resiliency is evolving.
00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:11.599
But, you know, first, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about Twitch Source?
00:01:11.680 --> 00:01:16.799
You know, at a high level, what does it mean for you to improve the last mile of electricity distribution?
00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:20.000
Yeah, so I am an electrical engineer by training.
00:01:20.079 --> 00:01:25.200
I'm a professional engineer, uh, studied electrical engineering uh with bachelor's and a master's degree.
00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:32.319
Um, and I kind of came out of school at around the time that folks were starting to lean a little bit more heavily on power electronics.
00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:35.760
Um, so power electronics were incorporated into you know wind generation.
00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:39.040
And then, you know, after several years, solar started getting adopted.
00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:42.560
And again, we're we're leaning on um, you know, solar more and more today.
00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:48.000
Uh, what I saw was an opportunity for new tools to be created for the utility toolkit.
00:01:48.079 --> 00:02:03.200
You know, we see a lot of utilities leaning on traditional poles and wires, you know, looking at undergrounding as forms of resilience, also looking at ways that they can incorporate more and more reclosers, motor operated switches, uh, and then also kind of shrink the footprint of those and move those out towards the grid edge.
00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:05.280
And we see a lot of that as important.
00:02:05.359 --> 00:02:09.840
And we think that you know, that incremental progress for those different types of equipment is important.
00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:22.719
But if we are going to meet the challenges for the next 10 to 20 years and meet them cost effectively and improve the reliability and resilience of the grid, we're gonna have to think about things a little bit differently and incorporate some new tools into that traditional utility toolkit.
00:02:23.199 --> 00:02:37.919
And so for those new tools that that you're creating or that you saw as as the opportunity to better serve the market, was that about creating an additional an additional way to solve an established challenge or I mean a really a new approach to a given challenge?
00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:43.680
You know, what did it mean to create and and enable some of those new tools?
00:02:44.159 --> 00:02:49.680
Yeah, I think we you know a big part of this stemmed from work that I was doing in energy storage development.
00:02:49.759 --> 00:02:52.479
And so I was working for a large-scale renewable energy developer.
00:02:52.560 --> 00:02:54.400
I was working on energy storage development.
00:02:54.479 --> 00:03:03.840
Um, there were some you know, ISO-level markets and PJM that were really catering to energy storage and the strengths that energy storage has in terms of fast charge and discharge.
00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:15.599
And we played in those markets, and then what we found after that was energy storage potentially had a role to play, helping distribution and transmission utilities as an asset to do some amount of peak shaving.
00:03:15.759 --> 00:03:19.360
A lot of the projects that we were targeting were around upgrade deferrals.
00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:25.759
And so this is just dealing with, you know, those hottest four hours of the day, you know, maybe 10 or 20 days of the year.
00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:30.879
You know, how can we get more throughput of the grid and maintain reliability of the grid through those peaks?
00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:39.120
Um, and what I found was, you know, there's certainly a value prop to be had there, uh, but the utilities were kind of struggling with a few things.
00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:44.080
One was regulatory frameworks for allowing uh utilities to own energy storage.
00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:46.960
Um, the energy storage at that time was still pretty pricey.
00:03:47.039 --> 00:03:54.319
Uh, there were concerns over the technology, both from a reliability perspective as well as from a safety perspective of some of the fires that happened in the early days of energy storage.
00:03:54.560 --> 00:04:02.000
And what I found when I looked at this was like, you know, there's there's actually a lot of capacity in the grid that we're just not using.
00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:24.079
And the power electronics that are the front end for a lot of these energy storage systems could just be used on their own in conjunction with um, you know, a little bit of bending to the different topologies so that we could like tap that underutilized capacity, get the same benefits, but actually shed the energy storage aspect of energy storage and just hang on to the power electronics.
00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:36.639
So that was the foundation for this this whole company was we are going to create tools specific to distribution utilities and how they operate the grid to enable them to bring out more capacity out of their existing buyers.
00:04:37.279 --> 00:04:48.480
Well, I and it goes into that that concept of how resiliency is evolving and how storage is evolving, what it what it meant to utilize those tools a few years ago is different to today.
00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:59.759
You know, that concept of how these these all of these things are evolving was really the baseline of the piece that you recently wrote for Power Magazine, why operations matter as much as infrastructure.
00:04:59.920 --> 00:05:15.199
And the piece was just really striking to me in terms of the perspective that you outlined when it comes to how efforts about making the grid stronger and more resilient is it it's necessary, but those established efforts, the way we've thought about it isn't isn't always enough.
00:05:15.360 --> 00:05:27.839
You know, can you can you talk a little bit about how you've seen the industry's baseline definition of what resiliency means evolve and change, even back to the to the founding of switch source to where it is today and where it's going?
00:05:28.399 --> 00:05:40.160
Yeah, I would say we we have seen a you know utilities embrace a lot of the legacy tools that you know were always at their fingertips, you know, things about you know hardening poles um undergrounding wherever possible.
00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:56.879
Um you we've seen utilities embracing more and more you know system-wide software packages, derns, ADMS that can enable better flizzer operation, um so you know, better system restoration, and and also point them to where they they need to do mitigation first to have the biggest impacts on their system.
00:05:57.040 --> 00:06:19.920
Um so I think a lot of the sort of software pieces are there, and then a lot of the traditional hardware pieces, there's kind of this question and tension here of you know, from a cost-benefit analysis, you know, are we trying to um you know, coming back to that fable about like either the oak tree or the reed, you know, do you want something that's flexible or do you want to build you know something that's incredibly, incredibly strong?
00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:22.160
And there's a balancing act there.
00:06:22.319 --> 00:06:26.079
And something that you know also plays into this is affordability of the grid.
00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:32.959
You know, what we I think we're seeing more recently in the last 18 months, 24 months is that undergrounding everything is is really, really expensive.
00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.199
Some utilities are going to be able to push forward with it.
00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:40.800
Again, a lot of this is uh dependent on soil conditions and you know processes internal to different utilities.
00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:52.879
But there's still more value to be had by adding tools to the toolkit, make the grid more flexible, make it easier to reconfigure the grid, uh, in addition to some of those investments in hardened infrastructure.
00:06:53.199 --> 00:07:00.240
Well, that that affordability piece is just so important because whenever people ask me, uh what's what's happening in the space, what are people talking about?
00:07:00.399 --> 00:07:02.720
Affordability is is front and center.
00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:06.639
Like that has been, I think when you mentioned what eight the past 18 months.
00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:13.519
I I know I wrote a piece about it in in mid-2025, and it's just it's just so critical.
00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:19.600
And like that's why some of those uh infrastructure investments, like they're they're they're costly.
00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:42.399
And when ratepayers or when some of the more mainstream media grabs those those billions of dollars of investment, like that's what makes the headlines, and it's just sometimes it gets lost of like the the value that that's creating because it's that that short-term cost that that that does make an impact on on how affordability is is being positioned and the reality of it as well.
00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:43.920
I think that's right.
00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:48.639
And I still think that there's some misunderstanding of where cost centers are on the grid.
00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:58.480
Um, you know, it feels like a lot of folks have have been thinking about AI and the impact that it's having on generation and transmission and saying, okay, you know, these are absolutely the cost centers for us.
00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:05.519
And if you look at you know, specific energy markets, you know, where you know there's a capacity demand issue, um, you know, absolutely.
00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:08.959
You know, we're seeing you know big demand is resulting in prices going up.
00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:20.079
Um, you know, I think the the other side of the coin there is if you look at the actual infrastructure, the delivery mechanism, distribution is always where the you know the majority of capital goes.
00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:21.680
It ends up going down to distribution.
00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:23.600
And you can kind of cut it any way you want.
00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:25.680
Distribution ends up owning a lot of that.
00:08:25.839 --> 00:08:30.399
And it just has to do with you know the amount of wire and what it takes to deliver power to customers.
00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:38.480
And so the the sort of framework that's been used for saying, you know, is a utility doing right by different investments.
00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:46.480
It feels like we're starting to have folks come out of the woodwork, either from you know, regulatory, you know, federal, state level, that are trying to take stronger positions on this.
00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:59.360
But it's also important to understand that there are some differences between transmission and generation and distribution in terms of how effectively we can use them, what tools are going to have the greatest impact, and where those cost centers are.
00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:22.559
And I think that's something that it feels like there's a little bit of jumping to conclusions about, you know, this is the best way to either measure utilization and things like that that align with reliability and are important because there's a balancing act here between um, you know, we don't want to always run the car in the red and have fantastic utilization and have like the lowest cost um at the cost of reliability.
00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:35.679
And so that's where you know we have to come back to the experts at the utilities to help us navigate um, you know, where the the sort of like middle ground is uh for those investments and the reliability that their customers expect.
00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:40.720
Well, and it goes back to just the the concept of of an all of the above approach.
00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:44.480
It's not about one or the other, but what it means to utilize those.
00:09:44.559 --> 00:09:48.240
I mean, undergrounding everything is not the solution, but undergrounding some things.
00:09:48.480 --> 00:10:08.240
You know, can you talk a little bit about the the limitation of relying on those those physical grid hardening efforts, though, and and focusing on investments that that are just on one side versus the other versus versus taking a more holistic consideration of, as you said, what does it mean to to bring more capacity out of what we what we have?
00:10:08.399 --> 00:10:13.840
And that that's not just a a physical uh hardware infrastructure question.
00:10:14.559 --> 00:10:14.879
Yes.
00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:19.759
So I think again, this is certainly a balancing act between these different options that the utilities have.
00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:30.000
And I think we've we've seen that um, as I mentioned, the regulators are trying to become you know more involved, support utilities in terms of embracing newer technologies, you know, maybe giving them a nudge here or there.
00:10:30.159 --> 00:10:35.120
I think one of the places where we've seen a lot of action over the last 24 months has been, you know, in VPPs.
00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:47.519
That's something that's been very popular, you know, kind of enabling customers at the grid edge to support the grid, and then also maybe you know incentivizing them so that they can have an asset that can improve their own reliability.
00:10:47.679 --> 00:10:51.519
We've seen some companies that are are really um you know making headway there.
00:10:52.159 --> 00:11:01.519
There's ways that those assets are playing in wholesale markets in certain parts of the country where that's that's a regulatory possibility that makes a lot of sense.
00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:08.000
And then there's some places where we see it as you know being described as a little bit of a silver bullet.
00:11:08.159 --> 00:11:22.080
It's like there's a lot of different complex issues in the actual distribution delivery system that you know aren't necessarily being taken into account with a specific single-phase asset sitting at a residential level.
00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:28.480
And it's a question of you know, is there a way for us to optimize for all of these different issues that we have?
00:11:28.639 --> 00:11:34.240
You know, for both generation constraints, delivery constraints, you know, grid edge reliability.
00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:37.919
Those are a lot of things to try to optimize for in a single given asset.
00:11:38.159 --> 00:11:42.799
And so I think that's again where it's like absolutely we do need an all of the above approach.
00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:46.159
Um, we don't want to get lost in this analysis paralysis.
00:11:46.480 --> 00:12:04.000
And so are there are there tools that can help speed up the delivery of you know reliability, um, meaning, you know, things that are faster than the traditional assets of you know, reconductoring or undergrounding, which again provide great benefits on the back end, but are costly and take lots and lots of time.
00:12:04.399 --> 00:12:12.000
And you know, we are at a point right now where we don't have great visibility into what load's gonna look like over the next three, five, 10 years.
00:12:12.159 --> 00:12:15.120
Like it is changing faster than it has ever changed before.
00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:17.200
And this is one of the big questions the utilities too.
00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:22.480
It's like they don't want to gold plate the system, they also want to be able to service the load and they have to do it reliably.
00:12:22.559 --> 00:12:28.240
So, yes, lots of constraints, and it's gonna require using every tool in the toolkit.
00:12:28.639 --> 00:12:35.759
Well, and these, but these these new tools really are are creating opportunities and capabilities that didn't exist before.
00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:47.120
I mean, you're talking about predictive AI models and dynamic sensor networks that are shifting utility storm prep from reactive damage mitigation to proactive operational positioning.
00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:55.279
You know, can you talk a little bit about how these tools are enabling different approaches, which I imagine can also unlock different efficiencies?
00:12:55.600 --> 00:13:11.600
Yeah, and I think this is something that we're we're always interested to see that you know, even the thought leaders that you know, we feel like are so far ahead of the game on the utility side, are still trying to add additional sensors and gain additional insights about what's going on in their grid.
00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:26.639
So I would say even those folks that you know have fully deployed AMI, that have fully deployed Flizzr, that have data that's being pulled off of this that can give them operational insights so that they can restore the grid as quickly as possible, they are still investing heavily in additional sensors.
00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:39.120
And I think what we're we're gonna find and what we're seeing with you know some earlier stage companies and also some mature companies is that you know there's a lot of value in terms of being able to digest that data and then provide insights from it.
00:13:39.279 --> 00:13:49.039
And I think about this kind of like that AI concept is you know, one of the ways that I like to think about AI and get comfortable with it is like it's this really great human-machine interface.
00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:52.399
There's a ton of information out there that is difficult for me to sift through.
00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:57.840
And AI is this great platform to be able to kind of coalesce that into something that's easier for me to digest.
00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:08.559
And I think that what we're seeing is there are some software solutions out there that are especially looking at kind of the sort of asset management optimization space, the distribution planning space.
00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:23.200
And they're saying, hey, you know what, the traditional way of doing things here with software platforms that can incorporate data from the field and update their models is different than something that can do this on a more real-time basis and it can incorporate some of the horsepower of AI.
00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:28.320
And I think that's something that we're going to continue to see evolve significantly over the next three to five years.
00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:34.480
The issue is, you know, at the end of the day, what is in the toolkit that we have to deploy to respond to those insights?
00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:37.039
And so that's where we feel it's like we need to broaden that.
00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:50.000
We need to make those new tools so that utilities can, you know, have more flexible operations and a traditional electromechanical device, you know, might not be um the end all be all uh for the types of problems that we're gonna see on the grid.
00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:59.120
And what does it mean to you to create and enable these tools in a way that that doesn't lead to a paralysis by analysis?
00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:23.360
I mean, you know, there's there's how much data that you can have, we just touched on on the better sensors that are that are out there, but I think it can be a challenge where sometimes sometimes a given uh engineer or given team can get caught up in all the different things that they could be doing or having all of this data to sift through and like what does it mean to take all of that data and impact a given decision or a given process?
00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:37.279
And like that's that's difficult to talk about in the abstract, but at the same time, being able to to underline and underscore like how is a given given tool creating value, and maybe it's about better asking better questions at the at the start of that process.
00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:41.039
Yeah, you know, there's there's important questions to be asked.
00:15:41.120 --> 00:16:00.639
I think this this also comes back to, you know, I think about this in the lens of you know distribution planners who are looking at what they think is going to happen over the grid in the next five to seven years, and they're trying to pick from a suite of 40-year assets that they're gonna deploy to try to resolve those, you know, near-ish-term constraints that they have.
00:16:00.799 --> 00:16:13.759
Um, and the way that, you know, you know, I kind of justify this is like if they pick from that toolkit um operationally, you know, it's it's something that is a sledgehammer and you know, they're fairly comfortable with how it's going to operate.
00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:27.519
When you talk about leveraging energy storage, when you talk about leveraging devices like ours for power flow control, where you're optimizing where power goes on the grid, um there's a little bit more of operational hands-on, you have to tell these devices what to do in some cases.
00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:30.639
And what you don't want that to end up being is a friction, right?
00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:34.879
Because we what we want is we want operation of the grid to be as fluid as possible.
00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:40.559
We like automation, you know, where it can increase um, you know, our reliability numbers.
00:16:40.720 --> 00:16:52.559
Um, and so I think that is something that you again, we started as a company that was focused on a particular product that we thought you know could have a very large impact to the grid, it's our tie controller product.
00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:58.480
And the whole idea was you know you you put this box out there and you're able to balance load between distribution circuits.
00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:07.039
And we did studies with organizations like EPRI, and we you know, we're able to prove out on paper like, hey, these are the the great benefits that the device can bring.
00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:16.319
When we were doing those, you know, we got a sense of like what it means to do distribution planning at a utility where you're placing a box here and you are planning for all sorts of different conditions.
00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:23.599
You know, you're doing studies as though all the distributed generation is off, as though it's on max, you're looking at different contingency situations.
00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:32.559
Some utilities, you know, some of them are able to do 8760s where they're looking at hourly or even 15-minute interval data and trying to see how the device would perform throughout the year.
00:17:32.799 --> 00:17:42.319
That is a big lift to just understand how this device would operate, you know, on sort of a typical year, not in all of the different types of contingency scenarios.
00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:48.160
And then to keep in mind that an average size investor-owned utility has a thousand distribution circuits.
00:17:48.480 --> 00:17:52.880
So it's it's kind of difficult to wrap your head around like, how are we going to do this?
00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:59.759
That is what kind of led us to our second tool in the toolkit, which which is our phase EQ.
00:18:00.079 --> 00:18:12.319
And what we found there is like as we talk to utilities, there are places on the grid where you can bolt on devices and they can just increase the performance of the grid in an automated way without having that utility interaction.
00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:21.920
And I think that there's still you know more tools than what we've developed now, but like that is a great way for us to just deploy something, set it and forget it, and see those benefits.
00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:26.640
And and I would say for for other hardware companies to have success, they should you know be thinking about that too.
00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:34.079
It's like it has to be a little bit of automation and passive benefit if you're if you're really going to get integration into the utility operations.
00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:48.799
Well, and that automation piece just just strikes me as something that that's so important because so often when it when it's about a new tool or new system or new process, it's about changing how a team operates or somebody having to do X uh X process in a different way.
00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:53.839
And like that's that's challenging just on a human level, just getting people to do something different.
00:18:54.000 --> 00:19:07.200
So, but something that that's automated that that just kind of opens up an opportunity for somebody to open up time on their on their schedule, that they'll then have uh be able to focus on different different tasks.
00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:13.279
Like that that just strikes me as a a different conversation that you can have with the the workforce then.
00:19:13.359 --> 00:19:22.079
And it's not about about taking a task or a job away, but enabling efficiency in a way that they can then they can then do something else with that time and that effort.
00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:22.720
100%.
00:19:23.039 --> 00:19:26.319
And we talk about that a lot in the in the aspects of system restoration.
00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:33.440
So, you know, just to to dig in a little bit, we've got this phase EQ product, it balances loading between the three phases of a distribution circuit.
00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:37.440
So if you look up at that wood power pole, you tend to see three phases across the top of it.
00:19:37.519 --> 00:19:45.839
We use three phase for you know big bulk power, think like big box stores, anything with spinning machines, but we actually tap one of those phases and we run it to a group of homes.
00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:52.079
And the reason that utilities have this system is so that we're not gold plating the electric grid by running three phase everywhere.
00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:53.839
It would just be too darn expensive.
00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:59.200
So the systems exist where it's a three-phase backbone and a bunch of these you know single phase taps.
00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:15.119
When you're going through a system restoration event and utilities are trying to restore power and these taps are laying on the ground, the linemen don't want to have to think about all right, how many homes exactly are connected to this line and which phase should I be connecting it to as I'm trying to restore system power.
00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:25.200
And what we find with a lot of utilities is even from a safety perspective, the utility linemen don't love you know reaching across multiple phases to retap a lateral.
00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:28.160
And so there's there's an operational benefit to this.
00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:38.880
It's like, okay, we can we can support that very fast system restoration and you can maintain reliability of that circuit even when you're just trying to get things back online as quickly as possible.
00:20:39.279 --> 00:20:52.160
The device can continue to optimize that circuit even in a non-optimal condition, and it can report back the information so that if you do want to go back and do some manual retapping, we can tell you where that needs to be done.
00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:55.440
So that's something where it's like an immediate fix.
00:20:55.519 --> 00:20:57.359
And how can we make that easier?
00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:10.880
And then how can we offer those operational insights so that the utility can go back and kind of you know reestablish baseline normal when they're not constrained with a storm and storm restoration?
00:21:11.440 --> 00:21:20.240
I love it because those are that there's there's short-term and long-term benefits with that kind of approach, with that kind of rollout, which just makes sense on on so many levels.
00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:48.799
But you know, connected to that is the is the biggest challenge with with using these these new tools or or enabling those sort of efficiencies, is it about a kind of this is the way we've always done it mentality or culture, or is it simply a lack of awareness of what's possible with some of these new new pieces of software and hardware and how they can actually create these efficiencies and what those look like and the sort of stuff studies that you just referenced with organizations like EPRI, or or is it something else?
00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:59.599
Yeah, I would I would say I think when we walk in the door to a new utility and we offer these these tools, I think sometimes at the utility they underestimate how prevalent this.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:06.559
You know, we we like to think of it as an opportunity, how prevalent imbalance is in the system and how prevalent congestion is in the system.
00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:24.000
And we we like to do these system surveys early on when we're talking to utilities where we say, hey, just go through and use your existing metrics for what a healthy circuit is, and let's look at how many are, you know, in the green, the yellow, and the red, in terms of like, you know, how many are within five percent of violating, how many are in violation.
00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:35.440
And what we we tend to find is like somewhere between, you know, call it 20 to 50 percent of distribution circuits are you know violating or outside the design criteria from what a healthy circuit is.
00:22:35.599 --> 00:22:37.920
And and that doesn't mean that utilities are doing a bad job.
00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:42.720
They're operating within the constraints of how much capital they can get to to kind of fix these circuits.
00:22:42.799 --> 00:22:44.160
And this is where it comes back to us.
00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:46.319
It's just like they just need new tools.
00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:55.920
And so that is something that I think we we find as an important conversation that like we're not showing up and telling the utility that their baby is ugly, that they've done a bad job for a long time.
00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:57.839
It's just it's just like you just haven't had this tool.
00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:00.160
Like, just just you know, a blank sheet of paper.
00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:03.920
You don't have a tool that can optimize for the loading across the phases.
00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:26.960
And and here it is, and let's go look at you know where we can have a big impact for you and you know, speed up the time to enabling uh more load to come on the grid, or speed up the time so that you can really embrace Flizzard and not be concerned that you're going to pull in a bunch of load, it's gonna imbalance your circuit and you're gonna dump everybody because you have a you know a high neutral current.
00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:34.240
Like these are are real things that we see utilities that are are constrained in terms of their operations and how quickly they can move into some of these programs.
00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:37.680
Um, yeah, just because they have a missing tool in the toolkit.
00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:43.759
Well, and it's it's it's systems and and approaches that can enable resilience in this whole new way.
00:23:43.839 --> 00:23:49.039
And it's it's something I've been been talking with folks about, just how resiliency is a concept that has evolved.
00:23:49.119 --> 00:23:56.240
I mean, five, ten years ago, if there was a big storm and power was out for a few days, people were generally okay with that.
00:23:56.480 --> 00:23:57.440
I mean, it's a big storm.
00:23:57.519 --> 00:23:58.960
That's uh that's what happens like today.
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:00.319
That's just not the reality today.
00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:05.759
Like power goes out and it's the next hour that needs to be up, otherwise that that's not okay.
00:24:05.839 --> 00:24:12.240
So, and I think utilities understand that and have have seen that this, that this, these expectations are are changing.
00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:14.160
But you know, what what are you looking out for?
00:24:14.319 --> 00:24:16.720
What are you seeing with those with those sort of shifts?
00:24:16.960 --> 00:24:25.680
And what's next in terms of how utilities need to be be thinking about about resilience and what they can do to to better and differently enable it.
00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:31.279
Yeah, I would say I think it it it is something where utilities are doing you know a great job out of the gate.
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:40.240
I think that we see a lot of utilities that are kind of chipping away at this program, or they're they're offering up programmatic ways that they're going to invest in reliability.
00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:42.240
And and you know, that is important.
00:24:42.559 --> 00:25:13.440
Um, I think you know, some of the things I mentioned about you know planning tools and asset management tools that can help optimize the grid and you know help make utilities um help them make better choices in terms of where to invest those dollars, whether it be like regionally where they see hot spots in terms of reliability issues, um, or whether it just comes down to you know cost centers in the grid and you know, where is it a good idea to invest in reconductoring circuit and where can I you know use a tool to just optimize where load is on that circuit and you know save a couple million bucks?
00:25:13.599 --> 00:25:21.440
And I think that's the the sort of question that you know we would like to see utilities um you know ask themselves.
00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:26.000
We'd also like to see regulators give utilities more space to embrace new tools.
00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:35.599
And that's something that I think we um you know we see that there's a lot of regulators that are interested in you know best possible outcomes for their customers, high reliability, low costs.
00:25:35.759 --> 00:25:40.880
We see a lot of utilities that are work trying their best to work within you know their existing capital constraints.
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:44.960
And yet there's not a lot of space for utilities to embrace new tools.
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:47.440
A lot of utilities do not have an RD budget.
00:25:47.519 --> 00:25:55.519
They don't have you know a specific innovation line where they can go out and do something and have it be on sort of a curve to adoption.
00:25:55.759 --> 00:25:58.640
We have seen some great programs out there from specific states.
00:25:58.720 --> 00:26:01.119
Um just name drop a few, you know, New York.
00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:04.799
We love New York and Nicerta as an organization has supported a lot of development.
00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:25.839
Um, Connecticut has this Connecticut IES program that's really a great on-ramp for new technology for a lot of different states as a sort of carrot for the utilities to you know adopt and and sort of bring up these new technologies and actually incorporate them into their grid.
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:27.440
Nice.
00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:37.519
And you know, I was gonna ask you about you know, kind of kind of pull your crystal ball out and looking looking three to five years out where the where some of the bigger changes or next leap in in resilience comes from.
00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:46.319
But maybe it's with those sort of the programs you just mentioned at different states being embraced by other states or in in a in a bigger way.
00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:48.480
I think that that's gonna be part of it.
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:53.039
I think we're we're gonna see you know utilities um looking for space to innovate.
00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:58.240
And I think that the regulators are going to um you know, hopefully give them a little bit more space to do that.
00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:08.480
I think the the other side of this is you know, I do expect that there's going to be some grid utilization metrics that are going to evolve over the next call it 12 to 24 months.
00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:18.720
And and that is you know, in large part thanks to what has happened with you know, you know, data centers pushing around transmission upgrades and fear of costs filtering down.
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:25.519
But we think um, you know, that the states are going to embrace that and you know develop those for the distribution system as well.
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:48.400
So I'd say that's the area where I think we we look to see the the biggest change is the frameworks for um utilities in terms of um utilization, uh hopefully developing some metrics there that you know are similar in in terms of like concreteness to what we've seen with reliability for Sadie, safety, KD type benefits, uh type metrics.
00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:49.200
Excellent.
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:50.880
Something to look out for for sure.
00:27:50.960 --> 00:27:54.640
Um so you know, I'm big on action items and and takeaways.
00:27:54.720 --> 00:28:05.119
So if there's one thing that you want a utility executive or engineer to take away from this conversation in a way that impacts their next prep meeting or maybe their next investment cycle, what would that be?
00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:20.880
Yeah, I think it would come back to you know understanding sort of near, mid, and longer term, you know, where do you have certainty and what tools, you know, do you think that you can use um in conjunction with where you have certainty to make the biggest impact?
00:28:21.119 --> 00:28:38.960
And you know, that's where you know these 40-year assets can be a really great tool and a great way to enhance reliability in places where you have high levels of certainty and embracing technologies that you know can help over the sort of like 20 to 30 year period, which still sounds long uh but is short in in utility speak.
00:28:39.039 --> 00:28:51.519
Um, this is a great tool, especially if they're redispatchable and quick to deploy for those hotspot areas where you might see quick load growth where things are changing quite a bit, but you need to maintain affordability of the system and reliability of the system.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:29:00.720
Yeah, that that affordability and reliability baseline, again, that's that's always been there, but it's just prominent in a way that is striking uh across the board.
00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:03.599
Um well, Charles, last uh last question for you.
00:29:03.680 --> 00:29:09.519
I'll wrap up with one that I love to ask industry leaders, which is to, you know, we're talking power, so tell me something powerful.
00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:19.839
Is there a piece of advice that anchors you or a or a perspective from the broad that the broader sector is missing or an insight from entirely outside the energy space that you want to leave us with?
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:27.599
Yeah, I think for for today, I think you know, there's there's a speed to power question right now, and there's a flexibility question uh right now.
00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:34.000
And and I would probably go to, you know, it is important for us to be able to uh service this this load in a speedy way.
00:29:34.079 --> 00:29:44.079
And I would also say, you know, come back to sort of ASAP fable of the the large oak and the reed, um, there's some questions to be to be answered there too about how we're making investments.
00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:45.359
So that's what I believe.
00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:46.559
Excellent.
00:29:46.640 --> 00:29:50.000
Well, Charles Murray, uh, you obviously have articles.
00:29:50.079 --> 00:29:54.480
Uh I referenced one with Power Magazine, but I know you're you're pretty active on on LinkedIn as well.
00:29:54.559 --> 00:29:56.559
So people can can check that out.
00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:01.200
But looking forward to to seeing what else you guys have in store for the rest of the year and beyond.
00:30:01.279 --> 00:30:02.799
So thanks again for taking the time.
00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:03.680
Yeah, appreciate it.
00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:04.480
Thanks, Jeremiah.
00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:05.039
Take care.
00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:10.480
As always, thank you for listening to the Factor This podcast.
00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:14.559
Please do like and subscribe wherever you find your favorite podcast.
00:30:14.799 --> 00:30:15.920
Let us know how we're doing.
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:17.759
You can find me on LinkedIn.
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:21.599
I'm Jeremiah Kerpelwit, and always looking forward to hearing your feedback.
00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:27.359
Tell us what we can do better with the show, or if you have an idea for an episode, please get in touch.
00:30:27.519 --> 00:30:28.559
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