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Modernizing grid strategy across New England with Damir Novosel and Chris Root · Factor This

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy to get excited about new technology that can and is helping to transform utility operations, especially as those tools keep getting smarter.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the reality: when it comes to execution, technology is often the least important part of the equation.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Real efficiency is driven by people and processes.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Unlocking the true value of any innovation requires an independent vendor agnostic strategy that spans technical, business, and regulatory domains.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly why Dash Power Partners was created.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Joining us today to outline the significance of this perspective is Dr.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Demir Novassel, who's the CEO and co-founder of Dash, as well as a true pioneer in Power Grid reliability and efficiency.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Demir previously founded Quanta Technology and has held executive roles at Kemo Labs as well as at ABB.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: At Dash, he's teamed up with leaders like Chris Root, who brings more than 45 years of executive experience across the utility sector.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Demir and Chris are bringing that expertise to D Tech Northeast in Boston this November, where they're leading a workshop on Monday, November 2nd, that you don't want to miss.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: To help unpack all of those connections, we're also joined by Wayne Bishop, Executive Vice President at Clarion Events North America.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wayne oversees the entire energy portfolio of Clarion, which includes DTech Northeast, as well as the flagship annual DTech event.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he shares a long history with both Chris and Demir.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, gentlemen, really great to have all of you here.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: But Wayne, let's kick things off with you.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: You've had a front row seat to what Demir and Chris have built and cultivated over the years.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Before we bring them in to connect that past experience with their vision for the future, give our audience a sense of who these folks are and what you've seen them accomplish in the space.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks very much, Jeremiah.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Really thrilled to be here with two industry colleagues, Demir Novassell and Chris Root.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: We've worked together on so many projects over the last 30 years, from DTEC to IEEE PES to conferences around the world.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I always appreciate hearing their perspectives on what's happening in the electric power industry, and especially with our event coming up on November 2nd through the 4th, DTEch Northeast in Boston.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, Damir, um, you've seen the industry change a lot.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we often say the changes that have happened in the last 10 years are more than the last 100 years in our industry.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: What changes and challenges have you seen over the energy landscape most recently?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh firstly, uh I want to really thank you for having an opportunity to be part of that uh very important event, uh Distribute Tech Northeast, because I think there are so many exciting things happening in the Northeast, and bringing all these best practices together is going to be really, really important.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad to be part of it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: As you mentioned, there are lots of changes, and you know, we had all this stagnation in load growth for many years, and now we see all these changes happening, and they really require that we plan, operate, and maintain grid differently.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And what it really means, I would like to actually address it from different perspectives.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with a business perspective.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: There is a speed uh needed in building infrastructure, and I know it's not been easy, not invented here, and all the other things, uh not in my backyard and stuff like that.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so uh we have that type of issue, but then we we add supply chain issues that we know it's not just in our industry, but it's across you know the other industries as well.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have managing the risks, business risks, like the data centers.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are they really going to grow that much or the load is going to grow that much?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Are data centers going to maybe uh reduce their load by doing different ways of managing their needs and so on?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a there's a real risk that business risk that utilities face in that regard.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then there is a technical uh issues, system dynamics with inverters, uh need for essential reliability services, because that's that's one of the big issues now, especially with inverters, that we need to have focus on frequency response, inertia, voltage control, uh, black start, and so on.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And how are we addressing this?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, we can probably have technical solutions to address it, but who is going to pay for it?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you want to have those essential reliability services, somebody will need to need to pay for it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we can that the workshop will probably be addressing it in many more details than I can do now at this at this uh talk here.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but now when we talk about investments, then we are getting into the regulatory construct.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because always there is sometimes, I would say, a little bit more focus on markets, and now we need to have that balance between markets and reliability.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So markets need to need markets needs to address reliability needs, as we just discussed.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, I do want to emphasize it's wonderful now the state that we are in.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think we should all be very glad that our industry is growing, and then we have tremendous opportunities to help the industry and the society with uh load uh load growth and rural integration and so on to serve the needs.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a very positive aspect that we sometimes uh don't forget to uh we forget to emphasize.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But then let's talk about affordability, because we're talking about investments and so on.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, firstly, you know, in the Northeast, uh there is lots of investment related to renewable generation and storage and so on.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I do want to emphasize some of the aspects with renewable generation, they're a great source of energy, but how are we really managing this?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we see which are the states that have highest prices in the country.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually California and some of the, I would say, Northeast states and so on.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let's now focus a little bit on California.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was net zero metering has been introduced there a few years ago, uh, and some of the tax credits and so on.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is the result?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Result actually that uh uh poor people actually have to pay for each people putting the PVs and storage and so on.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and those are some of the things that we as society and industry need to need to address.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be my overall perspective related to some of the changes in the industry.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a hot topic for sure these days.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: But as you said, can I can I can I just also add, if you don't mind, absolutely.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: We we talked about renewables, but I didn't touch data centers.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I know there will be maybe not as many data centers, the large data centers in the Northeast, but I would be surprised if you would not have edge data centers, smaller data centers, they will be serving because there is some really important business in the Northeast that will have AI requirements and needs, and will have uh need some latency requirements that are need to be really, really short.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I want to emphasize the aspect now that is a big pushback against data centers.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it talks about uh we talk about they are not creating jobs and they are using resources like space and water and so on.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I would kind of uh look into this from different perspectives.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: They are bringing lots of money, and once you bring money to the economy, you create jobs.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a little bit of lack of uh understanding how we can actually leverage and actually address affordability with data centers being willing to pay for building the grid and so on.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: But then the question comes: should data centers just use their own generation, collocation, or is it more efficient to use connect to the grid and leverage the grid resources?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is by the way better for the ratepayers?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: What do you guys think?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's better for the ratepayers to actually have data centers investing in the grid, and and it it's going to be better for data centers, it will be more cost effective, but it's also better for the ratepayers.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's conferences like this, Demir, that we bring the stakeholders around the table and have this discussion and have this collaboration.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: And as you said earlier, now is such an exciting time to be part of the electric power industry because there's so many things that are happening and so many great things.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, Chris, you've lived in New England your entire life.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, went to uh Northeastern University as a co-op student, uh, and then and then went on to work in the electric power industry for over 45 years.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: What have you seen as a local, as a New Englander?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: What have what are the changes and what are the challenges today that are happening um in New England from a local level?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because after all, D Tech Northeast will be a local event in Boston.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I go back to the days of the protests in front of the Seaburke nuclear power plant to to actually don't build it, right?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: And bankrupting the local company, Public Service New Hampshire, went bankrupt over the constant delays of getting a permit to uh to operate the nuclear plant.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_03: And then I've, you know, in in my long time standing as an executive and and and an observer of the New England uh grid, um, you know, I've seen like five nuclear plants, the first generation of five nuclear plants all uh be decommissioned in every state.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: On top of that, the transmission system has grown tremendously um to new generation sources, but they're all most of those that are left because the last remaining coal plant just turned off a year or so ago.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: And now all we're totally dependent on 60% of New England for uh gas.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: So 60% of the generation comes from gas to New England on four gas pipelines.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: So we don't, so we're really tied to gas, and we just don't have a lot of gas capacity in the wintertime.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: So I remember starting out that nobody worried about the wintertime.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: Everything was about the summertime and air conditioning, and that was always gonna be your peak.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, now that's gonna flip around right now, and people are gonna be worried much more with the heat pumps and um lack of solar because of the sundown coming so early in the evening that we're all going back to worrying about the winter because the gas line gas pipelines have have uh capacity shortages, so some water the plants won't be able to run.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a whole different idea of how to run a power system uh today than it was years and years and years ago, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: And uh in New England we do have pump storage, and uh thank God we do, but that was designed for nuclear plants to in the middle of the night, they felt that the nuclear plants would overgenerate.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: They only had one speed and there wasn't enough load at night, so they built store um uh the pump storage.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: So they pumped that night and they ran it down the day.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: How do we run pump storage today?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: The exact opposite.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: We pump during the day with the solar, we pump it up, and then we run it down at night when all the solar is turned off.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: 80% difference than 190 degree difference from what we originally thought.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: So the grid is very different, it's run very different.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: We now have transformers that regularly feed from distribution, distributed generation up into the transmission system, which we've never had before.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: What does that mean for our infrastructure?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: And the reality of it is I always felt that going one way is the same as going the other way.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: It isn't true.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: So there are issues that we're gonna see longer term about running the system differently than we designed it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: But so I'm really excited about the changes.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's as an engineer, it's awesome.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: All these great, great problems to solve.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm quite excited about it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: So uh, and I'm excited to be at D Tech North Northeast to talk about our regional issues.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Suddenly running in both directions.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: The rate pails are now called customers, and they're they're putting solar on their rooftops, plugging EVs in, increase in load, not only from AI and data centers, but also from electrification and these heat pumps that both of you have mentioned earlier.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: So um, Chris, um one of the things too that uh we're gonna get into in a little while is the workshop that you're helping to lead at DTech Northeast.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: But before we get into that, I want to circle back to a term that we often hear, and I'm gonna put this question over to Demair, and it's integrated resource planning, IRP for short.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Damir, could you share with the audience a little bit what this is all about and what the term means, IRP?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh integrated resource planning is a well-established process for long-term planning.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have overload uh overall load forecast that dictates generation resources portfolio, and we are using production cost modeling to identify how best to optimize where to put the generation, what and again, what's the portfolio generation, and so on.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then we identify the grid needs to serve this generation.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: But what has changed?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, can we just use the same process as before?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: What has changed is that we have renewable generation with so-called effective load carrying capabilities.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, what it means when the sun doesn't shine and uh wind doesn't blow, we don't have that generation available.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that completely changes how we are managing the process, the IRP process itself.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have inverters uh address requiring the to address some of the dynamics we talked about already before.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: So now when we look into transmission reliability metrics, we are talking about uh for many, many years we are doing loss of load expectations.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is one day in 10 years we can afford, you know, not to not to have the the serving the load.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have n minus one, one element can can be out of service and will be still able to serve the load.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: What does it really mean now, these type of metrics, when you have solar and and you have wind and so on?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: It completely changes, and we we really have to change that process from that perspective.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: But then we also talk about how we are doing investments, investments in generation to have you know proper resource adequacy, and investments in the grid.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to now look into this from the perspective of both transmission and distribution in an integrated fashion, because we have now resources behind the mirror.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, not just as the resources used to be just on the transmission side.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have to address that.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: We have the load that is significantly loaded behind the mirror.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So all these things make it uh uh much more important to have the integrated plan.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So uh some of the things that we do in transmission can be solved by addressing issues in distribution.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the issues in distribution can be addressed with solving problems on the transmission.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you you really need to have the optimal investments, an optimal way of managing reliability and resilience is to start focusing on integrated planning.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but again, when we talk about planning, it's resource, and I guess I would say resource-squared, because it's not just the resource, it's the supply, for example, for for natural gas.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Northeast has actually faced those types of challenges more than almost anybody else.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Texas faced that during the URI, and and that that's a really, really still big issue in the in the Northeast.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So resource squared, TND planning and operations, in addition, because we need to connect planning and operations closer, because planning used to be 10 to 15 years.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: How can we plan?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: With data center comes in 24 months, can we plan 10 to 15 years?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: We really have to be much, much faster in planning.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what one of the issues here is really that the regulatory framework is sometimes not designed to address that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have FERCs and states, and actually, once I was told, you shall not say integrated TND planning because then FERC will be upset or states will be upset because they have such a borderline in between.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying, are we serving consumers?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Who are we serving here?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to serve consumers, we need to be more integrated.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know like NERC, NERC is now actually uh working towards making uh the data centers uh uh uh registered entities.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that's going to be a big issue now going in the next next few months, how it's going to be happening.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: But as you can see, load is become registered entity, and and its NURC jurisdiction is, of course, at the transmission level.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But so so how it's all going to be managed is going to be very interesting going forward.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we need to change some of the regulatory constructs to manage it.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, we need processes and tools.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's really not easy for the utilities to manage it.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: There are really no tools, no processes to do it right.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to start stepwise to be able to manage it right.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: And uh speaking of the transmission system, though, um, Chris, you've spent a long time in transmission.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, most recently as the chief operating officer at Velco in Chowja there transmission system.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's the backbone of the grid, right?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's really uh the backbone of our whole system.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think are some of the challenges that our transmission system is facing?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like up on something that Demir said, because he's he's dead on in this.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: Transmission planning has radically changed since I was a transmission planner back in 1983.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we do we used to do studies, one in the summer peak and one in the winter peak, and one in the like uh fall or spring when the low low peaks.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: That you did three studies that covered you for a year.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: Now, as Demir is pointing out, the intermittency of a large, you know, 10% of the renewables in New England makes you almost have to do your load flow studies on an hour-by-hour basis in trying to see what happens when clouds are in certain areas, right?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: And assuming that generation disappears.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a whole different thing.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: Now, that is more what like an operational load flow would be doing, looking at those types of scenarios, but the transmission planners now have to do that and look out in the future.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I would just say two years ago, nobody was planning for you know 1,000 megawatt data centers to be plopped down someplace.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: And if you think about that, and I don't think in New England we're gonna see that size because I don't think we have the excess capacity to serve it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: But if you have several, you know, three 300 megawatt ones get plopped out, they'd be and by the way, each one of them be the biggest load in all of New England, number one.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: Number number two, what happens if all three of them trip off at once?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my God, that's loss of of all that load, and you we have issues with over frequency that we really haven't dealt with in the past.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: And at the same time, you know, those type of big loads can be built in 24 months.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: We it takes us a year to study it.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then the idea of building transmission in New England, which could take seven years, is gonna be a big deal, or we're going to put it underground, which is gonna cost a lot of money.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then the real question is who pays?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: And in the past, like in Virginia, those costs were being passed on to customers, not the data centers.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think that would fly now.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think this, you know, that you're gonna have to allocate it back to those large customers.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: But remember, utilities have an obligation to serve.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: In each one of the six states in New England, by law, you can't say no to them.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: You can tell them how long it will take you and how much it will cost, but you can't say no, right?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: And they can choose not to come there based on your first two answers, those two questions, but you can't say no, we're not gonna do it.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_03: So the regulations have not caught up with the actual what's going on.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: And the market, the market, markets react.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: They don't do a good job in predicting, and they don't do a good job in planning in the future.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: So so we're we've caught ourselves that we're gonna get close to having capacity shortages.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: Then you have a large max.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: And when you look at the um queue for generation at Iceland, it's mostly made up with renewables in storage.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: Storage is great.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: I love story storage.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot you can do with storage kind of fun.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: But once the storage is drained and you're in a deficiency, you cannot charge, you can't, you can't fill it back up.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: You can't do it.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have the capacity to do that and serve the load.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a one shot deal.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's not gonna get you out, get you out of trouble.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: For maybe four hours, and then you're right back into trouble.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, so we have to figure out this whole storage, renewable, and add some generation in here somehow.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a lot of challenges, and it's kind of fun.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it's exciting, but it's changing our whole thinking of time frames.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_03: All the long-term studies get are like it went out the window with data centers.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: So for sure.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: The whole model has changed, for sure.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: And now we're gonna get into um the workshop in just a moment, talking a little bit about that.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna involve Eversource, um, which is our utility post, by the way, for DTech Northeast.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's also gonna involve ISO New England and Exilon.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: But but before we do that, Damir, uh, you touched along a little while ago, uh, resiliency and reliability.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, two words that we often hear use interchangeably, but they mean they have two very different meanings.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, could you talk a little bit about um why grid resiliency continues to be a hot topic in our in our industry?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's a good point, uh, Wayne.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: In the past, we didn't have as much focus on resilience.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And in the last few years, it became a really big issue.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we can explain, I think, why uh this is the case.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, reliability and resilience investments in in both and initiatives can sometimes complement each other.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say system hardening.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you do this, you can help both reliability resilience.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the priorities may be different.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Example, wildfire.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you focus lots of your investments on wildfire, it may actually happen that your reliability goes down.
• 23:44
  unknown: Wow.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So these are the I think big issues now to address in the industry.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it also depends, especially, I think in the Northeast is the issue what is really need to be required investment in resilience.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: So so because sometimes the resilience and reliability can actually work against each other, like on the reclosing.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you have some of the wildfire risks, if you do reclosing, you know, it may create some of the additional risks for the wildfire, so you don't want to do it and so on.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: So to summarize, reliability is a system measure, and we have very well-defined metrics.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Say it is saying if it's focusing really on blue sky days.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, on the resilience is a system characteristic that is addressing gray and black sky days when you have some of the hurricanes and and and weather-related issues like snowstorms and so on, but it's also addressing the complete recovery process.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the the issue is now or or has been in the past, we talked about high impact low probability events, but now low probability events are becoming higher or high probability events, like hurricanes and so on.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk more about some of the other aspects.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why, with the regulatory construct and investments, understanding that you need to have metrics now that are addressing these types of issues are very important.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: But those metrics are very regional, they are very often functional, regulatory, and depend on the business drivers.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you really cannot have very simple industry metrics, but it doesn't prevent us from having metrics and make sure that we are improving how we are addressing resiliency in the grid.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to emphasize one to me very important aspect that is that understanding very often people say resilience is natural phenomena, like you know, hurricanes, snowstorms, and so on, wildfire and stuff like that.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: But we also man-made uh issues are here, cybersecurity, uh, physical attacks.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have also, I think I want to put emphasis on this one, is the system design, aging infrastructure, and human error.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what leads very often to equipment tripping and also power system blackouts.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we were discussing actually not that long ago how uh risk of power system blackouts has increased with some of the things that we just discussed, you know, in on on this on this uh uh on this call.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what what's happening now is that we need to be very proactive with addressing some of those risks related to blackouts.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to make some of the investments in technologies, in grid infrastructure like Statcom, battery storage systems.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: We need to invest more in the in the sensors in the grid, into the synchronized measurements, uh AMI, uh drones, robots, and so on, implement some of the wider monitoring protection and control uh technologies and so on.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I do want to emphasize like in the Northeast, there's been lots of activities related to drones.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So using drones and then using AI on top of it to make sure that we address some of these aging infrastructure issues, but also addressing weather-related issues and doing a uh faster response or recover from some of these uh weather-related events.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great segue into the next question, Dameir.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks very much regarding AI.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's so much discussion these days about AI.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: We know that it's having a huge impact on the grid from a load perspective, from a data center perspective, but utilities are also using AI in a lot of ways, and that will be covered during the Distributech Northeast in Boston, but also, I'm sure, covered as part of the utility workshop on November 2nd.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: And Chris, you're helping to lead that workshop.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh really going to be great.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: We have ISO New England speaking at the workshop, Eversource, which is our utility host, they will be speaking along with Exelon and and other companies, and including Dash, of course, will be there.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm really excited about hearing the presentations on AI from from Ani and from others.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what excites you most about this workshop, Chris, and from a from a local perspective and some of the topics that are gonna be covered?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, thanks for that, Wayne.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm really excited to be going to a conference that allows to have interaction of all the participants in this workshop.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: This isn't just a a group of people on the stage that we will have panelists that are gonna have a presentation and they'll all we're gonna have those four people that you mentioned who will actually talk about what's going on in theirs.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: Then we're going to break up into four different uh smaller groups with all the people in the workshop are gonna choose which one of the four um places to go to to talk about everything from deep dives on core operational issues that's unique to New England, talk about regulatory alignment because everyone knows there isn't one regulator in the United States that's 51, right?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: So there's federal and then there's all 50 states, and they all have different ideas, right?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: So, so how do we talk about that with the policies that goes on?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: Then we look at commercial and financing and risk sharing models, which important to the utilities.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's really, really important.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: How do, you know, we're all struggling with don't raise your cost.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the one option is to let your risk go up.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: Well, how do you manage your risk?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's important if you don't spend any more money.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: You're gonna take more risk.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: Guess what?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: Things don't stop aging just because you don't spend money on it, right?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: They still getting old.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: And and trees keep growing, unfortunately.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: So you have to figure out how to manage your risk.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: You do the fortunately, Chris.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: I like trees.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: But they never do.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: But all right, and then we're gonna also talk a little bit about emergent technology.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: And this is what you were getting with AI.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things that's happened over the last 15 years is that utilities gather more data, they're monitoring more pieces of equipment than ever before.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: We have PMUs that are measuring things at very fast um um sampling rates.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: We have relays that have great information inside them.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: And at this, you know, all even we have smart meters.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: And New England has a lot of smart meters in most of the states.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: So not all of them, but those smart meters generate huge amounts of data.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_03: So we're swimming in data.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: How can we analyze that data?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's where AI is going to be used to help us make better decisions, help the operators, you know, in identifying issues and um be able to deal with this massive data.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you've got 15-minute interval data for millions of customers.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_03: That is a lot of data.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: But that data, if you can get into that and really look at that and analyze that data using AI, you're gonna find stuff that you had no idea existed.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: And on top of that, the distributed nature of generation, you don't know what's going on in distributions.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: You don't know what somebody, you know, Wade's culture stack is doing, right?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: On the voltage there, or what's going on with the solar when it's sunshine and a cloud comes over.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: You have no idea.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: No utility knows that, but it's in the meter.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: And if you can gather and look at that data and say, hey, this this neighborhood's got a problem.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: You better start looking at it.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's amazing.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: It opens up things that we could only imagine years ago.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: At the end of all those breakout sessions, everybody comes together and you get to hear what everyone said.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: So thick power.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: So though this large number of people are all gonna have inputs, and then it's going to be reflected back to you.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: We couldn't do a conference to do something like that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: How do you do that?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: So you're gonna get all these inputs and ideas that are gonna be shared amongst all the people that go there.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: And to me, that's the power of the workshop.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Agreed.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I know we're running up on time here.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we've talked a lot about the the present and even made a connection with the past.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, if we talk about the future, if you guys peered into your crystal balls, you know, what is the future of the utility space look like?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, what's what's coming together in the next few years and beyond?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe Demir will start with you.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: So so firstly, uh utilities.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um when we talk about AI, I need to I need to mention some of the topics on the AI.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, AI will be used to address AI uh data center integration.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be using, or we are using actually.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say we will be, because we're already doing it, because we are making it much more efficient now.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and and Chris mentioned something that's very important.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: We have all this data, so we have sensors, but we need to automate the data.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: But then the key aspect of this is knowledge.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Knowledge will be the key to leverage AI in the right way.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because we'll have the data, we'll automate, and then we'll have on top of this AI to analyze this data and so on.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: But how will AI analyze the data without hallucinations will be about the knowledge that we provide.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's very important.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why people are so worried about losing jobs and so on.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the case.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, lots of people lost jobs now with uh with some of the programmers and so on.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: We know that.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's really, really bad, and how it happened and so on.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: But we we have the history that when machines uh were invented, uh people were destroying machines because they would take their jobs.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when you think what happened after, actually, much more jobs were created because of the machines.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you you don't dig the hole with the spade now, but you have the machine that digs the hole.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: But think about who builds that machine, who operates the machine.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there are probably more jobs created now by doing that.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just just using a very simple example.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: When when with computer technology coming up, you know, we were all thinking computers will make our life easier.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have Excel spreadsheet now, we don't have to actually do the manual calculation using the calculators and so on.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: We are actually busier than ever because we are now much more efficient, so we actually have more work, and so many more things have been happening, and many jobs have been created, and so on.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, of course, there is a dip, but then it will go a growth, especially in our, I want to emphasize Jeremiah, in our space.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Engineers will be, and not just engineers, but control system operators, linemen.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: They are going to be extremely uh needed for the years to come.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And where will innovation come from?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do we think that we feed the uh Claude and feed you know Chat GPT, and now we know everything.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: But human race innovates.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And who is going to do it?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think AI will be innovating in that space.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the but I'm going to connect Jeremiah also with the power system.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, who we will need to see the growth of the use of uh electrical uh electricity, because electricity is the key source of energy for the future.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see any other source.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe in the future, I don't know, 10, 20 years, 30 years from now, there will be something be coming up.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have a crystal ball.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: But for sure, electricity will be the key.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because we what's what's happening now?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: What sources of energy we are you?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Every other source of energy is uh transferred into electrical, like solar, uh, like natural gas, wind, and so on.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's going to continue uh doing this.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, these sources of energy are not necessarily always close to where the customer is.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, wind blows in the Midwest, and you cannot really put nuclear plants in, let's say, in Boston and all, you know, so energy mix is the key.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: There will be changes, but the path is clear.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: We had again in the 19th century the grid was completely distributed, and then became connected because it became more efficient, more reliable, and prices went down.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: So now we have possibilities to be more distributed, and that's wonderful.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: But there will be always the balance between distributed grid and the overall transmission grid that will be supporting the industry and the society.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it speaks to there's there's nuances.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: We can talk about the the grid as in that in that very high level, but there are specifics and and needs different solutions for a given challenge.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what works in one region or what works for one utility isn't going to make sense elsewhere.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: But being able to get specific with that, that's why we have events like D Tech Northeast to get together, talk about what works, and allow folks to take that back.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Chris, what about what about you?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: What's uh what what what are you looking forward to?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm looking forward to solving you know the generation picture in the future.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I also am looking forward to all, there's gonna be a new whole set of problems that we are just coming to grips with from an engineering perspective.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: If you think about it, 50 years ago, there was no such thing as really, I mean, we had analog electronics, now we have everything's digital.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_03: Think about it, everything is digital.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: Computers, televisions, motors have uh variable speed drives on them, so they look electronic.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: Everything's electronic.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_03: And now we generate with electronics.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: We have we have you know inverters that are electronic.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_03: They're not putting out beautifully nice sine waves anymore, okay?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: I wish they would, but they don't.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: So you have all kinds of noisy, I call noisy voltage waveforms and current waveforms.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: And those can interact with each other.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: And we tried to do a very good job of modeling control systems and all that, but to be honest, we're we we are not doing a great job of this.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's going to create some issues.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_03: But there's a whole new area of study that's going to have to be done that's gonna have to measure with PMUs in other types of devices of what is going on, because there will be interactions between all of these devices, the loads as well as the generation.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it gets worse when you put a huge amount of computers all in one box, all in one place.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, just think about all the harmonics and all the stuff that gets generated from all those computers in one building, okay?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm not sure if I had a sensitive load, I wouldn't be right next to them.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_03: But but those are all issues that uh the new problems.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: And at the same time, how can we build new transmission and new facilities faster?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: We need to get innovative on how to do that.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not sure we know all the answers, but there's a number of different things that are gonna emerge about how we get more in Tamir's 100% right, the most efficient transportation of energy.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we're doing.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: We're transporting energy from what source to another place to be used.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: The most efficient way to do that is with electric electricity, okay?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's what it is.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's a transport mechanism.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_03: And it's very efficient and very reliable, okay?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: So we have a lot of redundancy built into it.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's very, very important.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: But we have to make sure that that stays that way.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I think those are going to be our challenges in the future.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it speaks to these challenges not being simple ones to solve, but it also can make it fun ones to solve because there is no there's no silver bullet solution to any of it.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Wayne, go over to you for a final word.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm sure these challenges, uh, Chris and Damir, that you just talked about, will be discussed at DTEC Northeast on November 2nd through the 4th.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: Very much looking forward to it, as mentioned.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, there's so many challenges these days in the electric power industry.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about the data center, load growth, electrification.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about affordability, the uh pressing need to have a more resilient and reliable grid, um, not to mention the extreme weather we have uh coming and the weeds uh testing that reliability and uh grid hardening.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, as we uh talk on this call, we're expecting a Nor'easter coming up in New England uh this weekend.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: So uh lots, lots happening.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: But very much looking forward to having these discussions, and that's why Clarion Events has these types of events, and this one is a very unique one, Deep Tech Northeast, to bring all the stakeholders around the table to have that open collaboration and discussion because it's only if we work together that we can solve these very complex and challenging issues for our great industry.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: Jeremiah, I want to thank you uh for having us and and thank Chris and Jamaic as well for joining this conversation.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: See you November 2nd through 4th.