Latest / Not Another Energy Podcast / ETS26 Hack The Planet: We Came, We Saw, We Learned
Transcript
- Bethany Ruhe: Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to your new favorite show, Not Another Energy Podcast. I'm Bethany. Teresa Ringenbach: and I am Teresa and together we are Bloom Advisory Partners. Bethany Ruhe: We sure are, and we just got back from Energy Thought Summit 26 Hack the Planet down in San Antonio, Texas. It was the first event that Bloom has ever sponsored. It was a very exciting event, and we're here to break it down, talk about some of our favorite moments, some of the themes we've heard, some of the people we met, and we're gonna start off with, I'll just throw it right to you, Teresa. was your first time at the San Antonio ETS. ⁓ What did you think of it? Because we've been to other energy thought summits before. So did you think of the St. Antonio version of it? Teresa Ringenbach: ⁓ I loved it. was so. Energy Thought Summit is always my favorite event because it's not your typical, hey, let's just talk about distribution wires, right? It tries to think holistically about the entire energy eco space and there's startups there. And you guys have never worked with CPS or SMUD, ⁓ are the most forward thinking utilities. ⁓ would ⁓ put them in the category of the world. They don't gatekeep. They are a platform that you can bring an idea to and they're willing to be that central entity between where the power connects and the community and shout out to San Antonio I had never been there I love that city it is Bethany Ruhe: It's a vibe, isn't it? Teresa Ringenbach: We were there the day, well I arrived late so I was there the day after Fiesta ended, but the same day that the Spurs won. And let me just tell you, San Antonio, you love your car horns in a parade at midnight. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah, I we were walking back. All of a sudden, like this huge parade, but everybody was very happy and it was joyous. you know, we don't have an NBA team here in Pittsburgh, but man, San Antonio loves their Spurs and that was a sight to behold and congratulations to them. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes, it was amazing. Just like you said, the vibe, the entire city just felt so and everybody together. And you just walk down the street and everybody's smiling and it was, I will be back, San Antonio. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah, yeah, agree. I agree. mean, I've been to pretty much every iteration of ETS. ⁓ I've been to the Austin one. did one in Chicago once. do have a little bit of a, know, San Antonio might be my favorite out of all of them, even though I think they're all amazing. I also love the venue that they're at there, which is the Boeing ⁓ Tech Center. ⁓ Something of that. might not be exactly right, but it's essentially a giant former airplane hangar that they turned into a concert slash event space. And Teresa, you know, when you're on a panel on that stage and your head is behind, they have this giant like 80 foot screen that just hangs on the main stage that they put you on when you're on your panel and it's it's something isn't it to see yourself on that screen. Teresa Ringenbach: It is, it is. ⁓ If I didn't think I was tall enough, it make me 40 feet tall. Bethany Ruhe: When I was moderating my panels, I just don't look behind you. Just look ahead. Just look at the audience. Don't be distracted by your 80-foot self up there. let's jump into some of them meet because as you mentioned, one of the really unique things about ETS is the way that they approach the topic of energy, right? They don't look at it from any one way. They look at it from every way. ⁓ year's theme was Hack the Planet. which is ⁓ is a term that we all know and use in various ways. ⁓ to me, what it meant in this application ⁓ bringing together all these energy experts from all over, various parts of the industry, ⁓ really talking about, you've heard of like, you hear like life hacks, right? ⁓ what are some like energy hacks or policy hacks or transmission hacks ⁓ we could do to help improve the grid, help improve climate change? There so many amazing people. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes. Bethany Ruhe: there. So many amazing panels and breakouts. were some of your standouts? Teresa, I know you did get there late but you still got a solid two days. So ⁓ stuck out to you? Teresa Ringenbach: I did, I did. So first I would say there were probably three. consistent themes between all of the panels. One was obviously affordability. The next was forecasting. Utilities, even beyond data centers, are struggling to forecast. And then how AI is impacting the utility space. And what I found most interesting here was it wasn't just about, ⁓ data centers are showing up and we need more power. It was actually conversations around how do you use AI in for casting. How do you use AI for better customer experiences? How do you use AI in conjunction with your commercial businesses and your residential businesses to help them use power in a way that balances back to the grid? There was a guy, I'm going to shout him out because I thought he was so interesting. His name is Andres Carvallo. He wrote a book called The Advanced Smart Grid. I haven't read it yet. It is on my Amazon list. Actually, we should invite him on here because he was so amazing. But he made a really good point, which was you guys have to think about the fact that AI right now a world where what you ⁓ careful what you put in because you can never get it back. You might think that your contract is the tightest thing on earth, but it's not. Once you put it into chat GPGPT, sorry, ⁓ GPT. ⁓ Bethany Ruhe: That's okay. Well, energy, we had a lot of acronyms thrown at us over the past week. The energy industry loves an acronym. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes, yes, Gronk, right, all of that. He was basically like, it doesn't matter. don't care what your contract says. At the end of the day, ⁓ you put into them becomes theirs. ⁓ in some ways that could be good, but in other ways you are the utility and you're responsible for reliability, resiliency, ⁓ safety of the grid. So be careful what you do. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah, I would agree with you on those high level takeaways. I would also add a word that I heard a lot, and I think a lot of ⁓ this was the theme underlying some of the presentations and panels, is alignment. So moving things more into alignment in terms of like policy and capital. would also say, and I would kind of put this under the alignment umbrella too, is more. successful Because I think that the types organizations that utilities are now able to partner with has grown so exponentially, even over the past like 10 years, right? ⁓ So yourself with the right partners, it's going to help you do what you need to do for your specific issues in your part of the world and your part of the grid. ⁓ So was a lot of talk about the importance of making sure that that alignment is there. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes, I would take that a step further. met the wonderful Carlos. He's from Mentora, M-E-N-T-O-R-A, if anybody wants to look into it. He also spoke on the last day. Bethany Ruhe: That's right, you guys did an amazing fireside chat together. Oh, okay, yeah, I had to leave. I had to fly home early, but okay, good. So what did he say? Teresa Ringenbach: He is very much about drilling down into not only your workforce but into your customer base and speaking to them in the way that they can relate to you. So on the last day he was with CPS and they were talking about how they, a lot of people nowadays need help paying their energy bills because things are so expensive. And CPS does these community fairs because to Carlos's point, a lot of people are embarrassed to ask for help. But if you can connect them in the right way, in the language that they speak with people who can relate to them, that embarrassment goes away and they can get the help that they need. And I just thought it was interesting that it became less about just call our call center and we'll put you on HEAP and more about let's find the thing that works best for you. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah. Teresa Ringenbach: I like how Carlos's brain works in that way of, I'm not going to tell you who to hire or what to hire or why to hire. I'm going to tell you how to interact better and grow your business better based on who you've hired. Bethany Ruhe: And that's really smart too. I love that kind of bottom up approach. I think in a lot of organizations training their customer service teams is a top down. So it's coming from their comms departments or whatever. might not have even talked to customers to get their input on how they would like to be talked to and how they would best be served by their customer service agents. So ⁓ think that's really smart. And Carlos was great. ⁓ again, ⁓ back to your fireside chat for one moment, if I may, Teresa, with fabulous Carlos, you told a story. So now let's talk about like incumbent thinking. ⁓ Teresa Ringenbach: Yes. Bethany Ruhe: said he rethought how to train customer service. You told a fantastic story that I had never heard before and I want our listeners to hear it. I want you to tell right now the kitten story please. ⁓ Teresa Ringenbach: Okay, so just a little background for everybody. ETS, again, such a great conference, brought a neuroscientist to present he... really did a good job of connecting how the human brain is always going to be more advanced than AI. And he even broke it down to the number of megawatts a human brain consumes versus AI. It was a very interesting speech. Yes, and I cannot remember his name off the top of my head here. I should have written it down. Maybe we'll post it. Yes. Bethany Ruhe: It really, I saw that one, he was great. I'll put it in the show notes. I'll put it, don't worry. Teresa Ringenbach: So there was a reason I brought up my favorite neuroscientist story. I wasn't just crazy on a stage. ⁓ Bethany Ruhe: Hahaha Teresa Ringenbach: So my favorite story, and I actually got this off of a podcast who had a neuroscientist on it, and then she told this story and I've since looked into it. So there's an experiment that they did with kittens. And basically the kittens from birth through the first few months of their life ⁓ were in a room with only black and white horizontal stripes. And... Because of that, when they took these kittens and put them into the real world, because the kittens had only ever known black and white horizontal stripes, they didn't know what to do when they were in a world that was vertical. They didn't know how to jump on a table. They didn't know how to go over a wall. And so basically they had to be retrained for this entirely new world that they were in. And my point was, I feel like that's where we are in the utility space, is there are a lot of utilities out there who they've only ever known black and white stripes and they don't know what to do and how to leap because they've never had to encounter something vertical before. Bethany Ruhe: Well then, and the story though, taught the kittens how to jump, right? They worked with them. Now it's a lot easier to do with kittens than it is to do with utility executives, I'm assuming. Maybe. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes. I don't know. You know, the last day, ⁓ CPS and SMUD were actually talking about how they did realize that their load is going vertical and how quickly they can ⁓ adapt to it. And I thought it was really interesting to, and I I realize I'm a CPS and SMUD fan because they are so open to a new way of doing things. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah. Teresa Ringenbach: But they were already thinking of that before it even became a problem. What is the different way to approach this? Because it's a different thing heading our way. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah, no, I agree. And it's perfectly fine to stand on them. They were both at the event. They both had a big presence there. Also shout out to their CEO, Rudy Garza, who won the Energy Thought Leader of the Year award, where they did a fabulous little Back to the Future opening to award it to him. I thought that was one of the really delightful parts of the program as well. there's a reason that Rudy won that, which is because CPS is just doing these amazing... ⁓ I hate to say outside the box, you don't see that of a lot of other utilities. So I think that they deserve the love, Teresa. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes. Yes. Do you know what I loved most about that? he didn't know he was getting the award. So he didn't write his speech ahead of time. And it's critical that I say that before I say the next thing. He thanked his entire team all the way down to customer service level. He talked about how innovative they are. And then he thanked his community. He didn't say, look at my company, I'm so great. He thanked everybody that works with him as a team. And then he thanked his community. And I thought, what an amazing leader of Bethany Ruhe: He didn't. Yes, he did. Teresa Ringenbach: utility. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah, I agree. And you're right, he was absolutely not prepared. As you said on stage, his PR team told him that he was going to a media interview at the event center that we were. So I think they just told him like minutes before that he was being awarded this. And you're right. I think that just speaks to his leadership, who he is as a person. And I think it's also a big reason why CPS is doing what they're doing, because he truly believes that in his heart of hearts. And that's how they operate. And CPS is a great utility because of that. Teresa Ringenbach: Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about AEG and what CPS is doing with electric buses? Bethany Ruhe: Yes, absolutely, let's do it. So yeah, we went to a dinner with AEG, which is Advanced Energy Group. Okay, and I'll link them in the show notes too. And I'll be honest, I had no idea what we were walking into at this dinner, Theresa, but it was actually really fun and interesting. We got broken up into groups and we had to solve for a challenge and it was fun and it was interactive and we met a whole bunch of amazing, fun people. But you wanna talk about something specific that they're doing, so go for it. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes. Yes, so here for those who also were just going in blind like we were, AEG's whole purpose is they bring together public and private experts in certain areas. they encourage them to essentially volunteer their time to solve a solution. And this case, ⁓ they already done a significant amount of work ⁓ on electrifying the trucking space, including school buses. They were working with CPS and the city of San Antonio. They'd done a lot of the background work, but now they were like, how do we get the community on board? What are our next steps? that what did I learn? ⁓ One, is extremely competitive and doesn't like it when people don't tell her she won. ⁓ Did win, Bethany? Did you win? ⁓ Bethany Ruhe: I was gonna say, could we mention who won the challenge? Whose idea won? Yeah, I did, I did, I did. My table won, and listen, going back to your love of Smud, I had a Smud guy at my table and he was incredibly helpful, so, cause they were doing some work in this as well, so I had some assistance. It wasn't just me, it was a team win. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes. So first up, for those who, like me, did not know, there is a federal law that says in 2029, all of the school buses in the United States have to have seat belts. and that the majority of school buses actually cannot be retrofitted with seat belts. Meaning a lot of school districts are now looking at how do we solve this and that leads to them with if we already have to buy new buses we get electric buses because there are huge amounts of grants out there ⁓ I had a couple gentlemen at my table who actually work with school districts in Texas ⁓ they pointed out that this could actually actually be a revenue source and then CPS was there and they actually talked about the fact that they are open to this interconnection in a way that if it helps their grid they can pay the districts back. So it was this lovely hey we get at school districts don't have money they have a problem to solve how can we get them the money and then how can we keep it reinforcing more revenue to the district to ease any stress on the taxpayer. Bethany Ruhe: It's not just we're gonna put this mandate down. It's we're gonna put this mandate down, but work with you to make sure that we're solving this together in a way that works for you, your organization, your stakeholders. I would also like to point out we also found out how much an electric school bus costs. I'll pause for guesses, listeners, listeners, and then I'll tell you it's $400,000, which I was shocked. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes, yes. Now to be fair, one guy threw that out. I have not done any research if that was an accurate number. Yes, I choked on my dinner a little bit, but yes, it was a jarring number. Bethany Ruhe: ⁓ yeah, allegedly, allegedly $400,000. Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, and you know, shout out again to AEG for putting that together. had never been to anything like that ⁓ a conference. I found it incredibly informative. We met some really great people. Thank you, HG, for having us and ⁓ definitely participate in another one in the future. ⁓ the way that they operated it, it was a really great way. ⁓ to approach problem solving, I thought, is very unique in a conference. I'd never gotten to do that. And I do like winning. So it was a great night. So I want to go back a moment. So I moderated a panel ⁓ Tuesday about policy hacks for interconnection and transmission. Teresa Ringenbach: Yeah. Bethany Ruhe: And so I have a favorite story that was told on my panel that is sort of along the same vein as your kitten stories and that it's one you typically don't hear on an energy. ⁓ event panel. I had Brian Lloyd from Encore on my panel. First of all, my whole panel was fantastic. Patrick Woods, Sarah at National Good Ventures, Al at Spatial Business. was all star. Amazing conversations. I'm sorry that you weren't there for it. There was a great conversation about competition and the transmission space that I feel like you would have really liked to have heard. Yeah. Yeah. Teresa Ringenbach: I heard about it in like side conversations when I arrived. So I wish I would have seen it. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah, Patrick and Sarah kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum there in terms of what they're trying to accomplish, but it was a great conversation, great dialogue. But Brian... had this really great way to explain like what happens like the transmission that you're planning for versus what the reality is and his story was you know his parents had had one kid they decided they wanted another so they got pregnant they started planning their lives for two children and then lo and behold brian is one of three identical triplets so here's this family that spends all this time and effort like well we're gonna have two kids and boom no you're not you're gonna have four and you're gonna have like this much time to get ready for that reality and in a way, you know, that is kind of a very good way to me to describe what could happen with load and transmission and I also, like I said, I've never heard a birth story on stage before at a conference. Teresa Ringenbach: That's ETS though. Bethany Ruhe: That is, that's so ETS. So who were some other maybe organizations or people that stuck out to you that you thought were doing some really cool things in all your conversations? Teresa Ringenbach: So there was a company that has sort of taken a new twist on the heat map. went up, their ⁓ Luigi, was on one of the panels ⁓ ⁓ went up talking to somebody who works for the company, just sort of a little breakout side thing. ⁓ I thought it was, yes, yep, that's it. ⁓ ⁓ Bethany Ruhe: Yeah, I believe it's Aveleo. Aveleo, I believe is the company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Teresa Ringenbach: The way that they do a heat map is, think most people think about it in terms of, here's interconnection and here's this other stuff, but they take into account ⁓ all utilities have what's called a CIAC, C-I-A-C, ⁓ in aid of construction. There are a number of utilities out there. We put in your... ⁓ what you want to develop and you put in your project and it goes into this black hole and you don't know where it is or how much it's going to cost or how they got to that number and you just sit and wait. You don't know who's in front of you. This ⁓ solve for that. ⁓ know, ⁓ can actually go on their version of the heat map. You can see the cost. ⁓ ⁓ not just where it's where space is available, but the cost from your utility for that project. You can see who's in front of you in the queue. It allows you a developer to actually go out and get funding for your project and be able to ⁓ your funders, here's how much it is, here's when we can start, here's who's in front of us. Also just coming out of that world from the last year, it would allow you to set up all of your contractors to build too. ⁓ you don't have to worry about I don't know where I'm at and your contractor's like, well, I'm sorry, I have to go do this other project instead now. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah, and that, length of time and the complications of that process was another thing that was brought up on my panel too, as being like a stumbling block to doing some of the things that we need to do to improve interconnection. And I think that's really important. I mean, I heard over and over again, like, ⁓ my God, like just the process from start to finish ⁓ take years. ⁓ and there's so many black holes of information along the way where you don't know where things are. So the ability to have that visibility, I think, is kind of transformational. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes, and I would say it came up on a later panel where somebody was actually talking about the fact that these project guys and engineers are all retiring and they need to replace them. And the projects are, the number of projects are growing, but the number of people who know how to do this is dwindling down at the utilities. Bethany Ruhe: Yes. Yes, yes, which, and there was also, think, on this undercurrent the event too, there was a lot of workforce development people there from different areas, different utilities, different co-ops. ⁓ were finance people there. ⁓ this was not just your utility people. This was every... ⁓ sort of layer of the industry I felt was represented, which is how it should be because we are not a monolith, right? We are made up of the energy industry is made up of everything from the utility executives, the RTO executives to the customer service people, to people doing workforce development and energy. So was great to have an event where everybody was so represented and we're able to talk to each other. That's another reason I think there's such great conversations there. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes, ⁓ I got to meet a woman. She was at the dinner and at ETS. I apologize. I think her name was Christine. I should have really looked it up. She was working on Ceeja stuff in Illinois, but she was working on a piece that I had actually worked into some Illinois energy stuff like a very long time ago. you know, again, Village Elder, Teresa, like we're talking years and years and years ago, way before Ceeja around ⁓ Bethany Ruhe: Yes, she was at my table. She was on the winning team. Teresa Ringenbach: workforce development using foster kids and giving them a path forward. just as you know the world where I like to leave it better than I came into it. was so happy to meet her and hear her story about how much success she's having and working the CJA Work First development and working with foster kids and working in the community to ⁓ these jobs together. It's very heartening to you know walk away from Illinois, I worked there in a while and come back and see someone like her really putting it all together. Bethany Ruhe: I love that for you too because I could tell how tickled you were and you know it is it's great when you find out something because you probably put a ton of work into that you probably care deeply about it I know you I know those are both true you put a lot of hard work and you care deeply and to see it still going and still the work I mean that's got to feel good you have a have a moment take your moment Teresa Teresa Ringenbach: Yes. Well, it's not my moment, it's her moment, but I'm really happy. Yes. Bethany Ruhe: It's her moment, absolutely sorry I didn't mean to take that away from her, but it's cool to feel great that you can still see it out there and that there are amazing people like Christina doing the work. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes, and she was amazing. If you guys ever to work with her or reach out to her, ⁓ one of the things that she was talking about is that ⁓ do need more businesses who want to hire them, ⁓ these kids that they're working with. Not kids, ⁓ say that, but they're adults now, right? ⁓ Bethany Ruhe: Yeah. Right, right, right, but, well, I'll link it. Teresa Ringenbach: But if you are a business in Illinois, please reach out to her. She's doing amazing work. And this is a way to solve for a lot of workforce stuff, as well as contribute to your community by creating jobs in your community. Bethany Ruhe: Yeah, no, I'll link it in the show notes. heard Teresa. If you're in Illinois, check her out. Check out the organization. I will say, too, another one of my favorite people that I got to meet in person at the event. I've known him. I've worked with him. Our friend, Taco, from Integral Analytics. If you were at ETS, you met Taco. ⁓ my god, what a force of nature. I think he knows everything. There's nothing he can't talk about. Teresa Ringenbach: ⁓ love him. ⁓ yes, he's a genius, genius level. Yes. Bethany Ruhe: ⁓ my god, it's just so fun. The entire Antigua Analytics team is great. I love all of them, but I never met Tako in person before, so that to me was a highlight. I really enjoyed it. I'm glad that I got to meet them, and they're doing great work too, so it was great to see them there. I mean, Jason and entire Z Prime team, I'm gonna shout them out. Jason, Benito, Chris, Mark, Rich, Stefan, if I'm forgetting anybody, who? Aaron? Teresa Ringenbach: Erin. Erin. Erin did my panel with me. She set it all up. Bethany Ruhe: ⁓ Aaron, you're right, you're right. Aaron, that's right. Joyce, who is on scene. mean, just the entire team is amazing. I've enjoyed ETS since pretty much the beginning. These guys are basically like my family at this point, but I'm really proud to say that, you know, that a part of this event. Like I said, I thought for Bloom's first time out, we had our little trade booth where our little backdrop set up and I don't know, it made me really feel proud. Like, wow, Teresa, we're doing this. ⁓ Teresa Ringenbach: Yeah, it was great. It was great. Just to wrap things up, if you guys are interested in Energy Thought Summit or what Z Prime does, ⁓ will, ⁓ they have in the past, they always put out little videos of the different panels. It's a great place to go and sort of think outside the box. ⁓ I'm going to actually read that Smart Grid book because we will be talking about Smart Grid in June. ⁓ Bethany Ruhe: Yes. Yes, Teresa speaking at SmartGrids USA. Bloob's sponsor there too. So if anybody listening is going to be at SmartGrids USA, let us know. We'd love to see you there. Teresa Ringenbach: Yes, and as always, you know, it's not always about just one thing. Think holistically. The grid can work in amazing ways if we all allow it to do that and we don't gatekeep. Bethany Ruhe: That's a great way to end. Thanks for bringing it home, Teresa. Thanks for listening. We hope you guys like, subscribe, share all of the good things. Thank you for tuning in. And remember, especially at the tail end of this conversation, energy is never just about energy.