DERVOS, 10/25/24, NYC Tim Hade is the co-founder of Scale Microgrids and the godfather of DER Task Force. He’s been an inspiration to so many in our community, so we couldn’t think of a better person to kick us off at DERVOS this year. After this keynote we heard someone say “I’m ready to run through a wall for Tim” and we can’t claim to have felt …

A truly wild story is unfolding in Pakistan. Over the past few years the country has become the globe’s third largest importer of Chinese solar panels, and yet none of the resulting projects are operated by, or even visible to, the national utility. Simultaneously, demand from the grid has dropped 9.1% over the past 12 months, which has many scared…

We’re back! This time with Nic Freschi, Senior Associate at Gable Associates and all around PJM wizard. Nic is a friend and OG member of the DERTF. Almost a year ago, Nic’s models began predicting the ~10x increase in PJM capacity prices we saw in the recent auction. How did he know? In this ep, we go deep on every acronym you could ever imagine: E…

Last week we were lucky enough to sit down with Arushi Sharma Frank, the policy wizard who while at Tesla Energy helped turn Texas into one of the DER capitals of the world. She gives us the in depth history of of how ERCOT’s VPP program was forged — a story our co-host James was also a part of. We also talk about the rest of her time at Tesla, cas…

We’re back! This time with Charlotta Holmquist, President and Co-Founder of Blixt. Blixt is based in Sweden and just closed a fundraise led by Union Square Ventures. Their solid state circuit breaker and x-verter technology have the potential to fundamentally change how we approach building the grid. We’ve never left a conversation so excited about…

We’re back for our first solo pod in months! We talk about what everyone is talking about these days… VPPs and load growth from AI. Is all this hype and talk about our space a good thing? Tune in to hear the Task Force unpack and set the narrative straight. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access…

We’re back, this time with Allison Bates Wannop, DERTF’s policy lead! We cover an absolute ton of stuff in this one: * Allison's background and introduction, Mother's Day acknowledgments * Mary Powell's influence, DER advocacy, the significance of FERC v. EPSA in shaping energy policy * Favorite DER categories, Vermont initiatives, impact of extrem…

Last week we sat down with Dave Riess, the CEO and co-founder of Wunder. They’re working hard to scale mid-sized commercial solar projects, where they believe the real TAM is in this market. Dave is an awesome guy who’s been grinding in the space for years now, so we naturally had a ton to talk about. * (00:02:55) Introduction and Guest Overview: I…

We’re back! This time with Casey Handmer, founder and CEO of Terraform Industries. Terraform is building a system to turn cheap solar electricity into methane. To pull this off they’ll need to commercialize the most performant and lowest-cost electrolysis, carbon capture, and Sabatier reactors ever seen. Casey had a ton of interesting thoughts abou…

We’re back! This time we sat down with Quincy Lee, CEO and co-founder of Electric Era, an electric vehicle refueling company. Quincy has a super cool background - starting with designing skyscrapers, then moving on to space technology, and now he’s der-pilled. We talk about all kinds of stuff in this one: * what SpaceX and Starlink were like * why …

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dertaskforce.com We’re back! This time with a VIDEO POD. We recorded this live at DTECH a few weeks ago and haven’t had time to upload it. But this is a fun one that you don’t want to miss. Not only did we finally find out what a DERMS is, but we also became fully converted distribut…

We’re back, this time joined by Jesse Jenkins - professor at Princeton and lead of the Zero Lab. We cover a ton of ground in this one, including: * Jesse’s DERs journey, including skepticism at times and optimism at others. * A ton of discussion on rate design. * Jesse’s recent pod on rooftop solar. * How the hell is rooftop solar so expensive here…

We’re back! This time with Lynne Kiesling, Director of the Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics (IRLE) at Northwestern University. Lynne is an Economist who has been working on power systems issues since the early 2000s, with a focus on power markets, transactive energy, and “quarantining the monopoly” as she says. Lynne was a panelist at DERVO…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dertaskforce.com Back in November we threw DERVOS, our annual distributed energy summit. It turned out awesome. We really couldn’t be happier or more grateful for how it went. The panels and speakers were great, the crowd that turned up was amazing, and the vehicle to rave afterparty…

We’re back! This time we sat down with Pier LaFarge, co-founder and CEO of Sparkfund. Those who listened to the DERVOS recording released last week may remember Pier pitching a utility-led DER deployment model. It was a pretty interesting idea that we felt deserved its own deep dive on a pod, so we invited Pier on to make the case for what is likel…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dertaskforce.com Back in November we threw DERVOS, our annual distributed energy summit. It turned out awesome. We really couldn’t be happier or more grateful for how it went. The panels and speakers were great, the crowd that turned up was amazing, and the vehicle to rave afterparty…

Tune in for a chat on why ‘24 is TIME TO DER. Duncan and James reflect on the past 5 years before looking ahead at 2024 and beyond—and why the future is so exciting. We re-hash Dervos, retro our ‘23 new years resolutions, state our ‘24 resolutions, look back on the last 5 years in the space and where it is now, the current tech environment, buildin…

We’re back! This time with a perfect warmup for DERvos in a few days with DERTF OG Ben Carron. Ben has not only worked for FERC, Nat Grid, SunRun, E3, and now Enel X, but also was one of the earliest presenters at our original, pre-pandemic “DG Beers” happy hours. We wanted to have Ben on to get back to our energy market wonkery roots, so don’t wor…

We’re back! And this time just Duncan and James to talk about weird twitter discourse again! Sorry… we promise we’ll go back to talking about wonky energy stuff in the next episodes. In this ep, we talk about Duncan’s Dad’s epic utility pole story, James’ other less successful business ventures, announcing the first ever V2R (Vehicle 2 Rave) applic…

We’re back! Well, 2/3 of us are. In the first ever duo episode, Duncan and James wade deep into CDR, degrowth meme analysis, more thoughts on nuclear, and corporate environmentalism. They talk about climate week, CDR, the narrow focus of mainstream environmentalism on carbon and where the tree huggers at, comparing the popular memes of population d…

We’re back! And this time we peeled away from climate week events to record a late night ep with self-proclaimed Nuclear Bro, Mark Nelson. Grab a drink for this marathon of an episode and sink in as we wax poetic about one of our favorite religions, Nuclear Power. And we mean that in the best way. Tune in as we discuss Mark’s journey into nuclear a…

We’re back! And this time with a solo ep, for free! Going forward, we’re un-paywalling all eps and going NPR style: PLEASE think about donating $5 anyways. Here’s why: We are launching a policy team! The policy team will be focusing on enforcing the DERTF Bill of Rights. In order to do that, we need to raise money to pay a part-time or full-time po…

We’re back! This time with Nick Van Osdol of “Keep Cool”, who is… pretty damn cool himself. Nick has a refreshing perspective and lens on climate reporting: equal parts skeptical, optimistic, empathetic, and rational. If only more people could engage like he does. In this wide-ranging ep we talk nuclear fusion, how to think about climate risk, if w…

We’re back! And this time we hosted OG DERTF Heads James McWalter (the better James) and Kyle Baranko from Paces at the David Energy HQ. They are working on one of the gnarliest problems in the entire clean energy space: permitting and interconnection. We go deeeep on the problem, so you don’t want to miss this. We are massive fans of them and what…

We’re back! And this time with THEE GOD Julian Spector. It’s our longest episode ever because we just couldn’t help ourselves going in with a member of the OG GTM Mafia. It’s worth it. Julian just had some super rad reporting on how the South is building a vibrant clean energy manufacturing hub, and we sat down to discuss. We nerd out on this one f…

We’re back! And this time with Alfred Johnson, Founder and CEO of Crux. Crux just raised a seed round led by Lowercarbon Capital and is building a marketplace to help climate companies unlock billions in IRA tax credits. If you want to understand the IRA, look no further! We nerd out on everything from the ins and outs of transferability, what the …

We’re back! And this time with Matt Huber, an absolute legend and advocate for centralized public power. This was a different ep, but one of our favorite in awhile. In it, we talk about Marxist geography, how bizarre peak oil discourse was, the coming shift to electricity from oil, becoming un-DER-pilled, the possibilities of a centrally-planned de…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dertaskforce.com We’re back with a solo ep! And yeah, this one is paid. The NYT wrote an article on decarb bros and we have some thoughts. Tune in to listen to us talk about our first ever eco rave in LA right after we serve up a taxonomy of bros and their varying ethics: the decarb …

We’re back! This time on a FULLY SOLAR POWERED POD with absolute legends Corey and Xtina of the Solar Punks Club. We threw the first proper Eco Rave—a solar + storage powered party—at their HQ in LA. Tune in to hear us chat about it the night before the event, and check out more from the day of here. We talked about how they got DER-pilled as non-e…

We’re back! This time with John Berger, the CEO and Founder of Sunnova. Sunnova is not only one of the largest solar and storage installers in the country, they are also one of the most innovative in their offerings to customers. From VPPS in Texas to free batteries and micro utilities in CA, Sunnova is setting the tone for a distributed future. Tu…

Colleen, Jimbo, and Duncan are back, this time joined by Noah Smith of Noahpinion. While fellow energy nerds might know Noah for his posts Don’t be a doomer, Why I’m so excited about solar and batteries, or Battery-powered appliances!, his reach goes well beyond our small corner of the world. Noah’s an economist and techno-optimist who engages in a…

We’re back! And this time we sit down with Troy Cross, a twitter chameleon of sorts. He’s an environmentalist, philosopher at Reed College, and avid bitcoiner. And depending on who you talk to, you’ll get a different answer as to what he’s all about. We just know him as an intelligent, interesting, super good dude who we love talking to! This is a …

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dertaskforce.com We’re still figuring out this whole substack thing. We released this paid ep last week for paid subscribers, but didn’t send out an email or a preview to our unpaid subscribers. So, we’re resending to give the unpaids a snippet of this tasty ep. If you’re an unpaid s…

The crew is back with another episode, this time sitting down with Arcady Sosinov, Founder and CEO of FreeWire. In this episode we talk about doing things that really, really don’t scale, gearheads in an EV world, utility vs O&G company cold war + the breakdown of 7 Powers in an abundant energy future, FreeWire’s core product innovation and the val…

We’re back! This time we sit down with Sam D’Amico, CEO and co-founder of Impulse Labs, an induction stove start-up based out of San Francisco. Listen on for nearly 2 hours of physics, macro, cooking, and much more: * (1:30-22:45 ) Getting DER-pilled (thermal events anyone?), nerding out about college extra-curriculars, Sam’s favorite DER and James…

We’re back with a solo ep to talk about Doomers and why you shouldn’t be one! Tune in to ring in your new year with a heavy dose of optimism and why 2023 is going to be insane heat. This time we talk Duncan getting saved by a Christian Scientist, the average person thinking casually that we’re screwed, why having kids is good, Jordan Peterson’s and…

Welcome back to another episode of the pod! This week, we sat down with Neha Palmer, CEO and Co-founder of Terawatt Infrastructure. Check out the show notes below: * (0:00-13:00) Getting DER-pilled at PG&E, favorite DER, extra-curricular activities and protecting powDER, Neha’s ideal last job, and hottest energy takes * (13:00- 22:30) The Terrawatt…

Welcome back to another episode of the pod! This episode is a special one — it features many of you! During the DERTFestivities, the crew busted out the recording equipment and captured some live takes from the community. Listen on to hear some major heat from the Task Force…. * The crew gives up on explaining franchise rights in minute 1 * Russell…

Hello there DER Task Force — we are back after a post-DERTFest break with another episode of the pod. This time, the gang interviewed Emily McAteer, founder and CEO of Odyssey Energy Solutions. In this episode we cover… * (0:00) Getting to know Emily: DER-pills in ‘09, the dopest and nopest grids, Emily’s favorite DER, SunEdison in its heyday, hott…

Hey there Task Force! This week, the crew sat down and with Henrik Langeland, CEO and co-founder of Enode and talked all things interoperability, walled gardens, and Henrik even breaks some exciting news on the podcast! Check out the show notes here: * (0:00) Welcome to the ThunDERdome, getting DER-pilled, learning more about Henrik, why interopera…

Hey Task Force! Back this week with episode 23 of the DER Task Force podcast. This time, the crew was joined by Michael Huerta, CEO and co-founder of PearlX. This is another long one and we cover a LOT of ground: * (0:00) Welcome to the ThunDERdome, getting to know Michael * (7:11) Michael gets DER-pilled by his wife, being thankful for the Lehman …

We are back with another episode of the DER Task Force podcast! This week, the crew sit down with the COO of Scale Microgrid Solutions and patron of the DER Task Force, the one and only Tim Hade. In this epic, 2+ hour episode episode, we talk about: * (1:15) Opening quote, DERTF’s #1 rule, Grandaddy Tim shares some love * (4:32) Tim’s DER-pilling a…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dertaskforce.com We are back with another episode of the DER Task Force podcast! This is our first paid episode, so if you’re listening in your favorite podcast player that’s not Substack, follow these instructions to add your private RSS feed. No guests this week, just Colleen, Dunc…

The Task Force podcast is back with another episode, just in time for some weekend listening. This was a fun one with Ari Matusiak, CEO of Rewiring America. In the episode, we talk about: * (0:00) Intro, opening quote, entering the ThunDERdome * (2:00) Getting DER pilled with Ari, electrifying classic cars * (8:25) Introducing Rewiring America * (1…

Welcome back to another episode of the DER Task Force podcast. This time, we sat down with Andy Frank, co-founder and President of Sealed. In the episode, we talk about: * (0:00) Intros, opening quote * (4:27) Sealed elevator pitch * (6:48) Getting DER-pilled (and allergic reactions), Andy’s 20-year plan * (19:28) What’s so great about heat pumps a…

Welcome back to another episode of the DER Task Force podcast. This time, we were joined by the inimitable and brilliant Mary Powell, former CEO of Green Mountain Power and current CEO of SunRun. In the episode, it, we talk about: * (0:00) Intro, opening quote, introducing Mary Powell * (2:40) Mary Powell in the ThunDERdome — on getting DER-pilled,…

Welcome back to another episode of the DER Task Force podcast. Following the highly unexpected John Oliver segment on utilities that made the rounds on Twitter a few weeks back, we wanted to dive into the topic and tease out some of the more nuanced points surrounding this topics. This was a fun one. In it, we talk about: * (0:00-8:24) Intro, John …

If you couldn’t tell, we’re now hosting the podcast on Substack! That means all your DERs content will be in one place going forward, but you can still listen on any of your favorite players like Spotify or iTunes. Look out for more articles and podcasts (with some very special guests) soon, and don’t forget to subscribe! This was a fun one. In it,…

We are trying something new this week. As many of you know our DERTF hosts have an active twitter presence and they always have lots of thoughts and ideas on current events in the energy world. With Ukraine being the most impactful energy current event, much of the conversation is centered around events happening in Europe, but it all seems to rela…

We are back to tackle one of the more controversial topics in the energy space - nuclear. Big nuclear, small nuclear or SMRs, and everything in between. We have many barriers to bring back this incredibly reliable, flexible and resilient energy source if we can get over some major political, regulatory, and cost hurtles. Whether you are pro, anti o…