Grid Talk

In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with the General Manager of Austin Energy, Jackie Sargent. The discussion is focused on the city-owned utility’s push to be carbon free by 2035 and ensuring equity for electric customers.

“When we are at looking moving forward and reaching those carbon-free goals, affordability is part of that equation, and it’s really important for us that we address the customers who are most vulnerable within our community,” said Sargent.

Austin Energy has one of the most robust customer-assistance programs in the country.

“Not only do we provide utility bill subsidies and savings for those customers, but we have a whole slate of wrap-around services. We actually work with 56 partners in our community to support these customers because you could help them with their utility bill, but they have a lot more needs than just paying for their electricity.”

The utility is proactive in making sure programs are accessible.

“We’ve also brought on a consultant to create a Customer Journey Map to help us understand what our customers experience when they’re requesting, and they’re receiving, services from us, and we’ll use that to help us to better direct those services to those or the people that most need them and create the best customer experience for all of our customers.”

Jackie Sargent rejoined the Austin Energy team as General Manager in August 2016. From 2010 to 2012, Sargent served as Senior Vice President of Power Supply and Market Operations at Austin Energy before joining Platte River Power Authority in Fort Collins, Colorado, as General Manager and CEO. Sargent also served as Vice President of Power Supply and Renewables Integration for Black Hills Corporation in South Dakota.

Sargent is a licensed professional engineer and holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science in Technology Management from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Italian utility powerhouse Enel is championing a surge of renewable investments in America and transformation of the grid. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with Mona Tierney-Lloyd who’s head of U.S. Public Policy at Enel North America. Enel is the world’s leading private electricity distribution provider and it’s also the world’s largest renewable developer.

The discussion focuses on the significant transformations happening in the energy sector.

“This is the most interesting time to be in the energy sector that I’ve ever experienced,” said Tierney-Lloyd. “It’s really great to see all of these policies become implemented at customer levels and at the grid levels and really become a significant factor in the energy industry.”

The podcast also looks at the Italian company’s push in the U.S. Market.

“Enel is very bullish on development in the United States. We have eight gigawatts of renewable development operational today and we have expectations of adding at least two gigawatts per year of additional renewable development. Most of our new development that we have underway we’re also adding utility-scale battery storage alongside of that new renewable development.”

Mona Tierney-Lloyd has 30 years of experience in the energy industry and policy development. She has worked for Enel and Enel predecessor companies for nearly 15 years. Tierney-Lloyd has been with Enel North America since 2020 where she supported regional transmission organization bills that passed in Nevada and Colorado. She Participated in stakeholder process that developed policies for distributed energy resource participation in markets in MISO, ERCOT, and CAISO. Tierney-Lloyd previously worked as Senior Director, Western Regulatory Affairs at EnerNOC. She has a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering from Penn State University.

Italy is at the forefront of major utilities worldwide realizing its vision of the future of electricity. The massive utility aims to be carbon neutral by 2040. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with Antonio Cammisecra, who’s the head of the Enel Grids within the Enel Group in Italy.

Enel Grids operates a massive 1.5 million miles of predominately distribution lines.

“Without a doubt we are the most digitized distribution company in the world,” said Cammisecra. “We are the absolute leader in this field.”

It is all part of a sweeping, utility sector transformation.

“It took us 20 years to completely digitalize the Italian grid for which we are very well advanced. And we had several waves of digitalization so, now we are at the third generation of digital meter. We have achieved basically two things: the capability to open up a much more modern electricity market because the digitization of the metering itself is the beginning of a much more modern market so you can have hourly pricing for example.”

“We understood there was a new era approaching to the industry and you cannot, let’s say, survive or prosper or lead the industry without deep profound change in the way you wanted to stay in that industry, which, of course, conceives a different approach to innovation and to sustainability.”

Antonio Cammisecra became Head of the Enel Grids Business Line on October 1, 2020. Prior to that, he was the Sole Director of Enel Green Power and Director of the Africa, Asia, and Oceania region. He joined the International Division of Enel Group in 1999 and has served in multiple positions.

Cammisecra studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Naples Federico II, graduating with first class honors in 1996. He received an MBA from Milan’s Bocconi University in 2004.

Alaska is global leader in microgrid technology with one of highest concentrations of renewably powered microgrid projects in the world. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with Peter Asmus who is Executive Director of Alaska Microgrid Group. The group offers access to expertise from the utility industry and research community to leverage decades of experience designing, building and operating microgrid projects across Alaska.

“What’s unique about Alaska is it’s number one in the U.S. for total microgrid capacity,” said Asmus.

Just about every Alaskan is served by a microgrid.

“At last count I saw something like 3,500 megawatts of installed capacity. Most of those systems are what I would call remote power systems where there is no grid and that’s what’s unusual about Alaska”.

Microgrids loom large over the future of an electric grid that will be integrating increasing amounts of renewable energy, providing ever greater levels of resilience, Asmus said. “I see microgrids becoming a bigger and bigger thing as climate change impacts accelerate and the power outage rate keeps going up. People are so dependent on electricity; they’re going to want some form of a microgrid resiliency.”

Peter Asmus is a leading global authority on microgrid markets and other emerging trends in sustainable and resilient energy systems. Author of four books, he has been writing about and analyzing emerging trends in energy policy, technology and applications since 1986. Most recently, he was Research Director with Guidehouse Insights where he started up the world’s first global data set on microgrids and developed a forecast methodology to estimate future growth. Additionally, he was editor of the Clean Power Journal, assistant editor of California Policy Choices, and has written for several energy trade publications, including Windpower Monthly and Electric Utility Week.

Asmus holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin.

Three out of four Americans are served by utilities out to slash carbon emissions, according to Julia Hamm, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Smart Electric Power Alliance. In this episode of Grid Talk, Hamm sits down with host Marty Rosenberg to talk about how the power industry has changed over the last 19 years.

“73% of all U.S. electric customers are served by a utility that has a public target for a hundred percent carbon reduction, so I’d say that’s pretty significant,” said Hamm.

With utilities making clean energy a core part of their mission, they are driving significant changes to the industry.

“Utilities are now playing an active leadership role in helping to decarbonize not only their own business operations but also working proactively with customers, others in their supply chain and really across the whole economy in order to accelerate decarbonization.”

To match that profound change, utility regulators and policymakers need to better coordinate the rules governing the energy sector, she said.

“We need to see an increased level of coordination at the federal, state, and local levels far beyond what we have historically seen,” Hamm said.

For the past 20 Julia Hamm has been advising and collaborating with utilities, solution providers and government agencies on business models, grid modernization, and clean energy policies, strategies and programs. She oversees SEPA’s research, education, and collaboration activities for its 1,100 member companies.

Hamm is a graduate of Cornell University.