Community Solar Ready to Shine

The federal government is poised to transform the United States' electric grid at an unprecedented, massive clip to fight climate change and embrace sustainability.

That’s according to Sasha Mackler, head of the Bipartisan Policy Center energy program who is the guest on the latest episode of Grid Talk. 

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act are really two major achievements from a federal policy perspective,” said Mackler. 

“They’re very focused on the developments and in particular the deployment of clean energy technologies across the American economy.”  

The result will unleash an enormous amount of new capital from the federal government into this energy transition and into energy modernization. 

“Dollars are being spent; small grants have gone out the door. Big grants and funding programs have been established and funding commitments have been made but the actual large dollars that are going to flow into the economy, those are still really getting setup because projects take time to sort of work through the commercial permitting phase, to get the consortiums together, to get the contracts in place so that they can actually get out into the market and attract the capital and start the construction.” 

Sasha Mackler has worked for more than two decades at the intersection of energy policy and commercial markets. Prior to leading the Energy Program, he spent nearly 10 years in the private sector, first as vice president of Summit Power Group’s carbon capture business and then overseeing market development activities for Enviva, the largest biomass fuel supplier to the global utility industry. His professional work has focused on the innovations necessary to scale emerging energy technologies along with developing the business models and policy frameworks that support the deployment of low carbon energy systems.

Mackler holds both a Master of Science in Earth Resources Engineering and Master of Public Administration from Columbia University. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Geomechanical Engineering from the University of Rochester.

Ontario Canada’s government is all in on nuclear technology as it stakes out a global leadership position in small modular reactors (SMRs). In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with Todd Smith who is the Ontario Energy Minister.

Rapid population and economic growth, coupled with the province’s long reliance on nuclear technology, prompted its decision to pursue SMRs. 

“We felt very comfortable in moving forward with the technology we’d chosen which is a 300-megawatt boiling water reactor from GE Hitachi,” said Smith. “We’re partnering with U.S. Technologies on this and other U.S. and international partners to develop the first-of-the-kind SMR, small modular reactor, here in Ontario.”

“It’s baseload power, it’s there when you need it, it’s there and able to be relied on 365 days a year.”

The province expects to add five million residents over the next decade.

“That’s going to require a lot of electricity.” 

Todd Smith has been the Ontario Energy Minister since June of 2021. Smith has served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for more than a decade. He is a graduate of Loyalist College.

Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) could play an important role in meeting future energy needs. 

In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with Sandra Dykxhoorn, the vice president of New Nuclear Growth at Ontario Power Generation (OPG), based in Toronto.

“It’s a game-changer,” said Dykxhoorn about SMRs. “We are really at the front of the pack here. OPG is recognized now globally as a world leader in its small modular deployment.”

SMRs will make their international debut in the free world in Ontario, Canada in five years.

“The reason why small modular reactors exist at all and why people are investing in this technology is because we know there is a need for smaller, clean base load power options that can replace gas and coal,” Dykxhoorn said. 

“Part of the solution with the small modular reactor is that it’s smaller so that should be quicker to build; doesn’t take as long,” she told Grid Talk. “Additionally, it’s more modular and more standardized. What we try to do is introduce factory buildout components.”

It will be safer than conventional nuclear plants around for decades. 

“Essentially what they’re trying to do is remove the humans that need to be involved in managing a nuclear reactor in the event that there’s an emergency or something happens. Ultimately, there’s something called passive safety.”

As the Vice President of New Nuclear Development for Ontario Power Generation, Sandra Dykxhoorn oversees the company’s long-term new nuclear growth strategy, building external relationships and creating a pipeline of opportunities. She has been with OPG since 2016
 
 She graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Carleton and is a proud alumnus of the Laurentian Leadership Program in Ottawa and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (IEP) in Grenoble France.

The federal government is accelerating its support of pathbreaking fusion power research, ramping up three fusion research hubs and developing private sector engagement in next generation nuclear power. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with Kramer Akli who is with the Department of Energy’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences.

“What we are hoping on for the hubs in four years is to give us a clear picture which inertial fusion approach we can pursue,” said Akli.

DOE has committed to spend $42 million over four years to support research into the use of lasers to fire up fusion, the process that powers the sun. This comes after researchers achieved a significant milestone in 2022 called "scientific breakeven." 

 “For the first time in history we have achieved ignition and that you can get more energy out of the target,” he said. 

Overall, DOE is spending $500 million dollars a year on fusion.

“With these three national hubs, we have leading institutions, but they bring together more than 30 institutions from national labs, universities, and the private sector to tackle some of these challenges.” 

“What we have today that we didn’t have five, 10 or 20 years ago is we have a private sector, more than 50 companies, that are pursuing fusion energy and we have attracted more than $6 billion dollars in investments,” said Akli.

Kramer Akli has been with the Department of Energy since 2016.

He has a PhD in Applied Science from the University of California, Davis. He received a BS in Plasma Physics from National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute). 

The recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) meeting in Dubai confirmed it will take a combination of generation sources to decarbonize electricity production, and nuclear energy will play a key role. 

In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg interviews Arshad Mansoor who is the President and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Mansoor provides his takeaways from the conference. 

“Now (there is) almost unanimous agreement on the importance on both large nuclear central station and small modular reactors. You can call this COP28 the Nuclear COP28 because I haven’t seen this (before) from leaders, from organizations, from industries,” said Mansoor.

Other generation sources are also needed.

“We should double-down, triple-down on wind and solar but we should triple-down on offshore wind.”

Mansoor said that EPRI research priorities align well with the global direction of energy and climate policy. 

“I think our long-term focus is spot-on which is, we’ve got to double-down on innovation on SMRs and long duration energy storage and on carbon-capture.”

Arshad Mansoor is responsible for the EPRI’s operation and portfolio of R&D programs. Mansoor has been with EPRI for 21 years and previously served as SVP of research and development, and VP of the Power Delivery and Utilization sector. He earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology; and a M.S. and doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Texas in Austin. 

Solar power generation deployments are accelerating worldwide - and the grid must evolve to accommodate it. That’s the topic of this episode of Grid Talk. Host Marty Rosenberg talks with Mary Werner who is the Solar Program Manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. 

“We did a Solar Futures Study in 2020 and in that report, we said that if you want to go to a decarbonized electric grid by 2035, we have to ramp up from our 2020 level by 9½ times and that’s just in the United States,” said Werner.

Werner explained the world is on pace to erect $1 billion a day in solar assets.

“By 2035, if we also plan on electrification which would then increase the amount of electricity needed, we would have to get to 12½ times.” 

Production is gearing up in tandem with the escalating need for solar. 

“In a report last week that I saw, our quarterly Market Industry Report, says that there have been 240 gigawatts of solar manufacturing announced since the Inflation Reduction Act passed in August 2022,” Werner said. “That is the kind of ramp up is what we need.”

Mary Werner joined NREL in 1995 as an engineer in the Federal Energy Management Program and eventually became the program manager. She has also managed programs for NREL's Building Technologies Program, Integrated Deployment, the Deployment and Market Transformation organization. In 2015, Werner became the program manager for the Solar Program, the flagship program at the lab.

Ms. Werner has an Executive MBA from the University of Colorado, Denver and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Sacramento.

Community solar allows households and businesses to access the benefits of solar energy, such as lower electricity costs, regardless of whether they’re able to host a system on their own roof.

In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with Jeff Cramer who is the president and CEO of Coalition for Community Solar Access. 

“We’ve figured out a way for any electricity customer to be able to participate and benefit from local clean energy deployment in less than five minutes with guaranteed savings,” said Cramer. 

And interest in community solar projects is growing, with more states considering community solar programs.

“It’s thousands of projects around the country in over 20 states across the country.”

By the end of the year there will be six gigawatts of community solar on the system. Cramer expects that to grow significantly in the future. 

“What Community Solar offers is it offers a sort of a hub for the deployment of, a central hub for the deployment of distributed generation.”

Jeff Cramer has served as President and CEO of CCSA since its founding in 2015. Prior to CCSA, Cramer co-founded and served as a Partner at 38 North Solutions, a Washington DC public affairs firm that focused exclusively on federal clean energy and sustainability policies and advocacy. He has a B.A. in government, philosophy from Clark University.

The utility sector is embracing new values and attracting a new kind of work force as it empowers America with a sustainable, affordable, secure grid. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg interviews Tom Kuhn, president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute which represents investor-owned utilities providing electricity to 235 million Americans. 

The discussion focuses on the current state of the industry and its future. 

“We are very cognizant of how important electricity is to every household in this country so it’s very, very important for us to maintain reliability and affordability, but what is going to have to change is obviously our response to increasing growth and the need to maintain reliability for our customers,” said Kuhn.

Additionally, Kuhn talks about the impact electric utilities adopting new cultural values.

“We have gotten so much cleaner and we are so much committed to it, we are attracting really a tremendous number of young people into this business right now and they’re coming because they see a purpose in life.”

He also discusses how recent federal initiatives are spurring deep changes. 

“The Congress and the White House led the charge on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that we got a few years ago and clean energy tax credits, the Inflation Reduction Act. They were historic pieces of legislation that our infusing-needed capital into this business to help us to achieve this clean energy transition and to enable us to bring on new technologies.”

Tom Kuhn joined the Edison Electric Institute in 1985 as executive vice president, was named chief operating officer in 1988, and elected president in 1990.

Prior to joining EEI, he was president of the American Nuclear Energy Council, which subsequently merged with the Nuclear Energy Institute. The Council represented virtually all of the companies in the commercial nuclear power industry. 

Mr. Kuhn served on the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board and the Board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves on the Boards of the Alliance to Save Energy, the United States Energy Association, the Electric Drive Transportation Association, and the American Council for Capital Formation. 

Mr. Kuhn received a BA in Economics in 1968 from Yale University, served as a Naval Officer following his graduation, and received an MBA in 1972 from George Washington University. 

Hawaii gets about one-third of its energy from renewables, and it aims to get to 100 percent by 2045. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg interviews Stephen Walls, the deputy chief energy officer of the Hawaii State Energy Office.

The state is still busy assessing the impact of Maui’s devastating fires on its electric grid. 

“The office is going through an exercise of trying to think through and identify what resources the state does have, to make sure that the energy system remains available, even in, during strange or extreme weather events,” said Walls.

Long term, the question is how the state gets to 100 percent renewable generation. 

“I think we’re encouraged by a few things. One, Kauai - over half of its energy supplied is renewable and if they are able to complete their pump storage hydro project, then they’ll be pushing over 70 percent and they’ll still have the rest of the time to figure out what else they should do”

Walls says the state is banking on continued technology change and cost improvements.

“We’ve led with the use of and reliance on distributed energy renewable resources and will continue to do that and be at one of the leading voices in smart inverters and inverter-based resources in providing grid services there.

Stephen Walls has worked on energy and climate issues in the private, public, non-profit, and academic sectors. Prior to working for the Hawaii State Energy Office, he worked for the U.S. Department of Energy and General Electric.

Stephen earned his J.D. with honors from The George Washington University Law School and studied International Relations (B.A.) and Economics (B.S.) at the University of Delaware. 

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will make a big difference in boosting our reliance on intermittent renewable wind and solar power.

In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg interviews Dalia Patiño-Echeverri, professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. 

With renewable energy being deployed at a rapid pace, making sure there is back up, or reserve, power available to meet peak demand is critical. Patiño-Echeverri is using sophisticated forecasting models to precisely predict fluctuations in renewables and reserve generation needs to be ramped up or down. 

“We will be in a better position to integrate the valuable renewable energy that we get from solar and from wind because we will be considering all the possibilities and we’ll be prepositioning our system in the best way to cope with the variability and the uncertainty of these resources,” said Patiño-Echeverri. 

“The number one benefit that we see in our technology is that we’re going to have the right level of reserves at each moment and in time in our system.”

“And with artificial intelligence and with machine learning, we have found ways to run these models that are more sophisticated, more demanding of computational resources. We have found ways to simplify those requirements and we have found ways to run them faster.”

interviews Dalia Patiño-Echeverri Dalia Patiño-Echeverri is the Gendell Associate Professor of Energy Systems and Public Policy at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University where she explores, assesses, and proposes technological, policy, and market approaches to contribute to the goal of striking a balance between environmental sustainability, affordability, and reliability in electricity systems. She received B.S. and M.Sc. degrees in Industrial Engineering from University of The Andes, Bogotá, Colombia and the PhD degree in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.