216 hours of meeting leaders in the energy transition at 'Disney Land'

For the past 216 hours I had been embarking on an opportunity to meet the many leaders across the energy transition from NYC to Oakland, Anaheim, and Pittsburg!

Here's my summary and some takeaways:

Had dinner in NYC with Kurt Chapman and Anthony Mickiewicz from Freedom Energy Logistics (FEL) for the first time and I'm grateful for how warm and thoughtful they are.?Later rescheduled my Amtrak train over fears of that strike, glad that was averted.

Flew into Oakland last Thursday (September 18th), and had lunch with a couple of former colleagues, Lucas Harvey from my early days at PNNL who is working on some exciting software for DERs, and Martin M. from my time in Japan who works like a machine.

?I volunteered at New Dawn where I hope I made some deep connections. By the way, sorry, Jenya Kirshtein for only giving you one drink ticket instead of two! I was a bit sad the next day though because I felt I didn't make the most of New Dawn and didn't have the clarity about my purpose being there so with RE+ and GCEAF next on the horizon, I set forth daily objectives for the various work I've done, am doing, and hope to do in order to be accountable for this trip.

I'd like to briefly switch to Japanese... ところで、Anaheimには有名な野球人がらしい。先週末は電車とかホステルの部屋とかで何度も出会った多くの日本人と日本語でおしゃべりして過ごしたからだ。楽しかっただなー。

?Among various things, Monday while resting on the conference balcony 2nd floor, I overheard a woman from Austria speaking to a guy and was curious who from Austria was here since I earned an MSc in Graz. Well, meeting her was cool but just as much so was the guy she was speaking to, I unexpectedly met a great friend of the Freedom Energy team, Peter Kelly-Detwiler . I then had to jolt off to meeting a vendor I believe is positioned well to be a long-term partner with FEL. ?

Disneyland District was fun, in fact, more on that as a metaphor later.

?Tuesday was emotional, I don't know why…

That morning, I unexpectedly broke out in tears waking up to the news of an unusually massive hurricane-like system hitting Nome Alaska likely because I'm scared, frightened about climate change, and obsessed with solving it.

?I'm also obsessed with commercialization and want to see U.S domestic manufacturing jobs come back to the U.S and have products made in the U.S.

?KTAs from listening to the Department of Commerce, Cora Dickson and Qcells Director of Marketing Scott Moskowitz speak about domestic manufacturing of solar cells:

• Select USA has a great tool for understanding state policies and incentives in order to help site a factory, which is one of the most complex challenges in onshoring the supply chain. Wish I had known that tool existed last year when I was researching this exact topic for a foreign investor.
• Good to look for high unemployment areas and the best incentive packages.
• 201 tariff helped but the 10-year tax credit is game-changing.

?Attended the Future of PV and learned about Perovskites, which is a cool metal halide crystal structure. I think they're cool because well, kinda pun-intended, manufacturing perovskite-tandem cells uses low temperature keeping costs down.

• Probably about 4 years away until early adoption. Many safety challenges and efficiency hurdles still exist.

?A riveting conversation I?took part in was with the president of SilFab, and hearing firsthand the real struggle we're faced with in order to achieve domestic manufacturing and the grit it has taken that team to do what they do was quite profound.

• At a minimum, we're two years away from seeing a substantial supply of domestically sourced equipment.

A couple of my old bosses from Greenskies, Steven DeNino and Steven Gianotti spotted me dancing at The Solar Fight Club , I still don't know how, I was wearing ray bans and felt somewhat unrecognizable lol. Anyway, I'm grateful to have seen them.

?On Wednesday, I realized the need to effectively communicate community solar programs and was pleased that Eric Misbach took the time to have lunch with me and chat this through.

• Discovered a dynamic resource: Sustainable Energy Advantage
• ?Also, the Microgrid Working Group is great for finding projects and partners. Learned about the state of the art of a technology I tried to start a company in, peer-to-peer energy trading on microgrids.

A couple of friends I met from New Dawn invited me out to dinner with a larger group. I didn't realize they were with CELI and unexpectedly bumped into Esther Morales ! Had a nice chat about gender equality in the industry.

Had an inspiring dinner with this group, we drank Chianti to the passing of the Kigali Amendment and had detailed conversations about EV chargers, the EV manufacturing supply chain, and Europe.

• Good resource discovered: Electrify America

I decided to stop at GCEAF in Pittsburg on my way back east from Anaheim where Secretary of Energy Granholm would be speaking on Thursday, among others. At some point, my mother told me on the phone, I really hope you get to meet her, and get a photo! Growing up, I had a signed photo of Al Gore in my room and for whatever reason was always inspired by these famous government officials tackling climate change. I'd even wear blazers to elementary school in 2nd and 3rd grade (year of the 2000 election) because I someday wanted to be president.

Anyway, I flew to Pittsburg for Global Clean Energy Action Forum (GCEAF). Shared a Lyft ride from the airport with the Bloc Power CFO Cullen Kasunic and am pleased to know the debt notes I purchased in Bloc Power on Raise Green the past couple of years are going to a good cause. At GCEAF, I randomly bumped into Glenn Pearce-Oroz with whom I had a coffee over the summer in Vienna. Small world!

• Energy efficiency is apparently still struggling with the issue of being a sexy investment. I think load flexibility based on TOU and aggregator grid services will solve that.
• Even though air-sourced heat pumps are about 35% more efficient than their replacement, there's a struggle to incentivize replacements. I'm curious to know if there is a salvage value in the decommissioned heat pump.

?Nerding out with the Critical Materials Innovation Hub (CMI) at dinner was quirky and talked about high-grade ore, cobalt, and other REEs.

The last day, started with a breakfast with a gentleman who's leading the planning of green hydrogen distribution in Germany. You could sense his concern and stress caused by this Ukrainian energy crisis.

Now I figured I missed my chance to meet Granholm and was really just planning to attend a few tech sessions on grid-interactive energy-efficient buildings, see John Kerry with Jigar Shah speak about emerging energy markets, and head back to NYC.

But, maybe I should be more faithful because I'm chatting with Foo Conner , an anarchist who was the social media director of Occupy Wall Street, in the hall when suddenly the volume of the room increases, and this entourage surrounding Secretary Granholm walks right by me. She was busy chatting with someone so I respected her and didn't say anything as she walked away. NO! I thought that was my opportunity. Foo tells me to just wait, she'll be back, she has to come back this way.

?Well, I walked around, spoke some Japanese to a METI official, and then a couple of minutes later, noticed her across the room quietly (without the entourage) viewing an energy efficiency booth. I and a couple of others rushed and patiently waited to introduce ourselves and get some epic photos with Jennifer Granholm ! She loved hearing that Freedom Energy Logistics is boots on the ground accelerating the transition from natural gas to renewables.

It was a great ending to the week. To quote that anarchist, "this is people's Disney Land and they wait an entire year for this". I can see why. I feel grateful, and focused, and am looking forward to transcending this experience for good.

P.s., thank you Ben Hatt , for the complimentary RE+ ticket from Enverus .