Electrifying - Everything, Everywhere, and EveryONE

This past fall I immersed myself in conversations about electrification. Electrification is happening for everything, everywhere... but not all at once! It’s a work that started decades ago and is now cohering in ways that require more collaboration across disciplines. I found a common theme in the energy transition multiverse: all kinds of new players are jumping in to help us move off fossil fuels at the scale we need.

1. At the 2022 Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) Joint Symposium, energy experts updated the public on projects that receive funding from the California Energy Commission (CEC) and California’s investor-owned utilities (IOUs). This time, regulators and utilities discussed the future of electric vehicles and the grid. They also shared fascinating updates on the plans for lithium extraction in California’s Imperial Valley, which are not only sustainable and use existing infrastructure, but also meet new community development and equity goals.
2. In person at VERGE 22, Vartan Badalian at the Greenbiz team created a whole track devoted to transportation electrification and hosted a workshop of 50 industry stakeholders interested in improving the EV charging experience. Equity was top of mind, and not an afterthought.
3. Zpryme and DNV hosted “Bringing the Heat: Equity Within Clean Heating,” a webinar featuring the New York Power Authority speaking about their partnership with the New York City Housing Authority. Together they are prioritizing public housing for a massive transition from gas-fired furnaces and high-demand AC to clean heating and cooling.
4. And at the White House Electrification Summit, we saw strong public-private partnerships in clean energy generation, transportation electrification, and building decarbonization. Not only was there alignment between separate government agencies like the departments of Energy, Transportation, and Housing, but there was also rapid coordination between federal and state agencies. While entrepreneurs are innovating in new areas, industry veterans are also finally bringing their mature solutions to market, and offices like the DOE’s Loan Programs Office are bringing them all together at the right time.

I can be cynical about these sorts of initiatives, but these days I believe the diversity of stakeholders and collaborators is going to be a help, and not a hindrance. Here are the ways the current discourse gives me hope.

Leaders Are Starting With Equity

Sustainability and equity are spawning unprecedented alliances. One such powerful combination is the partnership between energy, housing, and health. The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has been working with New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to replace window AC units. NYPA’s SVP of Clean Energy Solutions, Keith Hayes, stated on the Zpryme webinar, “As buildings, both commercial and residential, undergo electrification to provide clean heat, it’s imperative for utilities to work with underserved communities to ensure they’re not left out of this transformation.” We all prosper when the benefits of indoor air quality and local job creation are widely distributed to a broad segment of affordable or multifamily housing stock, often in the communities where environmental and economic harm is acute.

Equity is also front and center of transportation electrification. At the White House Electrification Summit, on a panel dedicated to transportation innovation, Portland General Electric’s CEO Maria Pope voiced what many utility CEOs have expressed: that the utility does not want anyone to be left behind in the energy transition. As part of a combined regional utility effort in the Pacific Northwest, they are deploying roughly $3.4 billion towards electric infrastructure, $970 million of which is going to communities that have been traditionally left behind.

Making The Table Bigger

Representation and inclusion during decision-making are crucial to equity. To that end, public agencies are working on ways to listen to more representative voices. The first step is having a seat at the table while policy shifts are being designed. Today’s energy transition strategy will impact generations to come, and they deserve a say.

At a workshop by the Equity in a Clean Energy Economy Collaborative, I asked public utility commissioners from Indiana, Illinois, and Maryland about how they address barriers to participation. I was encouraged by the flexibility and creativity I heard. For instance, Indiana’s regulatory agency saw a problem: public hearings are only accessible to people who had time to attend a meeting during the work day, and who had transportation to get to commission headquarters and hearing rooms. It’s easier to keep up with the issues and weigh in on record if it’s your job to be a lobbyist or intervenor, or you are a well-resourced retired person, and you’re not taking care of children or sick family members. Think about how few people fit that profile.

So, Indiana is trying out different ways of bringing the Commission to the community. They host public comment sessions live in community centers so people don’t have to travel to an official commission hearing; schedule workshops at times when working people can attend; partner with community organizations to provide childcare so parents can attend; and, importantly, reimburse participants in the same way we pay people for taking time off work to perform jury duty. While regulators on the panel knew that tactics like these would invite criticism and scrutiny, they were willing to have hard conversations and keep trying different ways to make the table big enough for everyone.

Relationships Require Intention

Conversations about infrastructure now consider the relationships that undergird the physical world to be “power structures” in both senses of the word. The U.S. government‘s current focus on infrastructure has created new agency alliances: the Departments of Energy, Transportation, Housing, and Education, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Environmental Protection Agency have joined efforts on everything from electrifying school bus fleets to massive public housing improvements to restoring tribal governance over energy generation.

It takes real work, time, and commitment to realize true alignment. Imagine the number of extra meetings, briefings, and joint sessions needed to make this possible! The point is not to add to bureaucracy but instead share jurisdiction, consolidate efforts, and better utilize resources.

Relationships Are Infrastructure Too

Debra Gore-Mann, CEO of the Greenlining Institute, defines “equity” as both a practice and a tool. (I recommend you watch the The White House Electrification Summit to hear her presentation at around 47:00.) Redlining practices result in disadvantaged communities being housed in close proximity to heavy traffic corridors, fossil fuel power plants, and industrial polluters. Greenlining can be the antidote, applied to the built transportation and energy distribution infrastructure.

According to Gore-Mann, we have the data we need to understand the “who, where, and what” of health, climate and economic impacts on equity. We could use that data to ensure that all people have access to electrified transportation options that are sustainable and reliable. In her words,

“Equity provides us with information that will move us along a path of acceleration and expansion. Data science, predictive analytics, twinning, smart data, and GIS lets us organize, visualize, and analyze the solutions. But we can only use that data and those systems if we are in a relationship with communities. In fact, community relationship is infrastructure.”

Relationships Make Better Use of Resources

Debra Gore-Mann’s point, that data is most effective in relationships with communities, was certainly true of the EPIC-funded work being done in Imperial Valley, CA. For three decades, Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) has been generating and supplying geothermal power to the Imperial Valley. It turns out that the brining process they use for the geothermal plant also yields significant volumes of lithium from the valley’s rich store.

Lithium will be vital to the supply chain of lithium ion batteries for EV infrastructure buildout. With the federal push to create domestic supply chains for EV battery production, the community sees an opportunity to create a new economy around a 100% renewable extraction and production process. The local community had a shared vision to create a new “California goldrush” in a sustainable, clean way that is equitable and does not exploit communities.

Building on the relationships they had with geothermal energy providers, the region’s community agencies, unions, and educational institutions came together as diverse stakeholders to create the Lithium Valley Community Coalition. The coalition drives the agenda for how companies like CTR and battery manufacturers set up shop, work with the community’s education system, and take care of community needs. In the case of Imperial Valley, this equitable and sustainable future will be an organic development of existing relationships, both with the people and the land, nurtured over decades.

Diversity Breeds Productivity

Utilities are notorious for staying in pilot project purgatory, but as they partner with OEM battery and charging manufacturers, fleet managers, and local governments on EV infrastructure, they now seem to have more drive to deploy and deliver. Each stakeholder is bringing their piece of the EV customer journey to the table to reduce friction in the user experience. Some of the work on vehicle-to-grid (V2G) bi-directional charging and zero-emission vehicles are being compared to moon-shots, creating fertile spaces for technologists to work with energy companies to research and develop solutions. The ultimate goal is to create a path of least resistance for us to move away from internal combustion engines.

At the 2022 Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) Joint Symposium, PG&E’s CEO Patti Poppe stated how much she wants to make it easy to work with PG&E, “No more death-by-pilots.” Poppe described the utility’s pilots with major automakers to co-develop V2G solutions. She was both frank and hopeful, admitting that the relationships with OEMs were rocky when she came on board, but now are productive working relationships as all parties are committed to creating societal benefits of bi-directional cars. Good relationships take work.

We're All in it Together Now

In the face of climate change and injustice, it makes increasingly less sense to be siloed and self-serving. I’m really heartened by the movement toward collaboration, systems-thinking, and networking. But while we’re feeling the urgency, we recognize that it’s crucial to take the time and care to build trust. Trust happens when we share information, connect dots, create support platforms for partnerships, and cast a wider net for our networks.

We have to balance contradictions. We can share data in real time, but we must also be patient listeners and watch for blind spots. We can automate processes and streamline supply chains, but we must first make sure the foundation for those systems is fair and sustainable. We can have granular insight into the particularities of segments, but still must find big, inspiring, common goals.

Infrastructure is technology, machinery, and software; but it is also human-to-human collaboration, partnership, and friendship. Having all hands on deck is messy, but we’re working it out, and bringing our full selves to this work.

The views expressed in my newsletter and posts represent my own opinions and not necessarily those of my employer, Salesforce.

Side Trails

Each issue I’ll post a few links to content or people to follow, so we can weave a stronger, denser, bigger network together. My picks for this week are links to the above content as well as deeper dives into equity and electrification.

• ?? Zpryme Webinar: Bringing the Heat Equity Within Heating - I’m always heartened when I get to hear more detail about one project. It’s the particulars that help us mark progress. DNV-GL’s Jared Metoyer gives solid context for the social forces and values that drive equity in energy, and NYPA’s Keith Hayes fleshes that out with his discussion of NYPA’s collaboration with new partners like the New York City Housing Authority.
• ?? The White House Electrification Summit (YouTube) - There is an amusing moment when Senator Martin Heinrich reveals that his dad worked on demand response for utilities, and as a kid, he used to wear a t-shirt that said “I turn on after 7” — so he really gets our industry. This was as fun for me to find out as when I discovered Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego used to work for a utility on energy efficiency. Let’s get more energy nerds into public office!
• ?? EV Noire sponsors an annual E-Mobility Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Conference. The participants are all people who make things happen in our policies and practices. You can watch the 2021 E-Mobility DEI Conference content on YouTube. While much of the policy and market trends have evolved since 2021, there are still some great discussions about the diversity of EV consumers, how to work with local government, and job creation in this sector.
• ?? Article: Improving EV Charging Infrastructure for All: Takeaways from GreenBiz Group’s VERGE 22 - Stacy Noblet, VP of Transportation Electrification at ICF, is one of the most knowledgeable and well-connected people I know in the energy and climate space. She is accustomed to working with the gamut of stakeholders. This is her lucid summary of the diverse conversations we had about EV CX.