With Great Power

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How VPPs came of age Apr 14, 2026

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In 2007, Apple released its first iPhone. That same year, Seth Frader-Thompson co-founded EnergyHub, planning to leverage smartphones to help consumers save energy.

But over time, the startup realized there was actually a bigger opportunity: helping utilities centralize and control the growing list of distributed energy resources, like smart thermostats and rooftop solar, that their customers were installing. In fact, EnergyHub was so early to the build-out of virtual power plants and distributed energy resource management systems that Seth has been called the OG of DERMS.

This week on With Great Power, Seth tells Brad Langley what EnergyHub has learned about how virtual power plants mature – and the test they’ve developed to track maturity – as well as how EnergyHub plans to meet its goal of bringing 100 gigawatts of dispatchable flexibility online by 2035.

Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

PJM’s high stakes reform Mar 31, 2026

Show notes

In 2019, when Julia Hoos moved to Houston for a role with Boston Consulting Group, she had no interest in the energy industry. For one thing, it was — and largely remains — a boy’s club. For another, energy just didn’t excite her.

But as she started learning about the energy transition, Julia became curious. Before long, she was crunching numbers for an oil and gas client looking to understand how California’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate would impact demand for its fuel products. Then, in 2022, Julia joined power market analytics firm Aurora Energy Research, where she focuses on the eastern U.S. and the PJM power market.

This week on With Great Power, Julia talks to Brad Langley about the pressures that PJM is facing, and its reform efforts. They also discuss how demand flexibility could support more data centers without adding new generation, and how utilities are using large load tariffs to manage costs and grid reliability.

Can AI help save the grid? Mar 17, 2026

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Growing up in Silicon Valley, Varun Sivaram didn’t look to Elon Musk or Sergey Brin to learn about success stories. He looked to his dad, a material scientist who immigrated from India.

But Varun’s own dreams of pursuing a career in technology took a circuitous path. His physics lab at Oxford discovered a promising new solar material, but when he emerged from graduate school in 2012, it was no time to launch a renewables startup. After a successful early career pursuing his other love, foreign relations, he pivoted to tech. In 2024, Varun founded Emerald AI, which helps data centers adjust their workloads to use energy more efficiently.

This week on With Great Power, Varun explains why he thinks AI can help save the grid. Varun and Brad talk about the demonstration pilots Emerald AI has completed and Varun’s vision for a massive AI factory the company is helping to build, in Virginia.

National Grid maps its wildfire risk Mar 03, 2026

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From his early days as a paper boy and eagle scout to his time as a naval officer decades later, Casey Kirkpatrick has always believed in service. Today, after more than 25 years with the energy giant National Grid, he’s still serving.

Casey directs National Grid’s strategic engineering team, where he focuses on an emerging threat that most of its east coast ratepayers don’t think much about: wildfires. To get ahead of that growing risk, National Grid has partnered with Rhizome, a company that helps utilities understand their wildfire vulnerabilities.

This week on With Great Power, Casey tells Brad what National Grid has learned from its work with other utilities and with Rhizome — including a few surprises. They also explore how wildfire preparedness fits into National Grid's broader climate resilience planning, and why the threat looks somewhat different across the utility's UK operations.

How millions of small shifts make gigawatts of energy capacity Feb 17, 2026

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Most kids don’t think much about how buildings are powered or how much energy they waste. But growing up in an old, inefficient apartment building in New York, Ben Brown did.

From an early age he knew he wanted to work on climate solutions and energy efficiency. That interest led him to Google, where he worked on Nest Renew, which allowed Nest thermostat users to adjust their energy usage to times when electricity is cleaner or cheaper. In 2024, Nest Renew merged with the demand response platform OhmConnect to form a new venture, Renew Home. In November, Renew Home released a study showing that small shifts in five million of its smart thermostats across the U.S. can provide utilities with four gigawatts of energy capacity.

This week on With Great Power, Ben Brown dives into how Renew Home conducted its study, what it says about the bigger potential for shifting capacity nationwide, and why he says thermostats are just the beginning when it comes to connecting utilities with available energy capacity inside homes.

How Eversource became the first US utility to provide geothermal power Feb 03, 2026

Show notes

Nikki Bruno learned early in her career that debates over climate change – and how to respond – are seldom black and white. Progress comes from honest discourse and collaboration.

At Eversource, where she leads the utility's thermal solutions and operational services, Nikki manages a geothermal project that has brought together environmental activists, the utility’s gas infrastructure team, ratepayers, and government leaders in Framingham, Mass. The result is the first utility-led geothermal network in the country, which came online in 2024.

This week on With Great Power, Nikki Bruno describes how the gas and electric utility Eversource uses geothermal energy to power 140 homes and businesses. She talks about challenges and successes of the project, how Eversource is now expanding it with Energy Department funding, and how the utility is measuring success.

High stakes for state-level clean energy Jan 20, 2026

Show notes

Heather O’Neill’s career in energy started in a pretty unusual place: working for a Republican billionaire. But in 2004 she joined the Robertson Foundation as a program officer just as it was exploring clean energy investments.

In 2012, Heather joined Advanced Energy United — an industry association that promotes grid-scale and distributed energy innovations — to focus on state-level and regional energy policy. Today, she leads the organization as president and CEO.

This week on With Great Power, Heather O’Neill reflects on some state-level clean energy policy wins from an otherwise dark 2025. She describes Advanced Energy United’s strategies for supporting policy in 2026, and explains why she’s focused on the 36 gubernatorial races and midterm elections in the coming year.

‘Wonky solutions’ to support grid resilience Jan 06, 2026

Show notes

At age 10, Neil Chatterjee found common ground with his immigrant father through politics. Watching then-Vice President George H. W. Bush spar with Michael Dukakis during a presidential debate on TV, Neil and his dad connected in a way they hadn’t before.

Years later, after serving as Senator Mitch McConnell’s energy advisor and appointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, he found that he needed to shed his partisan views — and his reputation as McConnell’s coal guy — to become a convener. Doing so helped him enact policies to make a more resilient electric grid with more renewable and distributed energy resources.

This week on With Great Power, Neil Chatterjee explains why he thinks energy policy has gotten so politicized in the U.S. and what could change that trajectory. He and Brad delve into some of the weedy issues FERC will be addressing in 2026 and some “wonky solutions" to load growth and other grid challenges. Neil also talks about his current role as chief government affairs officer at Palmetto, a provider of residential renewable energy products.

Season 6 is coming soon! Dec 16, 2025

Show notes

The power sector is at an inflection point. Skyrocketing load growth and rising energy prices are converging with an aging electric grid, inadequate power supply, and regulatory hurdles. It’s a perfect storm that’s forcing utilities to take a serious look at their business models.

But new innovations focused on meeting energy demand and confronting the affordability crisis are tackling these challenges head on.

If you’ve been a With Great Power listener over the past five seasons, you’ve heard stories from many of the people behind those innovations. This season, we’re digging even deeper.

You’ll hear from some of the leading voices in the power sector, from utilities and energy management companies to developers, community advocates, and grid planners.

Stay tuned for all new episodes about the superheroes building the future electric grid, today.

Season 6 launches soon. Subscribe to With Great Power on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.

Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

Unconventional lessons in customer experience Nov 11, 2025

Show notes

In Nigeria, tens of millions of people live without access to reliable power. Utibe Bassey grew up in Lagos, and knows what it’s like to not have electricity to perform simple daily tasks.

When she moved to the United States as a teen, she didn’t think much about electric utilities. But she did think about how managers treat employees – a thought spurred by an unfortunate instance she witnessed while working at a fast food chain. Ever since then, Utibe has refined her personal philosophy, “Love as a KPI,” which prioritizes kindness and human connection in the workplace.
As we prepare for our season six launch, we bring you one of our favorite episodes from season three of With Great Power. In this rerun episode, Utibe tells Brad about how she puts her personal philosophy to work at Dominion Energy, where she is vice president of customer experience. She also talks about what it means to work in the power industry, having lived without access to reliable power in her youth.

Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.

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