Mar 11, 2022 · 1h 1m · catalyst
What the grid can learn from the internet
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of Catalyst, guest host Laura Pierpoint and Camus Energy CEO Astrid Atkinson examine how modern cloud computing, automated device aggregation, and progressive regulatory models can modernize legacy electric distribution grids to manage millions of distributed clean energy resources.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Shayle as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 4.7 Guest disagreement 0.7 Shayle pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is Shayle, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 47:18 Reframing grid optimization as a fundamental visibility problem
Atkinson rejects the premise that software optimization is the primary starting hurdle, explaining that utilities told her point-blank they cannot even see the low-voltage assets they are expected to manage.
Hardest push from Shayle ▶ 35:51 Challenging customer engagement viabilityPierpoint pushes back on relying on individual customer attention by citing data that consumers spend under three minutes per year reviewing their power bills.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 20:10 Putting utility data scale in perspective against hyperscale cloudAtkinson provides a stark numerical comparison showing that a utility collecting 96 million points a day is dwarfed by Google's trillions of daily operational data points.
Shayle holds their own ▶ 59:22 Contextualizing utility transition with clean tech boom historyPierpoint demonstrates deep sector domain expertise by recalling the failed 'disruption' paradigm of mid-2000s clean tech and articulating why modern partnership models succeed where software-only disruption failed.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Shayle as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Shayle pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Redefining Utility Customers and the Dynamic Two-Way Grid | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Pierpoint opens by sharing an industry anecdote from her time at Exelon regarding the historical neglect of the word 'customer' in utility engineering. Atkinson builds collaboratively on this framing, discussing the transition toward a dynamic two-way grid. | |
| Categorizing Distributed Resources and Drivers of Grid Adoption | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Pierpoint asks Atkinson to categorize DERs beyond rooftop solar. Atkinson educates by outlining large-scale industrial loads, heated streets, and resilience drivers behind battery adoption during extended blackouts. | |
| Grid-Edge Bottlenecks and Lessons from Hawaii's Solar Saturation | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Pierpoint references Hawaii as a case study for grid challenges with high solar penetration. Atkinson details how unmanaged solar saturation led local utilities to impose installation caps and push back against customer additions. | |
| Comparing Legacy Utility IT with Modern Cloud Data Architecture | 4 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Pierpoint contrasts Silicon Valley data expertise with utility conservatism. Atkinson delivers a masterclass comparing legacy utility on-prem servers handling millions of data points to hyperscale cloud architectures processing trillions daily at Google. | |
| The Role of Bulk Generation versus Distributed Flexibility | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Pierpoint prompts Atkinson on whether DERs will make up 15% or up to 80% of future generation. Atkinson clarifies that bulk resources will likely handle 70-80% of generation, but customer-side flexibility is vital to balance that bulk capacity. | |
| Sponsor Messages: Bloom Energy and Engie | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Following an ad break, Atkinson explains how rural electric cooperatives differ from investor-owned utilities by prioritizing members and moving rapidly toward ambitious clean energy targets. | |
| Market Incentives, Automated Control, and Device Aggregation | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Pierpoint points out that consumers spend under three minutes a year thinking about electricity bills. Atkinson agrees that human intervention is impractical and explains how automated software aggregations and OEM incentives must manage flexibility. | |
| Wholesale Market Access and FERC Order 2222 Implementation | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Pierpoint and Atkinson explore FERC Order 2222, discussing how federal mandates force wholesale markets and distribution utilities to accommodate aggregations across multiple substations. | |
| Distribution Blind Spots and the Critical Need for Grid Visibility | 4 | 7 | 2 | 1 | When Pierpoint asks how much data is necessary to manage the grid edge, Atkinson highlights that distribution utilities are essentially blind below the substation level, operating on multi-hour-old data. | |
| Data Privacy Protocols and OEM Telemetry Integration | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Pierpoint asks whether centralized data repositories will require retrofits or mandatory sharing. Atkinson explains data privacy boundaries, noting aggregators and ISOs only need specific operational signals rather than full personal billing records. | |
| Applying Internet Era Innovation and Cross-Industry Collaboration to Power | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Atkinson draws parallels to fast-iteration aerospace and tech deployment models, while Pierpoint reflects on the failures of mid-2000s clean tech 'disruption' rhetoric, emphasizing the need for cross-domain collaboration. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Pierpoint: California grid hosts 1.2M solar panels and 1M EVs
“20 years ago, California had tens of thousands of grid-edge assets. Now, it has millions of them. This includes 1.2 million solar panels, providing an estimated 15% of California's electricity, and a million plug-in vehicles.”
Pierpoint: California EVs could reach 5 million by 2030
“By 2030, the number of solar panels could nearly double, and the number of EVs on the road could increase five times to about five million.”
Pierpoint: Utilities historically treated end-users as passive meters, not humans
“Historically, in the utility industry, we just talk about meters, you know, that for them, basically, everything that happens at the end of the line is about the meter. So you have this many meters in this territory, you have this many meters acting in this ma…”
Atkinson: California power outages created massive waiting lists for home batteries
“There's a massive waiting list for battery installations, because folks in California have seen a lot of scheduled and natural disaster-fueled power outages, and it's not uncommon now especially in more, like, semi-rural places for people to see planned outage…”
Atkinson: Few smart thermostat owners participate in utility grid-pay programs
“You know, many people have Nest thermostats. Very few participate in programs where they're actually getting paid to do anything on the grid.”
Atkinson: High solar saturation in Hawaii and Australia causes utility pushback and installation limits
“One of the things that we've seen go into place in places like Hawaii and Australia, where this is also an issue, is that you'll start to see limitations on how much solar can go in, whether that's limiting new installs or limiting the size of the install. You…”
Atkinson: Most utilities lack direct metering data on rooftop solar
“Very few utilities have great data on what's happening with the solar generation within their territory, for example. Most utilities don't directly meter that, so they can't really tell exactly what's happening with rooftop solar.”
Atkinson: Most utilities still run 1990s-era on-premise server software
“Most utilities are still working with software and data management systems that are kind of old school. They're still deploying software that goes on a really big server in the server room that's sort of on site with the utility. And that was state of the art …”
Atkinson: Local resources will provide 20% to 30% of total electricity
“And so I think, you know, if you think about just pure percentages, my guess is that probably 20 or 30% is probably about right for generation from local resources.”
Atkinson: Only 150 of 3,000 US utilities are investor-owned
“Within the U.S., there's about 3000 utilities overall, and of those, about a 150 are the investor-owned utilities that most people are familiar with, like PG&E, or ComEd, or ConEd, or whoever. The remaining 2850 or so are Primarily publicly owned utilities, an…”
Atkinson: Only six US utilities target full decarbonization by 2030
“It's really only six utilities in the country that have set goals that are that short term for full scale decarbonization.”
Atkinson: Kit Carson Co-op will achieve 100% daytime solar in 2022
“Kit Carson Electric Cooperative that serves the area around Taos in New Mexico. Set a goal to get to a hundred percent of their daytime energy usage generated from local solar by 2022. And they are, they're making that goal. They're going to be there within a …”
Atkinson: Traditional utility demand response relied on manual phone calls to large customers
“Most utilities have had some form of demand response program in place for, you know, 10, 2030 years, but typically up until now they were really only participated in by very, very large customers because the mechanism actually was calling people on the phone t…”
Atkinson: Smart device vendors continuously track every connected thermostat, charger, and battery
“They all have computer systems that talk to all of those devices all the time. They all know exactly what every thermostat and hot water heater and EV charger and battery is doing every moment of every day.”
Atkinson: Distribution utilities lack systems to handle FERC 2222 energy resources
“It actually mandates that those aggregations are allowed to cross multiple connection points between the transmission system and local grids. And so that actually puts quite a bit of pressure onto distribution utilities to figure out mechanisms that would allo…”
Atkinson: Distribution utilities operate with customer-level grid data delayed by hours or days
“And so it's really normal for distribution utilities today to have a view of their grid that's at least two hours old and often
You know, more than a day old at least as regards to what's happening at the individual customer level.”
Atkinson: Existing tech can identify individual homes from meter data alone
“There's already pretty good technology around being able to identify individual houses by looking at their meter data.”
Pierpoint: The mid-2000s cleantech boom failed to disrupt electric utilities
“You know, I remember back in the mid 2000 during that, that clean tech boom that one of the buzzwords everyone kept using is disruption. And everybody was like, we're gonna go disrupt the electric utility industry, and well, now we're all pretty clear that tha…”