Jen Downing

Operating Partner, Ara Partners · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investoroperatorexecutivearapartners.com ↗

At Ara Partners, she works alongside portfolio company leaders to execute growth plans focused on industrial decarbonization. She previously served at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, where she chaired the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment Program and led the landmark report Pathways to Commercial Liftoff for Virtual Power Plants.

17statements → 13claims → 9claims resolved → 78%fully supported → 3.71/5average certainty → 1.76/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 2said about them ↓

7 supported 1 partly supported 1 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 2 not checkable as stated how the 13 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 10 assertions · 3 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 13 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 9 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Jen argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Downing: VPP peaking capacity can be 60% cheaper than gas peakers

“For a utility, procuring peaking capacity from a VPP can be 60% cheaper than procuring it from a natural gas peaker plant.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 9:06 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted

Downing: US has roughly 5,000 utilities or load-serving entities

“We have somewhere around 5000 different utilities or load serving entities across the United States.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 19:40 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

75% certainty 3

86% certainty 4

none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Jen Downing on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said17 What others said2 Episodes1

Everything Jen Downing said on the Green Blueprint that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported

Downing: VPP peaking capacity can be 60% cheaper than gas peakers

“For a utility, procuring peaking capacity from a VPP can be 60% cheaper than procuring it from a natural gas peaker plant.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 9:06 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Insight

Downing: Utility CapEx return models heavily disincentivize low-cost VPP adoption

“The utility business model of compensating CapEx spending with maybe a seven to nine percent margin and passing through OPEX at cost to the consumer does not give utilities the right incentives to choose low-cost options such as VPPs”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 30:32 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Assertion Open · timeframe Dec 2030

Downing: US electric grid must serve 200 GW of new peak demand

“Well, we have the need to serve 200 gigawatts of new peak demand between now and 2030.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 15:02 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Downing: Tripling US VPP capacity by 2030 would save $10 billion annually

“But if we can triple the capacity of VPPs between now and 2030, we could serve 10 to 20% of peak load nationally through virtual power plants. And if we did that, because they are a lower cost solution, we'd be saving about ten billion dollars per year.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 15:40 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Downing: Utilities will increasingly procure virtual power plants directly

“And so I think what you'll end up seeing is utilities recognizing the value that they can get out of these VPPs and procuring VPPs directly.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 25:08 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Insight

Downing: VPPs are hard physical assets aggregated via software, not abstractions

“People misunderstand the word virtual to mean, you know, not real. When these are hard assets on the grid, it's not phone calls anymore. It's software integrations, and it's large aggregations of small resources that really add up to something very valuable.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 4:30 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Assertion Supported

Downing: Most VPP spending goes directly to participant incentives

“But what's even more striking is that the money that is spent on virtual power plants, the majority of those costs are actually participant incentives.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 9:16 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Assertion Supported

Downing: US currently has 30 to 60 GW in VPP capacity

“Well, depending on how you define it we have about 30 to 60 gigawatts of capacity in VPPs today.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 14:00 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Insight

Downing: Wholesale prices for VPPs do not capture distribution value

“I think when you have virtual power plants bidding into wholesale markets and earning a price that represents the value to the bulk power system, It's an incomplete price, because it's not taking a, it's not taking account of the value to the distribution grid…”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 23:48 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Assertion Supported

Downing: MISO and NYISO cite IT and staffing constraints delaying Order 2222

“You have MISO saying that they have, you know, multi-year timelines for the IT systems that need to be upgraded to implement this. You have New York ISO saying, you know, we don't have the staff capacity to register large numbers of very small DERs, so we're s…”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 28:16 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Assertion Partly supported

Downing: Gas peakers and grid lines operate at 5% to 25% utilization

“You know, that peaker plant may turn on for five percent, maybe 10% of hours of the year, and you're increasing the capacity of your transmission distribution lines to serve that higher peak, but then on average across the year, they're running at maybe 20, 25…”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 6:11 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Assertion Supported

Downing: Sunrun was first to bid VPP capacity into wholesale market

“Sunrun, and they participate in many different ways across the country in different markets with utilities, but, you know, they were the first to bid VPP capacity into a wholesale market. They bid capacity into ISO New England in and then deliver that energy i…”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 11:09 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Assertion Supported

Downing: Green Mountain Power saved millions replacing peakers with batteries

“Another example of a pure battery VPP is what Green Mountain Power is doing with their batteries where they have chosen to offer batteries to their customers at a low cost instead of procuring that capacity from peaker plants. And they've saved, Green Mountain…”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 12:10 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2030

Downing: US adding 20 to 90 GW of EV charger demand annually

“So between now and 2030, we're adding roughly 20 to 90 gigawatts of charger demand per year.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 17:49 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Assertion Supported

DOE's Downing: Only a minority of states use integrated distribution system planning

“Right now, a minority of states are doing integrated distribution system planning, where they're taking a look at, you know, what capacity they have on their distribution systems in relation to the bulk power system needs. But more and more states are adopting…”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 30:13 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Disclosure

Downing: DOE accepted 'VPP' because it couldn't erase market terminology

“We may have influence at the Department of Energy, but we didn't think we had so much influence we could erase the term VPP from the market.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 1:47 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

Assertion Contradicted

Downing: US has roughly 5,000 utilities or load-serving entities

“We have somewhere around 5000 different utilities or load serving entities across the United States.”

Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 19:40 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid

The other half of the tape: Jen Downing's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes on the Green Blueprint. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Stephen Lacey 1 Lisa Martine Jenkins 1