Energy Changemakers Podcast

Two energy giants come together with a new strategy The global data center boom is colliding head-on with one of the most pressing bottlenecks in the energy sector: access to reliable, timely power. In this episode, host Elisa Wood sits down with Jim Mozell, senior director of strategic partnerships at Siemens Energy, and Juan Colina, data center and IT segment leader at Eaton, to discuss how toge...

Guest: Bruce Nordman, Retired Research Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory After nearly 40 years at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Bruce Nordman has stepped into retirement — leaving with some big ideas about the future of our electricity system. In this episode, host Elisa Wood speaks with Bruce about the insights he’s gathered over his career and why he believes the grid has...

In this episode of Energy Changemakers , host Elisa Wood sits down with renowned energy economist Skip Laitner to explore the surprising ways our “stuff” — from food waste to excess parking lots — is shaping our energy use, economy, and environment. Drawing from his decades of work at the EPA, ACEEE, and beyond, Skip reframes the energy conversation from simply producing more to using resources mo...

As rising sea levels, floods, and wildfires continue to impact large swaths of the U.S., many people will be displaced from the coasts to the middle states. Hillary Brown, former director of the Urban Sustainability Program at City College of New York, sees this as an opportunity for faltering, inland communities to capture new economic opportunities — if they prepare for population growth now. Cu...

Elisa Wood interviews Mark Feasel — a former leader at Schneider Electric and FuelCell Energy, and now an independent energy consultant — about the growing tension between energy demand and access in the age of AI. As data centers proliferate and energy demand rises, utilities and innovators face a new challenge: Where will the power come from? Mark shares his perspective on how distributed energy...

What exactly is a “digital grid”—and why is it the cornerstone of our energy future? In this episode, Elisa Wood sits down with Ruben Llanes, CEO of the Digital Grid business at Schneider Electric, to explore the digital transformation of energy infrastructure. With over 15 years at Schneider and a lifetime surrounded by energy systems (his father owned an electrical contracting business), Ruben s...

Scaling microgrids has long been a sticking point in the clean energy conversation—custom-built and complex, they’ve traditionally defied mass deployment. But what if microgrids could be treated as products rather than projects? In this episode of the Energy Changemakers Podcast , host Elisa Wood sits down with Alok Singhania , Senior Partner at Gridscape , to explore how standardizing microgrids...

In this episode, Elisa Wood sits down with Tim Hade to discuss why now—despite, or perhaps because of—federal policy turbulence, the distributed energy industry is poised for massive transformation. Tim unpacks his move to Santa Barbara (which, by the way, he calls “home to the worst grid in the continental U.S.”) and how that community could become a national model for DER-powered resilience. The...

In this insightful episode of the Energy Changemakers Podcast, Elisa Wood is joined by industry experts Lisa Cohn and Peter Asmus to explore the dynamic world of microgrids. They trace the evolution of microgrids from niche solutions for remote areas to vital tools for resilience in a world facing rising energy demands, data center expansion, and climate uncertainty. Lisa and Peter share their ext...

Is it time to rethink who controls the grid? Elisa Wood sits down with legal expert and author Sandeep Vaheesan to discuss the rarely told—but critically important—history of public power in the United States. From the rise and fall of rural electric cooperatives to today’s mounting frustration with investor-owned utilities, Sandeep offers a sweeping, insider’s look at why our energy systems are f...

Most Americans have never heard of their state’s public utility commission—yet these low-profile regulatory bodies control over $200 billion in annual utility spending and directly influence the price you pay for electricity and gas. In this episode of Energy Changemakers , host Elisa Wood sits down with Charles Hua, founder and executive director of PowerLines, a national nonprofit pushing for sm...

As uncertainty looms over the future of the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC), many in the distributed energy sector are concerned about how to keep solar and storage projects economically viable. In this episode, host Elisa Wood sits down with Gareth Evans, CEO of VECKTA, to unpack his recent analysis that offers surprising—and hopeful—insights. Gareth’s findings challenge conventional wisdom:...

Across America, sunny driveways are abundant yet surprisingly overlooked as potential power generators. Now, a Florida-based startup, Gismo Power, is pioneering a remarkable innovation: a portable, plug-in solar EV charger called the MEGA –  or Mobile Electricity Generating Appliance. In this episode of the Energy Changemakers Podcast , host Elisa Wood talks with Antonia Ginsberg-Klemmt, CEO and m...

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are often overlooked, misunderstood, or underrepresented in discussions about the future of the electric grid. In this episode, host Elisa Wood explores why DERs—like rooftop solar, batteries, small wind turbines, and community energy projects—are so critical to building a decentralized, resilient, and equitable energy system. Elisa shares why she founded Energy...

How do you make an ambitious clean energy goal a reality that benefits an entire community? In this episode, we sit down with Cody Hooven, principal and co-founder of Evolution Affairs, to explore how she led the charge in creating San Diego Community Power —now the second-largest Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) in the U.S. From navigating policy and financial hurdles to engaging local stakehol...

AI is driving up power demand, but how much and how fast remains under debate. Bulls warn we’ll need far more electric power than we’re poised to produce. Bears say utilities inflate the numbers and don’t account for the efficiencies technology tends to achieve over time. The debate heightened recently when DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, announced that it had developed a more efficient AI large l...

Bill Prindle, principal of Better Energy Advisors, told us what distributed energy resource (DER) companies don’t get about utilities in episode 1 of this two-part series. Now he looks at the other angle — what utilities don’t get about distributed energy players.  It’s a clash of business cultures: Utilities have historically operated as monopolistic, cautious, heavily regulated entities. DER com...

With an expensive push underway to build large power plants and transmission to meet growing electric demand, energy efficiency is gaining new importance. Creating more negawatts (energy reduction) reduces the need to build new energy infrastructure, saving everyone a lot of money. Despite its benefits, energy efficiency has always been a “little engine that could” technology trying to overcome ma...

In this episode of the Energy Changemakers podcast, host Elisa Wood discusses the concept of non-energy benefits with Roger Lin, Senior Attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. They explore the importance of valuing the social, environmental, and community impacts of energy decisions, which are often overlooked in traditional energy planning. California's efforts to incorporate non-energy...

In this episode of the Energy Changemakers podcast, host Elisa Wood interviews Russell Lowes from Arizonans for Community Choice. They explore the potential of Community Choice Energy (CCE) programs in transforming local energy. Russell shares his journey from high school activism to becoming an author who influenced the fate of a nuclear power plant in Arizona. The conversation delves into the me...

In an interview with Elisa Wood, veteran energy innovator Steve Pullins, CEO of ResSET,  unveils his latest venture, a highly unusual sustainable apartment building in Ann Arbor, Michigan, set to be entirely off-grid. While foregoing a grid connection isn’t typical, especially for a city building, Pullins maintains it’s time to think of the electric grid as just one of several energy options, not...

At one point in Awesense’s history, CEO and Founder Mischa Steiner was in a serious accident when riding his bike. While he was still recovering, his company was named in a lawsuit, lost investors, and faced an audit. It was a dark period, but the company made it through and navigated its way into a key energy transition market. Using its “digital twin on steroids,” Awesense helps make utility dat...

In this episode of the Energy Changemakers podcast, host Elisa Wood engages in a rich discussion with Bill Prindle, a senior energy and climate leader. Bill brings over 40 years of industry experience and provides a unique perspective on the evolving roles of utilities and distributed energy resource (DER) companies in the modern grid. They delve into the financial models that govern investor-owne...

In this episode of the Energy Changemakers podcast, host Elisa Wood interviews Alex Bazhinov, founder and president of Lumin, a smart panel company. Alex shares his remarkable journey from working in the mining industry in Russia to pioneering smart home energy solutions in Charlottesville, Virginia. Like so many entrepreneurs, he began in his garage developing a prototype. Now, partnering with cl...

Voters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will be asked to approve a ground-breaking new kind of utility on November 5, one run by the city that provides local, distributed energy to those who choose to participate. Missy Stults, Ann Arbor’s Sustainability and Innovations Director, joins host Elisa Wood to explain why the city decided to pursue the creation of the Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU), how it wil...