Public Power Underground

Rebecca Sexton , Crystal Ball , Dan Catchpole , and Paul Dockery run through the latest in public power and public-power-adjacent news. There are a few instances where we go off the rails - - - as it often does when discussing public-power-adjacent news. 1:12 - Rebecca breaks news in her opening, Celebrity Guest, monologue 11:46 - Arin Reports with Rebecca Reporting 15:20 - follow up on Arin Repor...

In this bonus episode Matt and Paul have a conversation with the Administrator and Chief Executive Officer of Bonneville Power Administration: John Hairston ! 4:50 - One-Year Anniversary Celebration and presentation of an honorary fry-weight Anadromous Championship 15:25 - Boardman to Hemingway (B2H) news 20:34 - New content begins here! 21:43 - A new, public power underground game: seen // heard...

4:39 - Arin Reports 8:16 - B2H news 13:58 - Advanced nuclear fission projects in the news and fun twitter follows 23:10 - Dispatches from #energytwitter on ev charger siting 32:35 - California Public Utilities Commission takes up NEM 3.0 and Jason has some thoughts 41:20 - Seattle City Light’s newly released electrification study 48:57 - Matt and Paul interview BPA CEO and Administrator, John Hair...

Karen Heim, Dan Catchpole, Ian Bledsoe, and Paul Dockery get up to speed on public power and public-power-adjacent news! 04:05 - Arin Reports with Ian Reporting! 08:20 - Northwest winter storm 14:36 - BPA's land acquisition program 20:23 - Another electric truck 25:21 - EDAM stakeholder process update 30:13 - PG&E Building ‘Remote Grids’ in Fire-prone Areas, and containerized microgrid systems...

It’s the finale for Season 3 and our Holiday Special! We welcomed special celebrity guests Crystal Ball, Emeka Anyanwu, Russ Mantifel, and NewsData’s Mark Ohrenschall to do a 2021 Energy News Countdown and 2022 prognostication. The episode is interspersed with Energy Carols! 08:06 Careful ‘cause it’s time change 46:04 Silver Generators 1:08:54 Simply forming a wonderful western market 1:18:52 O Po...

Michelle Manary, Bonneville Power Administration’s Chief Financial Officer who is on assignment to the Department of Energy as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Electric Delivery, joins Matthew Scroettnig (EWEB’s Power Planning Supervisor & Staff Counsel) and Paul Dockery (Clatskanie PUD’s Director of Energy Resources) to go deep into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, electrif...

It’s season 3, episode 10 - Infrastructure Week! for Public Power Underground. Michelle Manary joins us to chat about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act! Also joining is Juergen Pilot from the National Offshore Wind Research & Development Consortium and returning champion Kurt Miller. 07:28 - Arin Reports with (the newest Honorary Member of the Power Department) Crystal Ball Reporting!...

Scott Coe, a public power leader who started under the Greatest Generation, rose to leadership amongst boomers, and has led organizations with Boomers, Millenials, and, maybe even, zoomers, joins Matthew Scroettnig (EWEB’s Power Planning & Staff Counsel) and Paul Dockery (Clatskanie PUD’s Power Manager) to talk about all things public power and public-power-leadership. Public Power Underground...

It’s season 3, episode 9 - Leading Innovation Week! for Public Power Underground. Underground regulars (Karen Heim, Brian Fawcett, Ludgie Gelin, and Ian Bledsoe) are joined by our returning Podcast Ambassador from Clearing Up, Dan Catchpole. The episode includes conversations about blockchain technologies with NRU’s Resource Analyst, Ellyn Groves, and a preview of a longer interview by Special Cor...

It’s season 3, episode 8 - Distributed Demand Resource Response Week! for Public Power Underground. Underground regulars (Karen Heim, Arin Guillory, Ludgie Gelin, and Paul Dockery) are joined by our Podcast Ambassador from California Energy Markets, Jason Fordney this week. The episode includes conversations with Tacoma Power’s Ahlmahz Negash grant funding for microgrids and distributed resources,...

It’s season 3, episode 7 - Markets Week! for Public Power Underground. Underground regulars (Brian Fawcett, Arin Guillory, Ian Bledsoe, and Paul Dockery) are joined by our Podcast Ambassador from Clearing Up, Dan Catchpole, to get our listeners up to speed on public-power and public-power-adjacent news. The episode includes special, feature conversations with The Energy Authority’s (TEA) Chris Lew...

Your friends at the Power Department are excited to announce that we’re teaming up with NewsData to make Public Power Underground better, bigger, and more sustainable. In a special, bonus episode the friends you’ve come to know as the voices of the Underground ( Karen Heim , Brian Fawcett , Arin Guillory , Ian Bledsoe , Ludgie Gelin , and Paul Dockery ) reminisce a little about what we’ve enjoyed...

It’s season 3, episode 5 - Live from the Benson! week for Public Power Underground. In an upbeat, LIVE,  recording we get communication celebrities from across the region to come read some news for us on this week’s episode.  The episode also includes a couple of wonderful interviews with industry experts. We talk with BPA’s Industry Economist, Daniel Fisher, about product development philosophies...

It’s season 3, episode 4 - Fish Risk! week for Public Power Underground. We cover everything from permafrost to Dolly Parton on this week’s episode hosted a combination of new stars ( Ludgie Gelin and Betsy Bridge ), returning star ( Arin Guillory ), and regular co-host (Paul Dockery). The highlight is a wonderful interview with the Director of BPA’s Fish & Wildlife Program, Crystal Ball , whe...

It’s season 3, episode 3 - Into the Metaverse! week for Public Power Underground. We covered a BROAD range of news this week, and caught up with some celebrities including THE Vice President of Origination for Avangrid, Holly Carias, a BLUE CHECK mark, Dan Catchpole, and the curator of #energytwitter, Simon Mahan. 04:20 - Arin Reports  09:13 - Summary of wildfire impacts on BPA transmission lines...

It’s season 3, episode 2 - Into the Metaverse! - week for Public Power Underground. We caught up with a couple special guests, and got back into the regular format covering public-power and public-power-adjacent news. 02:17 - Arin Reports  07:16 - Temporary Gas Plants in California  10:02 - Tu Phan talks Power Markets and Metaverse  20:04 - PNNL’s Research on Heat Pump Water Heaters  22:16 - Roger...

Public Power Underground successfully pulled off its first-ever-livestream as our Season 3 Premiere! We broadcasted LIVE from across the region, simultaneously. Karen Heim and Humaira Falkenberg joined from remote locations to provide color commentary, insights, and questions. Joining the Underground on-location at the NWPPA Annual Conference were a series of very special guests who became the new...

Season 3 is the season to ROLL ON ENTHUSTIASTS, ROLL ON! Public Power Underground took the summer off, but with kids headed back to school it's time for the fall season to kick off. We've got some plans. The plans are bound to change.    The Underground's own Arin Guillory, CPA and Ian Bledsoe combined their talents to make this special Season 3 theme song inspired by Woody Guthrie's Roll On Colum...

It’s the SEASON FINALE , and to celebrate the conclusion of another wonderful season of Public Power Underground we invited a special guest of honor, Susan Ackerman , to join us for an after dark, mailbag episode. Susan recently announced her retirement from her role as Eugene Water and Electric Board’s (EWEB) Chief Energy Officer. To celebrate her career and ask her deeply personal and occasional...

It’s Harquahala Hypothesis! week on Public Power Underground! Northwest power markets are a topic of interest for the Underground, and we dive into a forward market theory on to start the news. After the market hypothesis, we talk to EWEB’s Jon Hart about his philosophy of market fundaments, check-in on transportation electrification with Clark Public Utilities’ Matt Babbitts, learn about public p...

We’re Catching up on all-the-news! this week on Public Power Underground! After a restful week hiatus we’re back catching up on all we missed. Joining to get us up to speed were Clearing Up’s Steve Ernst, Forth’s Erin Galiger, and NRU’s Megan Stratman! 01:22 - Arin Reports 06:49 - Colonial Pipeline begins restart of operations after a cyberattack   09:15 - Clearing Up 's Steve Ernst joins to catch...

It’s Return Counts are Up! week on Public Power Underground! Some great guest news and insight from returning Friends of the Underground this week. There’s a lot going on in the region and we’re just trying to keep up. We also talk a lot about EVs, because we really find electric vehicle public charging interesting. 01:52 - Arin Reports 05:45 - Guest News : PNUCC’s Tomás Morrisey talks about the N...

It’s Resource Adequacy double-feature! week on Public Power Underground! We talk about the Northwest Power Pool’s Resource Adequacy program in back-to-back interviews. First with NWPP’s Chief Operating Officer, Gregg Carrington, and the second interview with Chair of WSPP’s Operating Committee, Matthew Schroettnig. And to get caught up on the BP-22/TC-22 rate cases we talk to PPC’s Mike Deen about...

It’s Cluster of Symbiotic Markets! week on Public Power Underground! Naming for this week’s episode came from a wonderful interview of The Energy Authority’s (TEA) Director of Power Trading - West, Tu Phan. We also got a double-feature interview with Kurt and Austin from Northwest River Partners, and continued our series of interviews by Public Power Underground’s Special Salmon War Correspondent,...

It’s Bring Your Ideas! week on Public Power Underground! A lot of guests and guest news this week. Arin Reports (01:16), Tacoma Power’s Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, talks about demand response (04:21), Puget Sound Energy’s Integrated Resource Plan identifies biodiesel peakers (19:30), Guest News from Oregon Department of Energy ’s Blake Shelide (20:46), Brian Johnson introduces Holly Dohrman’s interview o...