This whole pandemic thing has been a bummer. But one bright spot has been discovering podcasts that really let you go deep on a subject. And, of course, the subject we like the most here at the Energy Choice Coalition is electricity. A couple of our most recent discoveries are Building Local Power from the Institute of Local Self-Reliance, Local Energy Rules, and The Freeing Energy Podcast by Bill Nussey and Sam Easterby.
ILSR’s Building Local Power doesn’t always talk about power markets, but when they do it’s a doozy. Last month the podcast featured a conversation with Leslie Glustrom, founding member of Clean Energy Action, an organization working to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy. Glustrom’s group recently released a report challenging the assumption that monopoly utility customers should be on the hook for the utility’s bad investment decisions. The report, “Privatizing the Risks and Not Just the Profits,” argues that utilities should be accountable for their stranded assets. Check out the report at the link above and listen to the discussion at Building Local Power.
Another great podcast from ILSR’s Energy Democracy Initiative is Local Energy Rules, which looks at barriers to local renewable energy projects and the people who have overcome them. Recent episodes have looked at the battle over net metering in the Carolinas and how demand response is helping align the interests of the incumbent utility and customer-generators. Check it out here.
Our final recommendation for this week (hey, it’s Friday) is the podcast of The Freeing Energy Project, which talks to entrepreneurs in solar energy who are disrupting the status quo monopoly utility model. The Freeing Energy team recently talked with Dr. Deepak Divan, the head of the Center for Distributed Energy at Georgia Tech, on how the grid is rapidly becoming decentralized, distributed, and smarter. Check it out at Freeing Energy.