2 Comments
Feb 2Liked by Doug Lewin

I want to choose my words carefully as undo sarcasm can be a turn off and is rarely helpful. I found the discussion of distributed energy interesting and begs the question when will the orchestra play? You said it; we need a conductor. A conductor is not forthcoming from the current or recent Texas Legislatures. They are too joined at the hip to their campaign donors and good ‘ole Texas oil and gas. Hence initiatives like what we saw on last November’s ballot to turn the PUC into a bank to finance subsidized natural gas generation. That makes it incumbent on all of us to be more vocal and candid at the ballot box and let our potential conductors know we think the orchestra is off key.

Expand full comment
Feb 2Liked by Doug Lewin

Definitely there are a lot of moving pieces, which makes this a great opportunity for the right players. The part of this that I'm focused on is real-time demand response. It includes real-time economic dispatch for the suppliers, too.

The key to making this happen in commercial markets (defined loosely here as end-users in between industrial and residential) is demand-side, automated execution and comfort control. Layered on top of this is the requirement for automated execution and comfort control to orchestrate seamlessly with on-site batteries, solar, and EV Chargers (behind the meter). Despite what most people think, charging EVs in a commercial context can be orchestrated when fleet management/routing systems are integrated. Charging can be delayed or paused if the vehicle route timing and range are known.

Real-time, demand management is sometimes the end-user's problem (if they are on a variable price contract), and it is sometimes the supplier's problem (if the end-user is on a fixed price contract). So the system that handles real-time execution needs to present the right economics in both of those situations.

All of this can be handled, if the software is smart enough. It is a very good job for software, and humans could never do it.

Expand full comment