Field notes The Energy Transition for the Rest of Us

Threads

Demand flexibility

21 notes · Catalyst 16 · Critical Capital 1 · Steel For Fuel 4

  1. Catalyst · 23 Jul 2026 The multi-billion dollar promise of vehicle-to-grid integration with Steve Letendre, senior advisor, Vehicle-Grid Integration Council; founder and editor, V2Gnews.com Bidirectional cars and chargers finally exist, so if the parked battery in the garage still does not show up on the grid, what is actually holding it back?
  2. Steel For Fuel · 6 Jul 2026 Data centers need the grid — so we have to make the grid better by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners If the grid cannot connect AI data centers fast enough, is building a power plant next to each one the way out?
  3. Critical Capital · 23 Jun 2026 The trillion-dollar collision between AI and the grid with Varun Sivaram, founder and CEO, Emerald AI; previously an executive at two clean energy developers and a senior advisor at the US State Department Can the grid absorb the data centers that AI wants to build, and if the answer is no, what is the cheapest thing to change?
  4. Catalyst · 23 Apr 2026 Live from Transition-AI 2026: Inside Google’s massive AI capex with Amin Vahdat, chief technologist for AI infrastructure, Google As AI shifts from training models to serving them, does that change the size, the reliability and the power profile of what Google builds with the $175 to $185 billion of capital expenditure it has planned for this year?
  5. Catalyst · 9 Apr 2026 The rise of flexible data centers with Varun Sivaram, CEO, Emerald AI Almost everyone now agrees data centers should be flexible grid assets. What is actually stopping it from happening at scale?
  6. Steel For Fuel · 8 Apr 2026 Duration is all you need by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Once short-duration batteries have covered the daily peak, what kind of storage does the power system still need?
  7. Catalyst · 12 Feb 2026 PJM and ERCOT are navigating a capacity rollercoaster with Paul Segal, CEO, LS Power What is actually happening in the two most-watched US power markets, and is either one getting the capacity it needs in time?
  8. Catalyst · 29 Jan 2026 The rise of permissionless DERs with James McGinniss, co-founder and CEO, David Energy What are “permissionless” distributed energy resources, and can batteries small enough to plug into a wall outlet ever add up to enough capacity to matter?
  9. Catalyst · 30 Oct 2025 Unpacking DOE’s proposal to transform data center interconnection with Allison Clements, FERC commissioner 2020-2024, now partner at ASG and principal of 804 Advisory; and Tyler Norris, doctoral student, Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment The US Secretary of Energy has told federal regulators to rewrite how large electricity loads connect to the grid. What does the proposal actually do, and would it work?
  10. Catalyst · 2 Oct 2025 The new wave of DERs with Dana Guernsey, co-founder and CEO, Voltus How did demand response get from emergency phone calls to an everyday grid resource, and what can it now do about load growth?
  11. Catalyst · 18 Sep 2025 Is now the time for DERs to scale? with Andy Lubershane, partner and head of research, Energy Impact Partners Distributed energy resources were hyped a decade ago and mostly did not happen. Is this time actually different?
  12. Catalyst · 12 Sep 2025 When to colocate data centers with generation with Brian Janous, co-founder and chief commercial officer, Cloverleaf Infrastructure When does it actually make sense to build generation on site at a data center, and when has the idea simply become fashionable?
  13. Steel For Fuel · 11 Sep 2025 Finally, the right time for Distributed Energy Resources by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Why did distributed energy resources underdeliver for a decade, and what has changed enough to make this time different?
  14. Catalyst · 28 Aug 2025 The mechanics of data center flexibility with Varun Sivaram, founder and CEO, Emerald AI What does it actually take to make an AI data center flexible, and how much flexibility is really there?
  15. Catalyst · 31 Jul 2025 PJM and the capacity crunch with Steve Piper, research director for North American power and renewables, S&P Global PJM’s capacity auction cleared at a record again. What does that say about whether enough generation gets built, and about what consumers will pay?
  16. Steel For Fuel · 16 Jun 2025 Why does nobody know how much energy AI will consume? by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Why do the analysts watching data centers disagree so widely about how much electricity those data centers will consume, even a few years out?
  17. Catalyst · 1 May 2025 Catalyst Live at SF Climate Week with Nick Chaset, chief executive, Octopus Energy US; Mike Schroepfer, founder and partner, Gigascale Capital (former chief technology officer of Meta) What is climate tech over-hyping and under-hyping right now, and why does Kann think consumer products account for so many of its few big wins?
  18. Catalyst · 27 Mar 2025 The potential for flexible data centers | Catalyst with Tyler Norris, PhD candidate, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University How much additional data center load could the existing US grid absorb if that load agreed to be a little bit flexible?
  19. Catalyst · 13 Jun 2024 Under the hood of data center power demand with Brian Janous, co-founder, Cloverleaf Infrastructure; former vice president of energy, Microsoft Granting that AI will pull a large amount of new load onto the grid, how do we actually serve it, and what does serving it do to the grid and to the tech companies’ climate commitments?
  20. Catalyst · 30 Nov 2023 EV charging on both sides of the pond with Nick Woolley, co-founder and CEO, ev.energy Europe adopted electric vehicles earlier than the United States. Does that make it a window into America’s charging future, and what can each side learn from the other?
  21. Catalyst · 8 Dec 2022 Solving the conundrum of industrial heat with John O’Donnell, co-founder and CEO, Rondo Energy Industrial heat is about a quarter of global emissions, factories need it around the clock, and energy can be more than half their cost of production. How do you decarbonize it?