EEI 2023
John O’Donnell is the CEO of Rondo Energy.
The Edison Electric Institute held EEI 2023 in Austin and brought together industry stakeholders from all over the United States. The consensus is that the electric industry's transformation to low and then to zero-carbon electricity must include technological advancements to get there. That is why technology leaders also attended and brought their solutions with them. Public Utilities Fortnightly presents conversations with innovators, where high tech meets energy tech to allow resilient clean energy to be delivered to utility customers.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: What is Rondo Energy trying to do, having an impact to the energy transition?
John O'Donnell: We are working on a big problem in world energy, in that industry uses more energy than any other sector, more than transportation, residential, commercial, for everything from making steel to baby food. Three quarters of the energy used by industry is in the form of heat driving processes, not electricity driving motors and transports.
All that energy must be decarbonized as the world goes to zero. The transportation sector, the grid; we're getting good at decarbonizing those, despite challenges. But industry is the hard to decarbonize sector. Why? Industrial heat.