Technology, Policies and Customers
Lisa Wood is vice president of The Edison Foundation and executive director of the Institute for Electric Innovation.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: Let's talk about innovation in the electric power industry.
Lisa Wood: The energy grid is evolving into a plug-and-play platform. This has three components. First, we're creating a more digital and more resilient energy grid; second, we're connecting more renewable energy and distributed energy resources (DERs), and third, we're providing customers with more energy solutions.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: What's the role of technology? Are electric companies developing technology or are they more likely working with technology partners?
Lisa Wood: The electric power industry is working with many, many technology companies. These range from very large companies, like Oracle and GE for example, to small startups that are working with us to deploy a single technology, to all sizes of companies in between. Technology has always been critical to our industry. I think of the roles like this: technology companies are the developers of new technologies, and electric companies are the ones that pilot, demonstrate, and eventually deploy those technologies.
Our industry is working with technology companies on everything from technologies that advance energy grid intelligence, grid hardening, grid visibility, and grid resilience to technologies that assist us in integrating and managing DERs, to technologies that provide customer solutions.