Breaking Down Utility Silos
Alexina Jackson is a creative problem solver who thrives in collaboration, tackling big questions and setting transformational vision. As the founder of Seven Green Strategy and Senior Advisor at Clarum Advisors, Alexina leverages her experience in consulting, law, and technological and commercial innovation.
Molly Podolefsky is a Ph.D. economist and leader in the energy and sustainability industry with experience spanning decarbonization, the utilities and energy sector, finance and investment and business management. As a Managing Director with Clarum Advisors, she leverages her knowledge and experience working with utilities, startups, corporations and funds in the energy transition space.
Most utilities would like to know more about the needs, risks, and operations of the electrical grid — intelligence is a conceptual no-brainer. Sensors, analytics, and control software allow them to make better decisions around operational risks and maintenance, economic efficiency, meeting customer needs, and security. In light of these value streams, utilities should be building multi-year plans for incremental deployment of grid intelligence solutions, compounding insights, savings, and customer benefits over time.
Yet utilities frequently struggle with where to begin. Resilience and reliability technologies are obvious starting points but can carry significant price tags, making investments based on risk avoidance, projected operational savings or customer service improvements hard to justify.
Efficiency and customer experience benefits are hard to quantify, and regulators are increasingly wary of qualitative arguments as affordability becomes a dominant concern. The greatest blocker to grid intelligence investments is often not the lack of value, but the inability to assemble a persuasive business case.
Grid intelligence is typically deployed by utilities system wide, producing incremental value across multiple departments. Some of the most powerful gains come from co-optimizing processes and investments — precisely the kind of benefits that siloed functions, metrics, and budgets struggle to capture.