Energy Changemakers Podcast

In Episode 40, host Elisa Wood sits down with Ben Brown, CEO of Renew Home, to explore how millions of ordinary homes are being quietly transformed into virtual power plants (VPPs) — aggregated, AI-coordinated, and capable of delivering what a gas-fired peaker plant once did, at a fraction of the cost and with zero emissions.
From Jimmy Carter's thermostat appeals to today's invisible, personalized energy shifting, Ben and Elisa talk about why the future of grid stability runs directly through your living room.
What you'll learn:
What a virtual power plant actually is, and why it's different from old-school demand response

How Renew Home manages nearly 6 gigawatts of flexible load across 7.5 million households

Why being distributed makes a VPP more valuable than a centralized power plant

The policy gap holding back the next wave of VPP growth (and which markets are leading)

How Ben's team achieves an 80% opt-in rate — without customers feeling a thing

What role EVs, heat pumps, and home batteries will play in the grid of 2035

Ben Brown built the Nest Learning Thermostat and Google Home devices before spinning out Renew Home — now North America's largest residential VPP platform — from Google in 2023. In November 2024, Renew Home announced a partnership with NRG Energy to build a 1-gigawatt AI-powered VPP in Texas.
This episode is for anyone who pays an electric bill, cares about the clean energy transition, or wants to understand how the grid is actually going to keep up with exploding demand from data centers, EVs, and electrification.
Subscribe to the Energy Changemakers newsletter and join the community at energychangemakers.com.

Jigar Shah is one of clean energy's most influential — and outspoken — figures. In this episode, he takes a surprising stand on a utility battery program that has the distributed energy world divided, makes the case that the solar industry is now the battery industry, and lays out a policy blueprint for new governors that starts with one bold number: cut electricity bills 20% by 2030.
In this episode:
Why Shah is defending Xcel Energy's controversial utility-owned battery program in Minnesota — and why he thinks the critics are fighting the wrong battle

The $50 billion math: how strategically placed batteries could meet all U.S. load growth through 2030 at a fraction of the cost of new utility infrastructure

His blunt advice for half the clean energy industry: adapt your cost structure or shut your doors

The "controlled experiment" between Xcel Minnesota and Xcel Colorado that could settle the utility ownership debate

A three-point energy platform for governors, anchored in grid-enhancing technologies and massive battery deployment

Shah's personal journey from a village in India with barely any electricity to overseeing the largest clean energy lending program in U.S. history

Key quote: "This solution is 90% cheaper than upgrading all the wires in Minnesota. Now we're arguing about whether this could have been 10% cheaper than the private sector solution."
People and organizations discussed: Sparkfund, Xcel Energy, Generate Capital, SunEdison, Common Charge, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Tesla, Atmos Financial, DOE Loan Programs Office
Resources: DOE VPP Liftoff Report (January 2025) · DOE Grid-Enhancing Technologies Liftoff Report · IEA World Energy Outlook · commoncharge.org · energychangemakers.com

Eliot Assimakopoulos, CEO of Realizse and former GE microgrid pioneer, discusses a critical barrier to clean energy deployment: "stranded abundance." Despite available capital and valuable incentives, friction in finance prevents these resources from connecting, limiting microgrid and DER project development.
Eliot Assimakopoulos
CEO, Realizse

Former Marine Corps Captain

20 years at General Electric leading microgrid solution development

Early pioneer in the microgrid space

The Stranded Abundance Problem
Valuable incentive programs (ITC, 179D, state incentives) exist but remain underutilized

Capital exists but doesn't trust complex value streams

Example: Heat pump programs can access 50% ITC but developers avoid it due to complexity and risk

Historical Parallels
Printing press and the democratization of knowledge

Gold rush: connecting stranded gold with stranded capital through infrastructure (Wells Fargo)

The Solution: Web3 and Decentralized Finance
Using blockchain, smart contracts, and automation to create trusted data frameworks

Integrating compliance data with insurance (similar to telematics in fleet vehicles)

Removing ITC recapture risk through data-driven insurance products

Creating investible assets from energy data

Two Sides of Abundance
Removing friction to build (permits, interconnection, supply chain)

Removing friction to finance (trust, complexity, risk management)

Energy abundance requires both reducing building barriers AND financing barriers

Trusted data infrastructure can unlock stranded capital pools

Tokenization and alternative investments are creating new opportunities

The shift toward private markets and granular asset transparency enables liquidity

Democratization of both energy AND finance is the ultimate goal

Ezra Klein's work on abundance agenda

Larry Fink's 2025 investor letter on tokenization

Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) incentives

179D building energy efficiency tax incentive

For more information, visit energychangemakers.com

The explosive growth of AI training centers is creating unprecedented challenges for the electric grid. In this eye-opening conversation, Kay Aikin reveals why gigawatt-scale data centers like Stargate aren't just about needing more power—they're creating stability threats that could collapse entire grid systems. Learn why virtual power plants can't solve this problem, what new technologies are needed, and how the regulatory landscape must adapt to handle loads that can spike by several gigawatts in seconds.

Key Topics
Introduction
Three Types of Data Centers
AI Training Centers: The Game Changer
The Ramp Rate Problem
Why Virtual Power Plants Can't Help
What Solutions Could Work
The Battery Challenge
Interconnection Roadblocks
Microgrid Alternatives
The Regulatory Challenge
Broader Infrastructure Crisis
The Incentive Problem
Systems Thinking Approach

Resources mentioned

NERC Study: National Electricity Reliability Corporation report on large load impacts

Energy Hub VPP White Paper: Recent publication on virtual power plant capabilities

Previous Podcast: "Are We Expecting Too Much From Virtual Power Plants?" with Kay Aikin, Mark Patterson, and Lorenzo Kristov

GridWise Architecture Council: Organization focused on power systems architecture

Kay's Website: www.innovate8futures.com (Regenerative Futures - systems thinking resources)

Kay Aikin is CEO of Dynamic Grid and a systems engineer specializing in electrical grid architecture. She serves on the GridWise Architecture Council and is known for her forward-thinking approach to grid transformation challenges. Kay focuses on distribution network challenges, DER integration, and holistic systems design.
Elisa Wood is the host of the Energy Changemakers Podcast, which features conversations with industry leaders about building the decentralized grid. She can be reached at [email protected].

Have thoughts on this episode? Reach out to Elisa at [email protected] or use the thumbs up/down buttons to provide feedback.
Listen to the Energy Changemakers Podcast on your favorite platform to stay informed about the latest developments in grid transformation and distributed energy.

This episode explores "speed to power" - the urgent need for data centers to access electricity quickly to support AI infrastructure growth. Anna Demeo explains why the fast-moving world of hyperscalers (Google, Meta, Microsoft) is colliding with the cautious, regulated utility industry, and what innovative solutions might bridge this gap.
Guest Bio: Anna Demeo
Anna Demeo, PhD is an industry executive at the intersection of energy and decarbonization with 30 years of experience integrating hardware and software to develop, commercialize, and scale sustainable energy solutions. She is the Managing Partner at Clean Tech Strategy Advisors, where she advises corporations, startups, and investors navigating the clean tech landscape.