DER Task Force April Newsletter

April 2022 Edition

Announcements + Updates

1. DER Task Force has a brand new look! We've spent the last 9 months working with a designer on an updated Task Force website and logo. We were inspired by both the energy of this community — down-to-earth, intellectually curious, and open — as well as the original Energy Task Force — rebellious and a little bit punk. That inspiration led to visuals calling back to protest signage of the 1970s while still highlighting our community’s core mission via lightning bolt imagery. We also leaned into the punk / DIY aesthetic with lots of handwritten text and pops of color. You can check the new website out here — we’d love to hear what you think!

2. We are excited to announce the resumption of regular in-person meetups! As post-Covid in-person events resume, we wanted to place greater emphasis on in-person networking rather than virtual-only events. To that end, we are excited to host our first in-person meetup at Urban Energy’s offices in Brooklyn on Wed May 11 at 6:30pm. And even more exciting, we are planning on making this a regular monthly event on the second Wednesday of every month going forward — so get excited for that! For folks not in NYC, we highly encourage you to plan similar events in your city, just like we did for the end of year holiday party. Please let us know if and when you do plan a meetup so we can send around to the network. Excited to start seeing people face-to-face soon!

From the community

On Networking

In February we sent out a survey to the community asking for your best stories and tips on networking in energy industry, and you all shared great feedback. Summarizing some of the big takeaways below:

1. Curiosity and an openness to learn from people who share similar passions for energy or climate is a great way to build relationships that could open up job opportunities down the line

2. There’s a ton of lingo, jargon, and acronyms in the energy space — when getting up the learning curve, listening to podcasts, reading, and sometimes just getting up the courage to ask someone what that acronym means makes the biggest difference

3. This great recommendation from one of our respondents resonated: “Keep getting out there and meeting people. There will be many misses but over time your ‘hits’ will be more frequent and develop into meaningful friendships, where the binding tie will be something entirely unrelated to energy”. I know I’ve found this one to be absolutely true!

4. Community is a give and take — as much as you may “take” from and learn from a group of people, it’s equally important to give back or pay it forward to someone else following behind you

5. Be yourself, be friendly, and be open to anyone you meet. You never know where a new opportunity might come from and where it might lead

Memes

Resident memelord Pamela Wildstein again provides us with great TikTok energy content — make of this what you will!

Check out the #technology channel for more!

What we’re reading — Task Force Feature

As promised in last month’s newsletter, we are starting a new practice featuring pieces written by members of the community. We’ve got some great pieces written by this community lined up already but wanted to put out a call to the group for more! If you are interested in being featured by the DER Task Force Substack, please reach out to me directly in Slack.

Keep an eye out for our first feature coming later this month!

Want to read more? Join the #news channel in the Slack. Did we miss a piece? Let us know about it here.

Jobs

• MP2 Energy is hiring a B2C Pricing Manager to manage their residential products. Check out the application here and reach out to Dillon Gooch to learn more!

• Austin-based Cleartrace is hiring for a Content and Social Marketing Manager to optimize and run their content marketing program. Check out the application here and reach out to Dana Dohse to learn more.

• Dandelion Energy is hiring for roles across product, engineering, sales and operations. You can check out all their open roles here.

• ConEdison is hiring for a manager to own their PowerReady program, which aims to install 19,000 EV chargers across NYC by 2025. You can apply here and reach out to Colleen Metelitsa for more details.

Don’t worry, there are way more jobs than listed above - find our full job board here and be sure to join the #jobs channel in Slack.

Have a job and want to share? Fill out this form to get it in our database.

DER of the Month

In honor of the surprising outcome of the Florida NEM changes earlier this week, here’s some solar panels from sunny Florida! May they continue to generate power and earn NEM revenue in peace…

Thanks for reading!

— DER Task Force Leadership Team