DER Task Force July Newsletter

July 2022 Edition

Aug 03, 2022

We’ve got some new local channels in Slack! If you’re in the the Pacific Northwest, check out the #seattle channel to get to know folks in your area + organize meetups. If you’re in Atlanta or elsewhere in the southeast, join the #southeast channel to stay on top of all the local events happening in the region. Interested in planning a DER Task Force event in your city? Make sure you’re in our Slack!
For all the New Yorkers + NY-adjacent Task Force members, we’ve got 2 words: Barge Party! Mark your calendars — on Saturday August 13th, join the DER Task Force @ RETI Blue City Barge in Red Hook, Brooklyn, generously hosted by Flux Tailor and RETI Center. The event will kick off at 5pm and include music, beverages and light food, followed by some bar hopping in Red Hook for those interested. RSPV to the event here!
Last week, we published the DER Task Force’s whitepaper outlining the 4 core rights of distributed energy resources, and later this week we will be sharing the first discussion outlining an important implication of those rights — equity and the role DERs play in building more equitable power systems. If you read the whitepaper and would like to write a discussion piece on the implications of those 4 rights, please drop me a note in Slack!

From the community

Wildgrid, a new solar marketplace, is doing a user research study about solar in NYC. If you participate, you will be paid in donuts! (A $25 gift card to Doughnut Plant). They are looking for solar beginners, so the less you know about the space, the better! If you’d like to participate in the user survey, please fill out this form.

Major hat tip to Task Force member Vinay Konuru for building this really cool graph of the energy startup ecosystem, including startups, growth stage companies, and investors. If you want to add a company or other node to the graph, you can fill out Vinay’s Google form here.

Ministry of DER Propaganda strikes again, this time during the price spike in ERCOT earlier in July. Props to Spencer Fields for this one!

What We’re Reading

DER Task Force member Brent Eubanks shared a really interesting article on the interactions between the built environment and the climate, and specifically how blindly following Western architectural norms with no regard for the local climate can have dangerous human consequences. You can dig into the article here.

Excitingly, it appears that DERs have gone mainstream enough that even The Onion is satirizing their detractors. Fair warning — nobody has been spared!

Jobs

Before getting into the featured jobs for this month, I wanted to take a moment to highlight an important topic that surfaced on hiring diverse teams. Matt Golden raised a question in the Slack on how to build diverse candidate pools for roles that may require highly specialized or niche experience, especially in the already-specialized DERs space. If you have experience or thoughts on how to do this, please drop a note on the thread linked above!

Now, onto the jobs…

EnergyHub is hiring a Utility Sales Executive to grow their DERMs business on the East Coast, selling primarily to utilities. You can learn more about and apply to the role here, and reach out to Erika Diamond if you have any questions.
Extensible Energy, based in Lafayette, California, is hiring a Customer Success Associate to own customer training and support. You can apply for the role here.
Brooklyn-based David Energy is hiring a Senior Product Manager to own the company’s Residential product. You can learn more about the role here and reach out to Sam Strasser with any questions.

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