DER Task Force November Newsletter
DER Task Force November Newsletter
November 2021 Edition 🦃
Announcements + Updates
As 2021 draws to a close, the DER Task Force is planning 2 in-person holiday parties plus a virtual component on Monday 12/13 to celebrate another great year as the Task Force. One event will be at Powerhouse in Oakland, CA and the other will be at Urban Energy in Brooklyn, NY, and both will include a virtual session so everyone across the country can join in on the festivities. Please register for the events here so we have an idea of headcount in each location. We are hoping that come 2022 we can facilitate more in-person and hybrid events such as these!
Michael Murray, Task Force member, meetup guest, and data trailblazer at Mission:data, is raising money to fund a stellar legal team and expert witnesses fighting for open, non-discriminatory data access policies at the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. In Michael’s own words:
Mission:data Coalition needs the DER community's support for open data access. As you know, acquiring customer usage and billing data from utilities is a major pain point. Mission:data was formed as a non-profit in 2013 precisely in order to fight for standardized, consistent access nationwide. Utilities are beginning to install "Smart Meters v2.0" that feature a Linux-based "App Store" and Wifi connectivity, promising real-time access to usage data for DERs. However, many utilities are prohibiting DERs from accessing real-time usage data, choosing instead to monopolize it for themselves. For example, Xcel Energy lets you view real-time usage data in their mobile app, but sending real-time usage data to a solar, storage, or EE provider is going to be a struggle.
Mission:data is fighting at the Colorado Public Utilities Commission with a stellar legal team and expert witnesses, but we need your financial support in order to win open, non-discriminatory data access policies. Whether you work at a startup or an established DER provider, or whether your services need real-time usage data today or you simply want to keep your options open at some point in the future for incorporating real-time usage data, we have a unique opportunity to set a national precedent for the next generation of smart meter installations (which will exceed 60 million nationwide by 2030). The link to donate is here, and all funds go directly to support our advocacy work. For more information, please contact Michael Murray at michael@missiondata.io. You can sign up for our newsletter here and see our policy wins here. Thank you!
From the community
Features
Footprint Project, which many of you may know from the Hurricane Ida fundraiser, is looking to build out its volunteer network. Volunteering can look like anything from electrical engineering to fundraising to dropping a solar trailer off for hurricane or wildfire response - in other words, activities that this group ought to be well equipped for! You can reach out to Jamie Swezey at jamie@footprintproject.org for more information, and sign-up to volunteer here!
When Duncan, Colleen and James first started the DER Task Force back in 2019, they were just 3 friends talking DERs over beers. Since that time, the DER Task Force has grown into an incredible flywheel of community, events, jobs, and policy that benefits everyone involved. The sentiment is captured well in this Tweet thread started by Kyle Baranko:
This is exactly what the DER Task Force is all about and we hope to produce many more such outcomes!
Solar powered lunch-tables brought to you by our Slack community - enough said.
Thread of the Month
Cooper Marcus kicked off a thread in #general regarding the portable DER blipOne and calculating the payback period on such a device.
Folks discussed how to calculate the payback and how, specifically, the blipOne could be effectively used to loadshift and optimize around a Time-of-Use rate. Then, in true DER Task Force fashion, CEO and co-founder of blip Sophia Wennstedt discovered the thread and offered to answer any questions from the group and shared her perspective on paybacks in various regions. Another incredible demonstration of the depth of the DER TF community!
What we’re reading
This Thanksgiving, let’s Foster Interconnection, brought to you by the witty team over at Canary Media.
If you missed it, John Oliver did a segment on the Power Grid that’s worth a watch. He touches on the importance of a reliably functioning grid, the impacts of the energy transition on electricity demand, and much more. He also, amazingly, discusses how a growing share of renewables will impact grid volatility and the need to build more transmission infrastructure. This is a relatively nuanced take for a non-energy nerd audience and I highly recommend you share with anyone in your life who isn’t as deep in all of this as we are.
Want to read more? Join the #news channel in the Slack. Did we miss a piece? Let us know about it here.
Jobs
WattTime is hiring for a Senior Software/Data Engineer to help conceptualize and build new data architectures for their emissions estimation and monitoring platform. Apply to the role here and reach out to Geoff Hancock for more details.
Enel North America is hiring across engineering and design roles, including a Senior Solutions Engineer focused on DERs, a Solutions Engineer, a cross-product Solutions Engineer, and a UX Designer.
EnergyHub is looking for a Product Marketing Manager to help drive revenue by demonstrating their products’ value to the market. Check out the application here and reach out to Aakriti Gupta with any questions.
Octopus Energy is searching for a Demand Response Leader reporting to the CEO to help form and execute on demand response and device aggregation strategies. Apply for the role here and reach out to Michael Lee for more.
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
This gingerbread solar roof brought to you by Grouphug Solar. If you are interested in participating in their annual solar gingerbread competition, register here.
Thanks for reading and we hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
— DER Task Force Leadership Team