Amy Francetic

🚀 Calling all adopters of #proptech and #construction tech: real estate developers, builders, and owner-operators, and more! 🌟 Big News! I’m thrilled to announce our partnership with Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), co-administered by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, to accelerate cleantech adoption. This is a first-of-its-kind initiative bringing public and private industry together to drive the digitization and decarbonization of the built environment with a focus on the adoption of startup technologies by end customers. I couldn’t be more excited to collaborate closely with IN² and NREL’s incredible teams to build the industry’s first Adoption Playbook, and the impact this program will have to catalyze more sustainable innovation implementation to our built world. Led by Program Manager Sarah Derdowski, NREL's team is backed by world-class research and a history of running successful incubators. 💡 If you're a forward-thinking organization that is seeking to innovate your real estate footprint, apply today. Adopters can receive up to $250,000 in grant funding to pilot cutting-edge technologies, while startups have the chance to scale and engage with major corporations. This groundbreaking program offers incredible opportunities for both adopters and startups to drive sustainability and innovation—and we're kicking it off this month! 🌍 With our team at Overlay Build, we will design the curriculum in partnership with IN² for corporate adopters through their Adoption Playbook. The playbook will prioritize pain points, identify innovation areas, and form peer groups for implementation strategies. Overlay will also develop due diligence criteria, help to determine the top startups for potential pilots, and form internal innovation working committees that will drive change. Additionally, Overlay will build a change management strategy to ensure practical evaluation and implementation of pilot projects, helping companies with significant real estate ownership reduce construction inefficiencies, costs, and carbon footprints. 🔍This initiative addresses the "missing middle" in technology adoption of built environment solutions—let's bridge that gap together. For more information or to discuss how you can get involved, feel free to reach out to me directly. 👉 Join us in shaping the future of the built environment! Adopters, apply here today: https://lnkd.in/eCRHCXfm #Sustainability #Cleantech #Innovation #BuiltEnvironment #IN2 #OverlayCapital #DigitalTransformation #Decarbonization #ESG #NetZero

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Read up on my latest #PowerPlaybook finances column below! National Grid Partners has been curating quite the project portfolio

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The largest utility companies in the U.S. are warning that the nation is facing a surge of electricity demand unlike anything seen in decades, and failure to rapidly increase power generation could jeopardize the nation’s economy. After a more than decade-long period of largely flat growth, electricity demand is poised to skyrocket by 2030 as the artificial intelligence revolution, the expansion of chip manufacturing, and the electrification of the vehicle fleet all coincide as the U.S. is trying to address climate change.

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Yesterday, the DOE released its latest lift-off report on advanced grid technologies – it’s a fascinating and compelling read with some surprising and powerful take-aways. I’m summarizing the highlights here, but I would definitely recommend at least checking out the executive summary for its clarity and conviction. You can access the report here: https://lnkd.in/gMuFwx3c Highlights and key take aways: We all know the grid is experiencing an unprecedented increase in demand: data centers, AI, electric cars and the broader shift to electrify everything is expected to drive 91GW of peak demand growth in the next decade. This risks reversing so many recent decarbonization gains if the default response is to build new gas peaker plants and defer shuttering of existing coal generation. As laid out by the DOE, multiple grid solutions that are commercially available TODAY could increase effective transmission & distribution capacity by 20-100 GW, in other words, potentially allowing us to fully meet the coming surge in demand without the need for new generation capacity These solutions can be deployed in UNDER 3-5 YEARS and at LOWER COST and GREATER VALUE than conventional approaches. The types of technologies being described here fall into four categories: 1) Advanced transmission (e.g., high voltage direct current); 2) Situational awareness and system automation (e.g., advanced distribution management systems); 3.) Grid enhancing technologies (e.g., virtual power plants); and 4) Foundational systems (e.g., system digitization). Sadly, though not surprising, the report also finds “adoption at scale and associated industry know how is lagging largely due to a lack of industry incentives and prioritization” In other words, even though investing in these available technologies is cheaper and more effective than sticking with the status quo, its not happening. The report powerfully reminds us: “ The mandate of the United States electric grid and of its operators is to provide safe, reliable, and affordable power to customers.” And "The U.S. transmission and distribution grid requires significant investment to address these accelerating trends and pressures." In this moment of disruption, utilities, regulators and grid operators have such incredible power to support and accelerate the green transition; not just in the fight against climate change, but simply to move us toward a more dynamic, resilient and cost effective grid. In the past, when demand was flat, incremental, risk averse, business-as-usual approaches to infrastructure and capacity investment maybe could work; but in a moment where the future looks nothing like the past, actual long term, system-level strategic planning and innovation is needed. From interconnection fees to cost-plus payor rates, its time for us to cast off the vestiges of last century's model of centralized generation and distribution, and embrace a new identity for utilities in the 21st century.

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For anyone who will be at IEEE Power & Energy Society T&D Conference feel free to stop by our panel session on #EVs and #gridreliability. Will be an interesting cross-sector discussion including technology provider, independent system operator, and utility perspectives among others. E-mobility is driving the blending of Transmission and Distribution system planning, design, and operations. Particularly with the growing prevalence of distributed energy resources, IoT and grid-edge technologies, and virtual power plants (#VPPs).

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#unavoidableopportunity #climateresilience investment now. "Separately, the Department of Energy is trying to help utilities squeeze more capacity out of the existing grid. That includes “grid-enhancing technologies” such as sensors that allow energy companies to send more power through existing lines without overloading them and advanced controls that allow operators to ease congestion on the grid. It also includes replacing existing lines with advanced conductors, which can potentially double capacity along existing routes. The Energy Department is currently offering $3.9 billion in funding that could go toward these and other solutions."

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The Midwest is emerging as a hub of manufacturing for EVs and clean energy technology. Midwestern states have received about $30 billion in private investment since August 2022, with Ohio ($7B), Indiana ($7.8B), and Michigan ($11.6B) ranking among the top 10 states nationally, reports Inside Climate News “This is like a new era in American manufacturing as it switches to clean energy,” says Michael James Timberlake, “and it’s not a surprise that one of the big drivers of that happens to be the place that drove the last major manufacturing boom in the U.S.” What’s it going to take to maintain the momentum? https://lnkd.in/eZGYjK2D

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Nuclear power like Oklo Inc is the way to enable our future needs- including computation- safetly and sustainably

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#WaterTech is underinvested and has a lot of great opportunities. We had a great panel on this topic with the founder and CFO of Focal Technologies Eric Steinmeyer as panelists, thanks to the introduction of Brian Kerns. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/g3skgt_s ​Now we might ask more questions for firsthand market insights, and evaluate an opportunity to participate in Focal. ​ 📘 Focal Technologies - Their Ray System is a waste remediation game-changer. Our trailer-mounted eight-foot Ray® System uses a patented refracting lens to concentrate the sun’s energy and break down any organic contaminant in water or soil. 2024 is a breakout year. Focal plans to have 12 Ray units delivered in 2024, at a price of approximately $250,000 each, which does not include recurring revenue for each unit post-delivery or our leasing model approach revenue streams. ​ 💲 Focal was backed by 36 investors including E8 Angels cleantech angel group members, SWAN Impact Network, VertueLab, an Investors Circle member, and several family offices. Focal has made exciting progress since then, 2024 will be a breakout year for the company. This current raise offers a bridge note (~50% filled), which will close before the end of May. Valuation is still attractive now, but not after this round. The ACA leadership and Director of VectorPoint Ventures - Don Megrath - is their CFO. 📢 Global League will host a Q&A meeting on May 17 for a deeper dive with the founding team of Focal Technologies, this is our free community service for supporting important impact. 📢 Sign up: https://lu.ma/FocalQnA　 ​Global League  (G-L.Ventures) is a platform and network for collaboration between investors to help the most impactful startups recommended by investors. Our newsletters:　https://lnkd.in/gpaSHMEj

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It is exciting to see great discussions and policy work to expand Transmission Grid Capacity and the role of Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) in unlocking the Grid for more renewables. We at GridAstra acknowledge some of the pressing challenges mentioned - the laborious work to simulate GETs during studies and lack of software tools to help plan the Grid with GETs. GridAstra recently released ‘𝙁𝙐𝙎𝙄𝙊𝙉-𝙏 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿’ to address this very challenge by providing 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝗘𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 (𝗚𝗘𝗧𝘀) 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀. The ‘𝙁𝙐𝙎𝙄𝙊𝙉-𝙏 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿’ can not only perform the detailed pre-projects and post-projects steady state analysis to identify the basecase and post-contingent constraints based on cluster studies, but can also provide automated suggestions for mitigating these constraints with GETs based controls. As a part of such GETs based control actions, it can automatically provide an optimal strategy by coordinating Grid Topology Reconfiguration and Advanced Power Flow Controllers (APFCs), or using any one of these control types based on your choice. In case you are wondering about where to place the APFCs in the Grid for optimal impact (with minimum APFC installation), our software can also help find that out for you! And last but not the least, this software can be easily integrated in your existing Interconnection Study workflows, thanks to its compatibility with industry-standard data formats. Ultimately, our goal with the ‘𝙁𝙐𝙎𝙄𝙊𝙉-𝙏 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿’ software is to empower Transmission operators, Utilities, and Generation project developers to reliably connect larger volumes of new generation in a much shorter period of time and at a much lower cost. If you are interested in a demo of our ‘𝙁𝙐𝙎𝙄𝙊𝙉-𝙏 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿’ software, please reach out to us at info@gridastra.com or https://lnkd.in/g6BacNK5.

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Going #electric at home may appear daunting and costly. However, with state and federal incentives, this shift becomes more feasible. DSIRE's (screenshot below) platform simplifies identifying available state incentives for renewable energy and efficiency initiatives. Companies like Rock Rabbit, EnergySage, Encentiv Energy, Opower, Rebate Bus, Sense, Enervee, Powerley, and others are demystifying these incentives, making them more accessible to homeowners. Learn more in Climate People's latest #1MinuteClimateSnippet: https://buff.ly/3KyG3Nz .

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**Greater than 600 GW of ☀️ capacity is being added per year!** Last week The Economist published an article titled “The Exponential Growth of Solar Power Will Change the World,” emphasizing a well-known trend at Energize Capital: energy technologies such as solar and batteries are rapidly expanding. Many attribute the growth of solar to the cost decline of the hardware. However, this cost decline isn’t solely due to hardware; advancements in software and services for utility-scale solar have also played crucial roles. At Energize we look to invest in long-term, enduring megatrends. The ecosystem around solar deployment demonstrates effective alignment of technology and system innovations. Energize’s portfolio includes companies deeply involved in the utility-scale solar sector: ☀️☀️ PVcase: utility scale solar siting & systems design Sitetracker: project management for high volume, highly distributed assets, including solar Banyan Infrastructure: finance software bringing together capitalization stakeholders for solar projects DroneDeploy: reality capture for the physical world. Autonomous drone flight and aerial analytics to monitor construction progress and operational performance Amperon: energy demand forecasting that enables energy suppliers to maximize /match generation to load Handle.com: construction payments tools, big presence in renewables Sourcemap: the Supply Chain Mapping Company: traceability for materials entering our energy supply chain https://lnkd.in/gSQ3CJtg David Trainavicius Giuseppe Incitti Will Greene Sean Kelly Patrick Hogan Jono Millin Amanda Li

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The challenge before everyone driving our energy transition resides in bringing together EV, DER, OEM, DERMS, ADMS, Aggregators, and VPP providers -- "every stakeholder" together to accelerate innovation and help prevent grid reliability challenges before they happen. We are proud to be partners with Brian Grunkemeyer, Tyler Phillipi, and their team at FlexCharging, who, together with Rhythmos.io, are collaborating, innovating, and sharing critical insights to successfully meet and improve the future demands of today's grid. FlexCharging and Rhythmos.io are committed to working together to unify their efforts to advance electric transportation goals. https://lnkd.in/gyXzKubw

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In a significant step towards combating climate change, the Department of Energy has released a new plan outlining strategies for reducing building emissions. The guidelines outline multiple strategies including energy efficient building designs and improvements in building operations and militance practices. By prioritizing energy efficiency and sustainability in building construction, emissions can be reduced and also energy costs, enhancing occupant comfort and well being. #Construction #SustainableBuilding #ConstructionInnovation

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Don’t miss the upcoming panel presentations and discussion 2 weeks from today on the topic of EV Charging and Grid Reliability at IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) T&D Conference on May 7th from 1-3 pm in Anaheim, CA. Ryan Quint, CEO of Elevate Energy Consulting, and former engineering director at North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) will lead off the discussion with a landscape overview and call to action for more engaged cross-sector collaboration and establishment of “grid friendly” charging practices. Bryan Jungers, Director of Mobility at E Source will provide an overview of some of the challenges in the areas of managed charging, EVs as a grid resource, and understanding the impacts of medium and heavy-duty vehicle charging, as well as the need for improved communications and data sharing. Ryan Garoogian, Senior Engineer at Southern California Edison (SCE) and Deepak Aswani, Supervising Principal Engineer at SMUD will share their perspectives regarding some of the challenges their companies are facing, as well as examples of mitigation strategies they are deploying, with the rapid growth of EV charging loads in their service territories. Peter Klauer Senior Advisor to the California ISO will share important insights on some of the operational challenges the CAISO is facing in understanding and managing EV load growth in the context of California’s changing resource mix and the increased presence of DERs. He’ll also highlight opportunities for EV’s to make positive contributions in addressing these challenges, as well as the need for standards which allow grid operators to gain greater situational awareness of EV and DER load impacts. Scott Caruso, President of Gridmetrics, Inc. will share valuable insights on the breakthrough broadband enabled continuous point on wave platform his company has developed for delivering insights to mitigate EV charging grid reliability impacts. This will be a great session and we hope you can join us. #gridreliability #evcharging #DistributedEnergyResources #EVs

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FERC has approved interconnection reform - and this is *generally* good for the energy transition. That said the devil in in the details of how states and utilities implement these changes. Some improvements like penalties assessed against utilities for tardy studies, trying to clean out queue squatters, and expressly identifying certain technical flexibility into interconnection design are good. However, we have specifically seen "Cluster Studies" and higher financial security requirements stymie development and create very costly and endless loops of re-studies in many markets (utility and DG). Calling on American Clean Power Association (ACP) Solar Energy Industries Association and importantly state level advocacy and watch dog groups to closely watch and actively participate as the implementation of these changes occur at the state level PUCs and DPUs - ensuring proper accountability and fair play. https://lnkd.in/ewehaH52 NYSERDA New York Solar Energy Industries Association MID-ATLANTIC RENEWABLE ENERGY COALITION Renewable Energy Vermont American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) Smart Electric Power Alliance NECEC Cleantech Leaders Roundtable

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This online resource provides access to an interactive map that tracks how the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are encouraging historic levels of private sector investments across the country. This increase in funding is creating many jobs and opportunities in the clean energy sector while inspiring the development of new projects as well. #CleanEnergy #InflationReductionAct #Impact

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Heather Feldman, Director of Learning and Development at Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), shares why the balancing act is essential to modern nuclear power operations. She explains the intriguing integration of artificial intelligence technologies to enhance efficiency and safety within nuclear facilities. 🌍 Highlighting EPRI's unique approach to innovation, Heather shares insights into their internal strategy, encouraging rapid testing and embracing learning from failures as successes. This philosophy propels technological advancements and fosters a culture of continuous improvement and creative freedom among the team. 💡 Moreover, the formation of the Global Forum for Nuclear Innovation marks a pivotal step towards uniting global leaders, including the International Energy Agency, to reimagine the future of nuclear energy. This initiative promises to spearhead groundbreaking developments in the sector. 🤝 As we stand on the brink of what could be a revolution in nuclear technology and management, how do you see AI and other innovative technologies playing a role in your industry? Could this be the key to sustainable, safe, and efficient energy solutions? Let’s connect and discuss the potential transformations AI could bring to our industries. https://lnkd.in/eqrxuxPU #Technology #Innovation #Podcast

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