The demand for electricity continues to rise, and there is a wide recognition that there is going to be pressure on the grid as never before, and that it is time to think about the grid in new ways.
We need to think about how it operates, how it might operate, and the technologies — including artificial intelligence as a tool in its management as well as a demand stimulator — that could assist in developing a more-reliable, better-balanced grid going forward.
The grid, after all, is the infrastructural backbone of how our society operates; how we live and how we will live. Almost everything, from transportation to manufacturing, from the humblest kitchen appliance to the heating and cooling of homes, will be powered through electricity. Its ubiquity is real today and will be more so tomorrow.
So if we are to have an electricity hegemony, we had better lay down some coordinating philosophy.
Over the last half century, two visionaries have shaped the dimensions of the electricity supply system in America. Initially neither of them was received with enthusiasm, but their impact has been profound.
The first was S. David Freeman, who headed the energy policy staff in the White House Office of Science and Technology during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, and who, in 1974, received funding from the Ford Foundation to examine the energy crisis and suggest future options. His study, “A Time To Choose,” was seminal and started new thinking about growth and conservation.
Freeman would become president of the Tennessee Valley Authority and in turn several other big public utilities, including the Lower Colorado River Authority and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).
The second, and the most influential thinker, was Amory Lovins. In a single article, published in Foreign Affairs in 1976, Lovins introduced the concepts of “soft power” that would lead to today’s renewable energy revolution. His study was called, after Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken.”
Both men were criticized for their conclusions: Freeman for introducing the idea of conservation as being a part of the energy mix, and Lovins for wholesale support of conservation, wind and solar, opposition to big central stations, and a small-is-beautiful philosophy. He opposed big, new nuclear power plants.
Lovins, who is chairman emeritus of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado, which he founded, wasn’t criticized so much as vilified. Seldom has a public intellectual been so attacked – or been so effective, leaving an indelible mark that can be seen on rooftops and in the ubiquity of wind turbines.
I knew both men well and frequently debated Lovins on nuclear and other issues before various audiences. While I agreed with his overall idea that there were other ways forward in energy, many of his visions either weren’t viable or he had reached too far in his arguments.
Over the years, I wrote a lot about Lovins and provided platforms for his ideas.
Now the battle for the electric industry’s future is joined by another revolutionary thinker about the future of electricity supply.
He is Chase Weir, whom I think of as a dreamer who is tethered to the ground by experience, an idealist who knows the reality of keeping the lights on, and a doer who will change other people’s thinking by example as much as by proselytizing.
Weir created the Earthshot Foundation in 2008, co-founded Distributed Sun in 2009, and truCurrent, its spin-off, in 2024. He has laid out his ideas in a series of three Forbes articles (he is a member of the Forbes Business Council), published over the last three months. They approach the electric utility challenge differently, philosophically.
He paints a picture of an industry that is misdirected in its responses to market stimuli. He sees a market that is seeking to build generation against its highest demand – a cold day in winter at 6 p.m. — when electricity use is at its peak.
If this were a financial market, Weir argues, this demand stress would signal market illiquidity and there would be measures to rectify it.
Weir sees a future where the kilowatt-hour becomes, in effect, currency and which has to be managed as such, aiming for flexibility and liquidity.
Nothing or truly little, he believes, is as important to modern life as dependable, abundant, and environmentally wise electricity.
He has four cardinal rules for achieving this:
- Get the intent right. Intent is the driver and needs to be a force in utility planning.
- Non-zero thinking. This is the concept, expounded by the author Robert Wright, that one value doesn’t necessarily degrade a competing value. That is distinct from net-zero, which applies quite differently to carbon reduction, but can be confused.
- Time is the vital element and must be understood in the mix. All actions, including regulation, market design and flow must be cognizant of time. Weir talks about “return on time” as being similar to return on investment.
- The objectives of a liquid KWh market can be achieved with the new tools of energy storage, renewables and traditional generation working in concert through microgrids and similar arrangements managed by AI.
Above all, Weir emphasizes, is item No. 1: intent. Get that right and the rest can fall into place.
Traditionally, Weir believes, profit for utilities has been tied to return on investment not on performance. To achieve a functioning liquid KWh market, a modern grid must be designed to dynamically employ the available resources of technology, capital, capability and time.
He told me, “If we don’t design with intent and seek liquidity, we will lock in decades of systemic failure.”
It seems to me that the price, quantity and reliability of electricity are all open issues and Weir is onto something. More of everything is needed, including a clear understanding of where we are going and how we are going to get there.
Weir is driving the thinking with his question: “What does a truer, better, smarter, future-proof grid look like?Thinking is good, essential actually, as we careen down the electric highway.
