What’s an Energy Futurist?

…Well, the actual job title is “Integrated Resource Specialist.” In the industry jargon, I’m a non-carbon energy and electrification analyst specializing in retail programs for the Reading Municipal Light Department—RMLD for short.

If you want a resume, it’s here: Resume — Ajey Pandey

In practice, my job is to redefine what an electric utility means. We’re powering a 21st century life on a 20th century grid, but change is coming, and job is to make it happen properly.

On the supply side, Massachusetts has decided that in less than 30 years, all our electricity needs to be 100% non-carbon. However, wind, water, and solar power are all weather-dependent in a way old power plants are not. That’s an engineering and financial challenge that utilities have to account for in their electric rates.

And on the demand side, everything is going electric: cars, stoves, heaters, industrial processes. But all this stuff is expensive and idiosyncratic to install. Utilities need to help customers manage the complexity and cost of this transition.

It’s a lot of change, but RMLD must still meet its mission of 1) reliable power, 2) low-cost power, and 3) non-carbon power—in that order. 

We utility types know what we have to do. We need to build more non-carbon electricity. We need to give customers more options for managing their bills. We need to reinforce our network to maintain double the load in a changing climate.

And we need to do it quickly.

Electric utilities are used to decades where nothing happens, but now decades are happening in weeks. The old ways don’t work anymore. We need rebuild from the ground up without letting the lights go out.

It’s a fine line to walk. But it makes for a fun job.