Understanding the challenges for the electrical grid of today, let alone tomorrow, can sometimes seem extremely daunting; however, this often ignored institutional facet of everyday life is becoming more and more a topic for public discussion. To dive into those trends and learn more about all things electricity, a topic central to us at Gener8, we were excited to welcome Gene Rodrigues, Assistant Secretary of Energy, for the Office of Electricity at the US Department of Energy (DOE). While new to his role with DOE, Gene is no stranger to utility, government, and consumer perspectives around electricity reliability and modernization and joined us to share his perspectives and insights about the work of his office.
Our conversation started with a dive into high voltage transformers and why, as well as how, they have become a challenged supply chain issue for our grids. Gene also shared some of the support his office is offering to rectify these domestic supply chain issues and why growing the domestic supply chain is so important. After learning more about Gene personally and what brought him to government service, we turned to consumer perspectives around reliability and home backup storage and then pivoted to learning more about grid scale long duration energy storage challenges and opportunities. As a Californian himself, Gene then offered some pragmatic insights around what we can learn from the energy challenges recently faced in the state before closing out our discussion with a general call to action for better understanding of and participation in the grid reliability and modernization discussion. We found Gene to be extremely passionate about his role and what his office is doing to make sure that Americans always have reliable electricity and we hope that comes across to you as well.