There are a lot of fun discussions around energy, climate change, and energy poverty. Paula Glover, CEO of the Alliance to Save Energy, stopped by the podcast right after she returned from COP28. Hearing from Paula firsthand about the temperature backstory of the summit was great.
A little inside baseball: I have known Paula for years and produced her podcast “Always Bet on Black.” She was also the CEO of the American Association of Blacks in Energy, and we worked on their webinars and conferences. She has a vision for eliminating energy poverty and has a heart for the disproportionally impacted communities.
This was a totally different conversation than I had with other guests. – Why make more energy when we need to focus on conserving existing production? Surprisingly, Paula did not fall out of her chair when the lightbulb went off in my head.
Please follow Paula and the Alliance to Save Energy.
Paula’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paula-glover-3836887/
The Alliance to Save Energy: https://www.ase.org/
00:52 – Alliance to Save Energy
01:53 – You delivered this message at a cop. Tell us about.
05:42 – Transition from fossil fuels is vital; COP reveals healthcare’s unexpected carbon impact, underscoring the importance of preventive measures for health and the environment.
08:41 – Prioritize energy efficiency, advocate electrifying the economy, and emphasize reducing consumption while addressing challenges of water scarcity.
10:50 – How do you as the CEO, go around and help manufacturers make better stuff? Or how’s the alliance articulate that?
15:03 – Highlighting the impact of energy-saving practices, stressing climate progress through efficiency measures, and citing support from tax credits and rebates for home upgrades.
17:07 – How do we get the supply chain to get these tools at a low enough cost and out there to everybody? and How do we get more renewables to the grid when we can’t have enough materials coming in in order to build them?
19:05 – Emphasizing rebates and tax credits for accessible energy efficiency, noting benefits of cost reduction, improved comfort, health impact, and grid resilience, with recognition of utility companies’ varied approaches.
25:31 – How do you all tell everybody it doesn’t matter where you live, It could be effective, you know, just from any natural disaster or a rolling blackout or anything else. What are some basics that the alliance has out there?
28:57 – Advocates for an inclusive energy transition, emphasizing community wealth creation and local business ownership. She sees economic development opportunities in upgrading buildings and improving infrastructure through efficiency measures.
30:37 – Underscores the Alliance’s energy-agnostic approach, leveraging technology like building sensors and digital twins for efficiency. She shares an example of an airline saving millions in jet fuel by optimizing operations through digital insights.
34:26 – 2024 goal for the Alliance is to broaden its coalition, engage with policymakers at all levels, and monitor the real-time investment of hundreds of billions of dollars in efficiency and manufacturing to ensure alignment with their goals.
39:08 – How do people connect with you?
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ENB Podcast with Paula Glover – Final Cut.mp4
Stuart Turley [00:00:03] Hello, everybody. Everybody’s been talking about COP 28 But have we forgotten what the most important way to get to net zero is? Well, I tell you what, I happen to have an old friend of the podcast, and we have had so much fun in the past. I’ll tell you what, I love this line in her paper from the Alliance to Save Energy. It is demand is the new supply, affordable grid stability through demand side solutions. We don’t ever talk about this. And I’ve got the Paula Glover here. Thank you, Paula, for stopping by the podcast.
Paula Glover [00:00:44] Now, thank you so much for having me and thank you so much for reading our white paper so much. Oh, yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:00:50] I’ll tell you what, I love the Alliance to Save Energy because we forget. What if you save it, you don’t get to make it right.
Paula Glover [00:01:01] That’s literally the message, right? That there are two sides of this equation for the transition. One is supply. That’s where we going to get our energy from. Is it going to be all electric? Is it going to be gas, nuclear oil mix, hydro, hydrogen, renewable gas? But we don’t talk about the other piece, which is that you don’t actually have to use all of it, and that there is so much that we can get in saving our energy before we ever have to build or burn something to create more energy.
Stuart Turley [00:01:34] You know, I met you when you were at the AABE, the American Association of Blacks in Energy, and I can’t believe that you we’ve known each other for this couple of years on that. And your just got back from COP. You delivered this message at a cop. Tell us about.
Paula Glover [00:01:56] That. Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:01:57] You were there ten days.
Paula Glover [00:01:58] I was there for ten days and had the opportunity to participate. Either moderator speak on panels with just all kinds of partners. So companies like Carrier. But I also had the opportunity to moderate a panel for the European Union, European Commission and to participate in a panel as part of Americas all in. So a lot of opportunity to talk about efficiency. But I will say what was most exciting about COP. And so we’re going to give you a line at the beginning and at the end is that we had over 120 countries at COP Pledge to not only triple their renewable generation, but more importantly to double their energy efficiency, to lean in on energy efficiency, and to double that over year 4% year over year till 2030. And that is huge to go from what I call the first fuel that no one ever talks about to literally be the ninth. And the headline early on this was 100 and I think in excess of 120 countries, 117 who had signed by last Friday, by last Sunday, and by Tuesday or Wednesday we were at 122 countries. And so that is super significant. And, you know, our administration, we are making big investments in efficiency already here in the States. And so it’s an opportunity to show what leadership looks like to show the rest of the world. How do you use carrots and sticks to get this work done, but also to recognize that saving and not wasting is part of our culture. It’s the basics of what we think about as people. And so efficiency, not just around power, but also land. Water should be a tenant that we’ve been focusing on first, and then we should be doing all the other things. You know, So oftentimes people will hear me say that this transition and climate change is not a problem we can build our way out of. We are going to have to do some things. And each of us has an opportunity as individuals, as small businesses, as households. And we each have an obligation, I think, to use what we need, but not to waste. Right. Because we don’t want other people to be bought.
Stuart Turley [00:04:24] Go ahead and fly in on a private jet. Did you, sir?
Paula Glover [00:04:27] No, I did not. I did not get I’ve never been on a private jet yet.
Stuart Turley [00:04:36] But, you know. Well, that’s so cool. Were you able to visit with so many different. There were 70 over 72.
Paula Glover [00:04:44] 80,000 people? Yes, over 70,000. And I think the numbers on the ground were closer to 100. So it was an incredible experience because it was truly global in nature. And to be in a place like Dubai, where certainly there was a lot of attention on Dubai because it is one of the. Right. The Emirates is one of the largest oil producing countries in the world. But it is also what people may not may or may not know about the Emirates is that in UAE, I think it’s about 8% of the people who live in UAE are actually native Emirati. 90 plus percent of the folks who live there are from over 200 different countries. And so it’s saying, how cool is that? It’s amazing as a global city.
Stuart Turley [00:05:32] So and 25% of their power, Paula, is from the new nuclear reactor that was built on time and on budget.
Paula Glover [00:05:41] Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:05:42] Wow. Why can’t we do, though?
Paula Glover [00:05:45] You know, they’re focused right on energy, on ai0 on technology. But also I think what was clear is thinking about how do they transition as a nation and still be leaders in this space. And what does that look like when we have a phase out of fossil fuel? And eventually I think we will have a phase out irrespective of what the final language is. I’m going to I have to believe that collectively we understand that that has to happen. What that timing is, I don’t know. Is it going to be 2030? Probably not. Is it going to be 2050? I don’t know. But it absolutely is going to have to happen. And I think, you know, that was one of the things that, you know, certainly I took from CAP, but some of the other things that I took and I will share one thing that I found really interesting because it was something I did not know was the impact that our health care system has on climate. Right. So we we often talk about the impact the climate has on our health. Higher rates of asthma, lost productivity, students not being able to go to school like we understand, like smog, NOx, Sox pollution, the impact on our health, what we don’t necessarily fully appreciate and this came out from one of the presenters at COP was that if you look at the buildings and the transportation, all the things that we need to hold up our health care system globally, it’s also a major emitter of carbon, right? The kids at.
Stuart Turley [00:07:18] Home.
Paula Glover [00:07:19] Specialized things that have to be built, right. We have to make sure that all the equipment is clean and sterilized. Right. So in a hospital, you have to be extra sure of that stuff and extra careful. You have to have helicopters at the ready. If you need to transport a patient, you have to have ambulances at the ready. And you write all of those other things that are necessities, I think for really good health care also have a carbon impact. And so it’s that duality of thinking about all of the things that we do and interact with that actually impact how much carbon is admitted into the air. And in this particular case in this company, their presentation really where they landed was that prevention is better than a cure. Right. And so when we talk about health care, I.
Stuart Turley [00:08:16] Say.
Paula Glover [00:08:16] That we can do to prevent ourselves from getting sick. But that I mentioned also helps in terms of our carbon in the carbon footprint that health care provides. Right. So super interest, I mean, those are the kinds of things that also you have the opportunity to experience that cop that I thought were really interesting.
Stuart Turley [00:08:34] That kind of goes along with the CEO of the this great organization, the Alliance to Save Energy and it.
Paula Glover [00:08:41] I would think so. I mean, I think we. Right. Maybe that is why this particular message resonated with me so much. Right. Because losing nine is better than using clean. Even if it’s clean, using none. If I can power your home, heats your home, and you use less. Who would not be happy about that? What the. You know, the it necessitates necessitates that climate necessitates us, I think, leaning in on efficiency. But I also think Amanda’s right. We are talking about electrifying our economy, which means that we are going to be using more power and we need to do that without building more stuff. Right. Everything has an impact. Everything but solar. If it’s when everything has some sort of environmental or ecological impact. And so we do have to figure out, while we want to electrify and electrify more things, we still need to figure out how we use less. Because again, building our way out of this part of the problem is not a solution in my mind.
Stuart Turley [00:09:53] Boy, you nailed the water problem too, because water is going to be a problem.
Paula Glover [00:09:57] Water already is a problem. Right. Right. And so we are already seeing across this country and across the world all kinds of conflicts because of water. Right. And so we also that is another really important resource. If we think about before the atmospheric rains in California last year, the drought. Right. And farmland had not seen water in months, if not years. We can’t rely on these kind of one off climate situations to fix our problems for us. And we certainly aren’t relying on it to create the problems that we’re beginning to see. So there’s so much that we can do. And I think the message around efficiency is that they’re really big things that can be done and there are small things at the individual level that we can do, so we collectively benefit from that.
Stuart Turley [00:10:50] Well, how does how do you as the CEO, go around and help manufacturers make better stuff? Or how’s the alliance articulate that? Because wouldn’t that be a huge thing? It’s one thing to put in a light that automatically turns it off so I don’t have to yell at my wife, I mean, so that she doesn’t yell at me. So, I mean, it makes sense to have the automatic stuff. Yeah, but that seems to be an easy. How do we get that to the average bear that can’t afford that?
Paula Glover [00:11:20] Well, that’s I think that’s where the rubber meets the road. And there are lots of companies and programs between. And I’ll give you an example. Google has partner and they are a member of the alliance has partnered with ADT to make sure that all low income customers got free nest thermostats so that they would have access to that technology and better be able to manage. Right. And so across the country, in different areas, you’ll find programs. But I think what we need to be thinking about, certainly we think about their lives is how do you get mass adoption, mass adoption so that every customer, every small business owner has the opportunity to adopt not because they have access to it, but that also it’s affordable. Those two things have to work hand in hand. It’s one thing to have all this great stuff, but if I can’t pay for it, then it’s just a bunch of great stuff that I can’t pay for.
Stuart Turley [00:12:13] Right?
Paula Glover [00:12:14] I think the good news is that between the rebates that have been built into the bipartisan infrastructure law, as well as the IRA, the tax credits that are there, the investment money that’s coming out of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, the chips, the Science Acts, which is really focusing on manufacturing like the administration is trying to, I think, hit all of the different levers that we need to be hitting to ensure that we have a smooth transition. Have we got it right? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that we did it because you don’t know what you don’t know. And so it is about how do we get people information and talk about it enough so that they want to adopt it at the same time? And more directly to your question. I think you would find that there are lots of companies that are really already invested in new technologies and invested in trying to figure out what they can do to lower their costs, lower their carbon emissions. And so is for some folks. You would be surprised how much carbon and how much cost can be saved just by changing out the lighting in your building. In a large commercial building change, the LEDs can have a significant impact on cost and carbon emissions, as would be things like not small things, big things, but what we would call passive efficiency. So. Things like making sure that your home is fully insulated and that your building is well insulated, making sure that you have a nice tight seal around your windows and your doors. And I’m sure you have listeners. Certainly I’ve experience like walking by my front door that’s close and feeling a little bit breeze come in. That’s not normal. We don’t want that. And so that’s bad things that we can do that have an impact, like setting our thermostat. Somewhere between the 72. And when we leave the house. Don’t turn it off. Turn it down. Right, Right. So turn it down to 55 or 60 when you’re not there and then turn it up when you’re home, as opposed to turning it off. Things like making sure if you’re in New England, in particular in cold weather climates. Your water heater is wrapped to keep it warm during the winter, and that is that the temperature is not too high. Right. So the little things that we can do and then there big things that we can do in terms of investments.
Stuart Turley [00:14:44] And the little things. I’ve always heard that it was best not to let your walls get too cold because then it takes too much energy to heat them back up. Yeah. Is there a a perfect mix like 50 degrees? Yeah. Is it 55?
Paula Glover [00:15:01] I think it’s 55. And now I’m going back a ways. But I started my career in a utility company and a gas company, and I had a lot of customers who had astronomical bills. And when I say astronomical, we’re talking customers who are three, four or five $600 bills a month.
Stuart Turley [00:15:18] Wow.
Paula Glover [00:15:19] Yeah. And one of the things that you would see many of them would do was turn the furnace off when they weren’t home. Because, you see, I’m not using the heat, so I’m going to turn it off. And then when I come in on home, I’m going to turn it on. But you turn it up real high because you want it right? You’re trying to warm up the house quickly. But if you think about the amount of energy it takes for your house to go from 55 degrees to seven degrees versus 30 degrees to 80 degrees, right. That’s really it’s that turning it down. And you don’t want your pipes to freeze. You actually don’t want to create another problem. So, you know, there are these little things that we can do and then there are these big investments that can be made that, you know, the administration is really trying to support through tax credits and home rebates and lots of other different types of programs. And that’s everything from furnaces and to heat pumps. Right. And so there’s this whole gamut of things that would allow us to save energy for us at the lines. And certainly what I firmly believe and what the International Energy Agency tells us is that we can get to 50% or 40% of our climate goals just through efficiency.
Stuart Turley [00:16:39] I didn’t realize it was that.
Paula Glover [00:16:40] Good because the technology that exists today, not through new stuff too. The stuff that’s available today, we could get a big portion there if we all leaned in on that tool.
Stuart Turley [00:16:52] Is this an education? And now let me ask two questions because this is important, not the questions, but the whole concept that you’re dealing with. Sorry, but when you sit back and kind of go, it’s an education kind of a thing, but it’s also how do we get the supply chain to get these tools at a low enough cost and out there to everybody? Does that make sense? Because supply chain copper is going to be really tight next year. The copper mines have got some problems going on. We have mining going on. There’s a lot of things. How do we get more renewables to the grid when we can’t have enough materials coming in in order to build them? This is a problem on this part, it seems. We’re talking about the number one thing that we can do if we can get the supply chain fixed to get these other add ins or tools or the insulation. That seems very.
Paula Glover [00:17:55] I mean, it’s education and which is a big part. Right. Meaning people where they are in we are living in a world that has a whole heck of a lot going on. So, you know, getting people’s attention is tough. So that’s a big chunk of it. But the other piece and we call it an investment, right? And so understanding that’s an investment, that means it’s not necessarily an expensive thing and it means that over time you’re going to see the benefits of that investment. Right. And so through an investment of $6,000 to further insulate your home, you’re not going to see a $6,000 decrease in the first month or even the first year. But over time, you’re going to more than get your money back, right, in that savings. And so part of it is how do we understand what people invest in and how they make those decisions and why they make those decisions? But I think for us, certainly at least for us at the lines and broader as an industry is understanding that people have to are being asked to make investments in lots of things. Right. And so what is it about my thing that I want you to prioritize over something else that may be important to you? Right. Right. What are the policies or the programs that we can put in place to make that decision easier because we’ve made the investments smaller. Right.
Stuart Turley [00:19:20] So I.
Paula Glover [00:19:21] Know in the play.
Stuart Turley [00:19:24] I get to say, you know me, I get too excited about the I I’ve noticed this on some of the appliances that we’ve gotten. And it is amazing on the newer refrigerators how much less they use, but yet affording a new refrigerator, not everybody can do. So there’s there is this tradeoff on an investment. And if you don’t have the money, you know and that’s the hard part.
Paula Glover [00:19:50] Yeah. So that that’s what I think the the tax credits and and the whole rebates, the rebates are become increasingly more important because it speaks to that very issue. Right. We recognize that it’s an investment and not everybody has the money for this investment. And so you’ve got to be able to access the other issues. And I just want to I want to highlight this because we don’t talk about it and that really is okay to create. And so the other benefit I think of efficiency is that there are a lot of people who actually don’t use their heat and their air when they should. To the detriment of their health. And so you will find there’s some research that’s been done by a colleague of mine, Dr. Dustin, not that will show you in areas of Ohio or Michigan or even Arizona, where you will find lower income customers who may wait another until he gets another 8 to 10 degrees hotter before they turn on their ear or 8 to 10 degrees. Then they turn on their heat. That’s also not a good situation. It’s not good for your health. And it’s just it’s so weak. But because it’s unaffordable that those are some of the other choices that people are making. And so, again, the power of this investment is really about cost and comfort. But for many households, it’s actually about, you know, basics. Right. That can be the difference between me turning on my heat when it’s 50 degrees out and me waiting, Right. 35 or 40, which is being way too cold to be turning on your heat for the first time. Right. So we have to consider all of that as we’re thinking about the. Tools for this transition and for us at the alliance, we’re certainly thinking about what is the measure of success for the things that the administration is being put money on the street and that we’re investing in now. But then what are the gaps? And so what else do we need? Because we have a very aggressive goal to meet climate. And we actually don’t have a lot of time. You know, I know. For 23.
Stuart Turley [00:22:07] Yeah. On the, um. Not not only on that, but we’ve got to sit back and say, I had a brilliant idea and I think I just saw world peace with this one, or I sounded like Miss America there for a moment. But when we sit back and think, Oh, wait a minute, we’ve got these the power companies seem like they would be in the perfect spot to be able to get this because they’re having some serious problems keeping the grid. We talk about grid stability. You would think those guys would be the ones to really want to cut down on power.
Paula Glover [00:22:51] Yeah, and they are actually, I think the thing that’s so interesting is that for many customers, that seems not to make any sense, right? Why would the Light company want me to use more electricity? Why would the gas company going to use more gas? But it is because of this issue that you describe. We need to keep our grid resilient. We need to be able to have stability and efficiency creates that space so that when you have a super, super cold day in Texas and everybody is now turning on this heat, you see some reliability, right? Because people are being efficient in their use. And so in many companies, I would suggest utilities, a country across the country get that and they want to do that. But depending on where you live, it may not be the utility company that’s providing that service. Right. In some jurisdictions, the utility that service, in some jurisdictions, someone else pays to provide that they’re not allowed. Someone else has that service. And so unfortunately, it’s not a universal right. Go to your local utility company. You’re going to get X, Y, Z. It kind of depends. And then when you think about customers who may be in a munis municipal system, maybe in public power. And so there are all these systems to provide services to customers. And each system may be a little bit different. But I would say across the board, the industry agrees that efficiency is actually really critical, not just for climate, but because we’re trying to manage our grid, our poles and our way. And it is the best way for us to be able to do that.
Stuart Turley [00:24:35] Well, Paul, that is brilliant. And. And because it came from you, not me. So it has to be brilliant. But the FARC came out and said the grid has got problems. How do you know? Because when if there’s blackouts and things, I’m always telling everybody because, you know, I live in Bear country, which is in Tornado Alley. I go figure this out. I’ve got an overpopulation of bears. And I also live in a place where the house has been hit by a tornado. So I’m always prepared to be able to survive by without having any assistance coming in. And I don’t care where you live. We as Americans need to help our neighbors and be ready. So, I mean, we could have a a blackout and or just a rolling blackout, natural disaster. How do you all tell everybody it doesn’t matter where you live, It could be effective, you know, just from any natural disaster or a rolling blackout or anything else. What are some basics that the alliance has out there?
Paula Glover [00:25:46] Yeah, So we don’t make sense. It does. I mean, I think what you’re describing is right. A push on the grid that I think we’re seeing all over the country.
Stuart Turley [00:25:58] Yes.
Paula Glover [00:25:58] In some places, then in others. And certainly our regulators as well as our companies, are really focused on like resiliency and and how are we going to build new transmission at a time where people don’t actually want to see new transmission? Right. We do still have a little bit of NIMBYism and it is still a little bit slow to cite things in terms of permitting and to build. And these are. Right. Enormous. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment. And so for us at the alliance, when we talk about efficiency, we’re talking about it in this frame of like, here’s a tool that you have available to you today that can help. It can not solve all the problems. It cannot. Right. But it can certainly help. Right. Good deployment of this tool can help with grid resilience. It can help prevent you from having a blackout, but also the future of efficiency, I think, for us as individuals. Right. A lot more power, our ability to what we call shift and shed load and so. Right. Having an image that may have a battery that can be backup power for your home so that if an outage, you’re running your house off of the car. Right. The EV’s battery, all of that technology kind of exists today. I mean, I think there’s some things around connectivity and maybe even cost, but these are things that are readily available. And so our job at the Alliance and why I appreciate being on this podcast is that I have to talk about it and I just have to continue to talk about it and talk about it in different audiences. And so that’s dangerous because you never want people to think that I’m offering the solution that can solve every single problem. But I kind of am offering a solution that’s going to solve a lot of a lot.
Stuart Turley [00:27:53] Of it, right? A lot of.
Paula Glover [00:27:54] It. And not just. And so we you know, I love to talk about efficiency as something for resilience, for energy security, to deal with carbon and and climate. But I also think it’s important for us to know that be the largest employer in the energy sector is an efficiency. All right. So over 2 million jobs and energy actually exist in the energy efficiency that we are the largest.
Stuart Turley [00:28:20] I did not know that.
Paula Glover [00:28:21] Right. Because. And our job opportunities are local. Right. So it’s your h-back. It’s the person who installs and keeps your heating and air conditioning. That would be considered.
Stuart Turley [00:28:34] The window replacement team’s, the.
Paula Glover [00:28:36] Window replacement team, the insulation guys.
Stuart Turley [00:28:40] I didn’t even think.
Paula Glover [00:28:41] Those are opportunities that are in efficiency. Those are union jobs. The plumber who’s working on your pipes. And so part and the fact that they are local, I think is really important. Right. We cannot bury.
Stuart Turley [00:28:56] Huge.
Paula Glover [00:28:57] This moment that we are also trying to have what I would describe as an industrial revolution in terms of this energy transition. Right. Doing it in such a way that requires that we focus on the least of us first and our community first. And so I agree. We talk about job opportunity a lot. I like to talk about wealth creation because everybody has a one day job. We know that there are companies and businesses who will make a lot of money off of this transition, and we should be talking to communities about that right, as well. And so I prefer.
Stuart Turley [00:29:34] Local ownership of those companies to.
Paula Glover [00:29:36] Simply local. Right. Because the reality is, is somebody from Oklahoma going to Virginia to fix my hip hop? No Right. He’s going to be. And that’s what we want. That’s what. Right. And then the site the other piece of that, too, right, is what is the power in terms of economic development when we upgrade our buildings. When we start to have an infrastructure that looks good, that feels good, right? When you’re moving the company into a new community. And here is this We have great schools, we have a great workforce. Here’s our infrastructure. Like all of that matters for communities. And I think the story of efficiency is that we can effectuate all of those changes. All right. Something to do with this. And so that’s why I’m so excited about it, right? Because I can’t solve every problem. But I think that I can probably solve a whole bunch of.
Stuart Turley [00:30:37] You can’t solve every problem that you touch. Every problem. I’m serious. You crossed paths with every problem, Paula. That’s huge.
Paula Glover [00:30:48] Absolutely. Well, because I think for for us at the alliance. Right. We are, we can truly be fuel, not neutral. You have natural gas in your furnace. I want you to have the most efficient natural gas furnace you can possibly have.
Stuart Turley [00:31:06] Energy agnostic.
Paula Glover [00:31:08] Energy agnostic, Right. If you have to use. When I lived in Connecticut, I had an oil burner. Right. If you have to have an oil burner, I want that to be the most efficient thing.
Stuart Turley [00:31:18] That’s the least using the best lowest sulfur oil. Absolutely.
Paula Glover [00:31:24] And I want you to be in a home that is well ventilated and well, and so.
Stuart Turley [00:31:29] You use less of it.
Paula Glover [00:31:30] So quite a couple of that is tied together.
Stuart Turley [00:31:34] I got to confess my sins here. And, you know, so we can pretend we’re in a confessional here. Michael and I have had our podcast for three years and I haven’t talked very much. This is maybe my second conversation on energy savings in actually doing this. That’s how sad this is. I can tell you how much problems are around the world, who’s doing what political this or how many wells or how many coal plants. This is sad. This is really sad that this could impact just about everything else even more.
Paula Glover [00:32:14] It really could. And it’s technology driven. I think, you know, as an industry, you know, we often want to talk about we’re not a sexy industry or, you know, we are not Nazeer or whatever all that is, but we are it’s a techno technological industry, right? And so the idea and I don’t know that people know this, right, but I have colleagues who have companies that, you know, everything is can be censored in your building. So not only will you know what rooms you’re in, in the building, but who’s using what space and when they’re using that space and how much is in. And you can ship right. How where where your lighting is and what lights on or off, how you’re thinking about your heating and cooling based on the occupancy of a building. That’s all sensors, right? We have a member of the alliance. Will they build digital twins? And so do a digital twin, which is like a digital map of every piece of technology in your building or your lighting, your cool, your heating, your.
Stuart Turley [00:33:25] Water.
Paula Glover [00:33:27] And how things are plugged in or plugged, not plugged in. And one of their customers is a Dallas-Fort Worth airport. Oh, and just in, I think, a very short period of time with one airline. I mean, understanding how planes that come into the jet bridge and whether or not you plug that plane in to use the power right from the building or are you keeping this plane running.
Stuart Turley [00:33:52] Or are you plugging into a portable generator?
Paula Glover [00:33:55] And one of the things that they learned was that a lot of times the plane wasn’t being plugged in. Right? It was it was still operating on fuel. There was a concern about turning it off and powering it back on and all that technological And just from that having that digital twin that allowed this airline to see how the planes were being used when they were being plugged in and not plugged in enabled them to sell, I think, tens of millions of dollars in jet fuel a year.
Stuart Turley [00:34:26] In that crazy site. So are they using A.I. for this or is this? I think the.
Paula Glover [00:34:31] Answer is it’s sensors on equipment, but the data being the direction of A.I. and using some predictive analytics are understanding like behaviors when you have all of that data. And so that is to say that efficiency is the hard stuff, right? It is the insulation, it’s the windows, it’s the doors, but it’s also the smart meter. It’s the digital means, it’s artificial intelligence. It’s it’s very.
Stuart Turley [00:34:58] Cool.
Paula Glover [00:34:58] Right? Oui, oui, oui, oui, oui. Abroad in that way as an industry. But I think if people think about it that way, you see how it has power to work in lots of different mediums because it is technology, just technological as well as some hands on stuff.
Stuart Turley [00:35:18] I’ve got about two more questions. We’re about out of time, but where do you see working with our policymakers, the legislative branches and everything else for this next 2024? What are some of your key goals as a CEO trying to go help move this message forward in working with the policymakers? Because this is a huge, huge deal, Paula.
Paula Glover [00:35:43] I think, you know, for us at the alliance, my biggest goal this year is to continue to build a bigger tent. We a.
Stuart Turley [00:35:50] Bigger one.
Paula Glover [00:35:51] A bigger tent. We need to bigger build a bigger tent, a larger coalition.
Stuart Turley [00:35:56] Oh, okay.
Paula Glover [00:35:56] I got it. I need I benefit. I have an honorary.
Stuart Turley [00:35:59] I went camping as soon as you said. It was like I was like, Oh, yeah, yeah.
Paula Glover [00:36:05] Now we have the alliance. We have I have an honorary board of advisors, bicameral, bipartisan base. So we spend a lot of time working with our policymakers on both sides of the aisle, and we are really thankful for their support. I think they understand, right, that what we’re talking about has great interest. And. Right. So for some policymakers, it’s huge climate benefits for the climate, it’s a huge economic benefit. Right. And so we do that. But we are doing more of that. We are looking at state and local elected leaders. We’re looking at our climate, our conservative climate caucus, our Hispanic caucus and the American caucus. We’re thinking about what are the ancillary or the other technologies that enable we do that. We need to be thinking about things like broadband and access to broadband, high speed Internet. Incredibly important, right? We think at the alliance we have a school program. So we are very much, you know, working with educators and working with our companies so that our students understand not only the job opportunities for efficiency, but actually the efficiency. And and so seeing students as young as second grade through high school come up with energy savings projects for their own schools and implement school. Right. And so we’re at the alliance. My goal this year is to build a bigger tent, which is to how do I get more people in different types of areas to think about The power of that efficiency can do two good, good for what their priorities are, right, national priorities are. And then measuring our success, telling stories about our success, measuring that success in a real, quantifiable way that you can, you know, share that out with some real data and proof points. Right. And also right. Keeping our eye on what’s going on now, again, hundreds of billions of dollars that are going to be invested in efficiency in manufacturing. And that’s starting to come out now over the next several years. And our role at the alliance is 2 to 1, understand how that money is being invested and make sure that we measure the success of those investments so that those investments are reflective of what our desires are. Not in 2030, 20, 40, 2050, when our time is up. But as for 25, 26, 27, so that we have the ability as an association to figure out are there areas that we need to pivot? Do we need to be more creative about the tools and the technology? But we over this year in coming, are constantly just looking behind our shoulders and keeping track of what we’re doing in real time.
Stuart Turley [00:38:57] Nice. And, you know, you got to have the broadband in order to help get the real time to that home. So, yeah, I’ll tell you, Paula, this is so cool. How do people. Your website is a s e dot org.
Paula Glover [00:39:14] Our guest. Please come visit us at AC.org. Connect with us on LinkedIn. To save energy. Connect with me on LinkedIn. All the glamor devices save energy. You know, we are happy to talk with anyone who is interested in talking to us. Think this is.
Stuart Turley [00:39:32] I’m going to have links to this article in the show notes because this was really cool. Yes, I am. So thank you for taking the time, Paul. I had such a blast and it was great visiting with you and I can’t wait to visit again. If you and the Lions ever need to get the word out, let us know because we sure want to get the word out for you.
Paula Glover [00:39:52] Well, we absolutely have some good things happening over the next year as it relates to virtual power plants. More with our demand is the new supply. What does equity look like in an energy transition? And so we certainly love opportunity to keep in touch with your audience and what we’re doing.
Stuart Turley [00:40:09] We do not want to leave anybody behind, honestly. We know in my work, you know, my wife leaves me behind all the time We go shopping. I just go sit in the corner and then she goes home. So, you know, that’s how that happened. Just can. Anyway, thank you for stopping by the podcast. I appreciate.
Paula Glover [00:40:26] I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
