GridPulse, a Grid Forward podcast

As the energy landscape grows more complex, utilities see new  technologies as critical to making electricity more clean, affordable and reliable. Yet how can they nurture innovation in a historically conservative industry? In this episode, Avista CEO Heather Rosentrater shares the ways her team is embedding innovation across the organization, not just within a single team, to navigating rising operational risks. Avista is empowering employees to rethink how work gets done, optimize business operations, and communicate with communities. If you're looking for inspiration for how to make innovation integral to your organization, listen to Heather's experience at Avista.

As energy demand surges, tech giants are stepping up as key partners to utilities navigating a rapidly changing grid. At CERAWeek 2026, Bryce Yonker explored this topic speaking with Hannah Green, Global Operations & GTM Leader for Energy & Resources at Microsoft, and Rayford Smith, Global Head of Power and Energy for Cloud at Google. They detailed how digital infrastructure, the cloud and AI are reshaping how utilities plan and operate the grid. From faster forecasting to smarter operations, these technologies are unlocking new efficiencies. But as new tech become embedded in critical infrastructure, building trust through strong governance, transparency and accountability is increasingly essential. Listen in to understand the evolving dynamic between these two mission-critical industries and the path to "getting it right."

As energy demand surges, how is the U.S. Department of Energy supporting breakthrough technologies to strengthen grid resilience? ARPA-E Director Conor Prochaska shares how the agency is identifying and advancing high-impact solutions, including fusion (which he thinks is getting closer), advanced nuclear, next-generation geothermal, long duration storage and more to help meet growing demand. But technology alone isn’t enough. Prochaska also highlights the critical role of public-private partnerships and faster commercialization pathways in bringing these innovations to scale. We recorded this live at CeraWeek in Houston and will be joining the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit next week. Hope to see you in San Diego. 

What does it take to power rural America in a time of fast-changing technologies and rising demand and costs? Jim Matheson of NRECA shares insights into how electric cooperatives are adapting to meet supply chain pressures, infrastructure needs, and the rapid growth fueled by data centers and other energy demands. He also discusses the importance of federal financing and the cooperative model to maintain affordability and reliability on the rural grid. How well are U.S. co-ops suited to meet the day? Tune in to listen to our lively conversation. 

On the season opener of GridPulse, Virginia Commissioner Jehmal Hudson joins the podcast to discuss the national and local drivers behind rising energy demand and what they mean for grid planning and regulation. He explores the need for smarter transmission utilization, meeting the demand for accelerating data center facilities, thoughtful rate design for large loads, and updated regulatory processes that take innovation into account without sacrificing public accountability. As the energy landscape evolves, Judge Hudson emphasizes that affordability must remain a core outcome, and not a restraint, as decision-makers work to modernize the grid for the demands of today as well as the future.

In this season 6 finale, Luis D’Acosta, CEO of Uplight, recaps this season’s driving issues with a rapid-fire discussion with Bryce. They cover a wide range of topics: 

• Applying AI-driven technologies to run the grid more effectively
• Mitigating wildfire risks by integrating digital and advanced monitoring solutions
• Ongoing effects of the federal agencies’ changing priorities on grid modernization
• The importance of scaling new technologies quickly and broadly across the grid to help curb rate increases
• Optimizing the Demand Stack to enable more grid flexibility

Listen in to this expert recap of an exciting and challenging year for advancing the electric grid. And thank you for listening to this season of GridForward Forum!

On the first day of the GridFWD 2025 event, leadership from some of the nation’s largest and most AI-engaged utilities joined a panel to tell our audience about their acceleration of AI use cases. Jason Glickman (EVP Engineering, Planning and Strategy, PG&E), Bonnie Titone (Senior VP and Chief Administrative Officer, Duke Energy) and Petter Skantze (Senior VP of Infrastructure Development, NextEra Energy Resources) discuss how utilities and infrastructure developers can leverage AI for their own use and accommodate the added demand from large load customers, while ensuring that their systems remain resilient.

Dynamic line rating (DLR) is a Grid Enhancing Technology (GET) that measures the impact of ambient conditions on the carrying capacity of a grid. When DLR is employed network wide, it improves asset utilization, reliability, resilience, and confidence in investments. Guest host Julia Selker of Grid Strategies and Vishal Kapadia, CEO of LineVision, discuss how the successful implementation of DLR can save millions of dollars, identify grid weaknesses, and help meet the need for increased capacity. 

Increasing flexibility on the electric grid is necessary as demand and capacity requirements rapidly rise. Diversifying generation portfolios with emerging technologies is a good start, and significant T&D investments in innovations like virtual power plants can help match supply with demand. Cost, construction, and timing are often challenges to increasing flexibility; therefore, what solutions are going to make the most impact to help meet energy needs? Joining us to discuss these important topics about flexibility are Dr. William (Bill) Burke, CEO at Virtual Peaker, Jessica Matlock, CEO at PNGC Power, and Darren Murtaugh, Director of Electric Distribution Strategy at ICF.

Power demand from data centers is clearly increasing faster than current electric infrastructure and markets can accommodate. Therefore, data centers and grid operators are exploring one workaround: flexing data center loads during peak demand times. Brian Janous, of Cloverleaf Infrastructure, and Chris Pennington, of Iron Mountain Data Centers, discuss the current opportunities and challenges to data center flexibility. For example, there are options for moving workloads among facilities and leveraging the improving capabilities of battery storage. On the other hand, demand response is not a major business driver. The industry needs to define relatively simple solutions that can be deployed at scale to meet market demand.