We've Been Piloting Grid Solutions for 20 Years. It's Time to Deploy.

Everyone is in pain, right? The governors are in pain. The utilities are in pain. The public service commissions are in pain. The Wal-Mart's and the people who use electricity are in pain, right? Like, and over here, we've got aspirin, right? And everyone's like, I don't know. We need to do like a five year study as to whether I should take aspirin. (humming) Hello, my name is Sugar Shaw, and I'm a clean energy entrepreneur. Hi, my name is Arnaud Powell, and I'm a self-described clean energy whisperer. (laughing) I love it. Well, look, I mean, it is such a pleasure to have Vishalan. I don't know if you know him at all, but he has had so many amazing experiences in his career. And frankly, I think what he's taken on right now is gotta be the hardest assignment yet, 'cause he's working with the electric utility companies, and they are his customer. But, you know, I'm interested to hear what he has to say, 'cause Chris Wright this week talked about how grid utilization was gonna be one of the top ways for us to get data centers online. I did not expect that. That was not a my bingo card, but I feel like, you know, he's reading the Brattle Report and the Deploy Action State Playbooks. Congratulations on that, Arnaud. I'm sure that's exactly what Chris Wright does in a way accepts. Like, what's the Deploy Action Playbook say about energy today? I mean, you know, like five different people, like repeat what's in there, and then eventually it gets washed out as a MAGA talking point. So there you go. - That's the, the SMI dream to be a washed out MAGA talking point. And then we got the Spark funding, right? So the old grip grants have been recycled as Spark funding. And so that's coming out the door. So I'd be curious to see, you know, what Vishal thinks about that and whether he's chasing them. - Yeah, you know, I really wanna know like, what's his strategy for speeding up the process to get his technology deployed. And you know, I've had numerous utilities tell me and probably you and private, that it's like, hey, we like all this stuff. We're just not the best product managers. And what I wanna hear from Vishal is like, you have something that everyone agrees works, can bring down costs, can help with capacity. So like, how do we get it out there? So everyone can benefit as soon as possible. And yeah, I'm really anxious to hear what his take is on that. - Well, and the value of legislation, I mean, we just passed this criticalization legislation in Virginia, which I think is gonna help him out a lot. And so we'll see what that looks like. 'Cause as you know, I've said this multiple times. I have been in the room when every single person around the table, every single vice president is like, yep, this is the best idea ever. And then you leave the room for a bathroom break and they've rejected the idea. So like, I feel like utilities, like even if everyone's on board, the utility itself, like the walls, themselves make a decision. Like, it's different than what everybody else in the room thinks. - Yeah, I mean, these are the most frustrating problems because everybody agrees and nobody agrees on how to do it. And you're like, well, like, why are we spending time doing something that needs to be get done? And I think, you know, I think these technologies and what Vishal is gonna talk about is right in that problem set. So, you know, let's see what he has to say. (singing) - This episode is supported by S2G investments. If you've been listening to me, you know that I'm done talking about R&D. We have the technology. The real question is, can we deploy it at scale? When I joined Sunjeev Krishnan on the S2G podcast, we skipped the hype and talked about what actually matters, affordability, fit for purpose capital, and getting real infrastructure built. S2G investments is one of the only firms who brings that same deployment first mindset to energy, agriculture, and the oceans, connecting the dots across the real economy. Listen to the S2G podcast on your favorite podcast app now, and start with my episode on energy affordability. (singing) - All right, well, this is a conversation I've been wanting to have for a long time. Vishal, you and I have known each other for some time, and it is just such a pleasure to see you and you're not so new role. I think it's been over a year, right? As the CEO of LineVision. - It's about nine months. Nine months at this point. - There you go. There you go. Welcome to the podcast. We are currently in an extraordinary moment, right? A moment where we've got a power crisis, we've got all of these conversations are happening that, frankly, you and I used to have just in a nerdy corner. Now it's being talked about by governors, talked about by other parties, right? And so it's an interesting place you're in, but you didn't start here, right? You started as a banker, as the head of energy for Walmart. So all of these jobs to date have been really finance-related, right? They're not necessarily you understanding exactly how interconnection cues work or how the grid works or how even the procurement of power works, per se, right? I mean, did you pick up any of this stuff along the way or is that post the Morgan Stanley role? - Well, all of it, Chigger, I mean, along the way, when you are, you know, off-raising capital and financing all of these assets, you know, you're the face of the project, you know, or the portfolio, you know, to the investor community. And that necessitates building, you know, some level of understanding, you know, understanding the, IE reports, the energy assessments, you know, the power contracts, the risks contained in them, particularly, you know, sitting at Morgan Stanley when we're financing a lot of utility scale assets. I mean, that was what the lender had on. And so, really did have to develop that kind of in-depth understanding of what are the risks inherent in these assets, you know, how are they being mitigated? You know, what can be done to ultimately mitigate them? I mean, there were a couple of assets that, you know, we owned, you know, within what subsequently became more a step that dealt with a lot of the issues related to what are stormyery and, you know, had revenue contracts that left them vulnerable in that regard. And so, there was a need to kind of, you know, work with all of our partners to figure out solutions to the problems that that spawned. And then the journey at Orsted was, you know, very much a hybrid finance and commercial type leadership role that was not only responsible for financing, for financing and commercializing organic development assets, but, you know, that journey that we undertook to become a five gigawatt full spectrum global platform over a few years, a lot of that growth was delivered by M&A and done across multiple markets, not just in the US, but beyond as well. And so, I was able to kind of get a full spectrum of experience across not just technologies and life cycle of projects, but also across different geographies in the different markets that we were ultimately evaluating and effectuating market entry into. But I ended up leaving Orsted in late 2021 to kind of figure out what to do next. And I happened to get a call from someone representing Walmart and I sort of laughed at the time, just given everything that was going on in the environment. Why would I ever go off to Walmart with all of that opportunity out there? And I have flown, I have flown to Bentonville way more than just once. The direct flight to, what is it? Northwest Arkansas Airport? That's right. It was, was, was a mainstay for me. It's, you know, and, you know, I'm, I'm curious though, you know, you didn't just take the job. You moved to Bentonville, right? I did not trigger. I did not. And you're like the one person that was not forced to move to Bentonville. I mean, indeed, you're a Bentonville guy. So you just, you can't believe someone would dig that offer. I love Bentville. I had an extraordinary barbecue in Bentonville. They have transformed the areas been transformed, you know, by the Walton family and Walmart. I mean, there's a new headquarters that's been built there. It's 350 acre campus. I mean, it is, it is absolutely beautiful. And it wasn't for me. But it's not just Walmart. I mean, they've got three fortune 500 companies from Northwest Arkansas, right? It's Tyson's food and JB Hunt and JB Hunt. That's right. That's right. Damn. I think in that whole kind of tri, that, that there's a bit of a triangle there, you know, where I think if you bring all of that together, it is Northwest Arkansas. And I think it's somewhere close to a million people in that, that little corner of the state. So it's grown tremendously. But I, I, I, I, I, I, I in 2022, I ended up joining Wal March to basically build and, and lead that new energy strategy, you know, for the company. And I'm really shift it from being the energy function for being viewed as a cost center to something like a value create, for the value creation platform that it could be. And so what we really focused on building was a, a strategy and a team that was aimed at delivering energy security and affordability for our operations. And then ultimately the communities that we were present in. And then building new businesses around the energy transition where there was an opportunity to be distinctive and doing so. With the ideal byproduct of those things to then being able to help with emissions reduction and progress towards the 2040 goals. But I think you're as I, yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, you know, let's, we should click in a little bit more on this energy transformation at Wal-Mart. And I think there's some specifics that you mentioned to us that we'd love to talk about. So, you know, you said that non-related, whether related outages went up, you know, almost 20% in three or four years. And, you know, there was some sort of grid deterioration around that. And I'm curious. like what did that look like when you're the ones that are paying the Walmart electricity bills? Well, it's not pleasant to our nom, let's just leave it at that, right? I mean, I, you know, part of what I oversaw was our energy PNL in the US and like that and because we were spread all around the country, I was in a unique position to be able to see across the country. And what we saw was that invariably there's always some exceptions here and there, but for the most part, costs were going up and reliability was going down. And you know, that was really very antithetical to anything in a Walmart context when you think about supplier relationships is that we were effectively paying a lot more money for an increasingly unreliable product. And so there was a need to kind of take on, you know, a more active role more so than it already been undertaken in advocating and participating, intervening in rate cases around the country. And so it kind of goes beyond just paying the bills and you know, it was really about keeping the lights on in a lot of different places because we're also investing in an automation transformation across our footprint that was driving billions of dollars of capital into transforming the core supply chain operations of the business. And so you've just sort of sit there feeling like a pretty deep sense of urgency to dedicate lots of resources to take things into your own hands. And so as we had done, we're doing, and we're building entire teams and mechanisms around energy security, right? And so we'd start with energy efficiency projects, you know, obviously the premise being there that the and the reality being that the cheapest and greatest electrons are the ones that we don't use. And so trying to create awareness and change operational processes to be able to to effectuate that because it's the lowest hanging fruit out there. But then also assembling new mechanisms to assess risks and then dedicating capital and other resources to be able to go off and solve them. And so we were buying more diesel generators. We were building solar storage, you know, fuel cells, power quality monitoring infrastructure. And obviously none of that was cheap, you know, both in terms of dollars, but also time spent. And so, you know, Walmart, and we describe ourselves at a tech-powered Omni channel retail, a nice to go around saying that you can't be tech-powered without power, you know, in order to be able to help people understand the gravity and need and need to dedicate resources to what we're doing. So look, for my perspective, there's nothing like being part of Walmart and everything and everyone that it touches to help you realize that there's like there's really no more regressive tax that can be opposed on people than it costing more money to keep the lights on or to keep the refrigerator running, you know. And so it's a pretty unique perspective. Those able to derive from my experience there. Well, it's I mean, but it's also something that is interesting, right? Because, you know, retail feels old and stodgy. People have been doing it for a very long time, but when you think about Walmart and Costco and now Amazon, right? Like, there's actually an enormous amount of innovation, an enormous amount of cultural change, right? Like, I mean, an enormous amount of adoption of technology, right? Which is almost the exact opposite of what you see in the electric utility space, right? So when you're sitting in the Walmart desk and you're, you know, like getting into rate cases and you're getting into these things and you're going to utilities and saying, basically, why are you forcing me to spend all of this money on backup diesel generators and all this other stuff? Right? Like, you know, why don't you just do your job better? Right? Like, I guess what I'm trying to understand is it must have felt a bit powerless, right? Yeah, you could like seize the power by putting in microgrids or putting in backup generators or whatever else, right? But you weren't really able to fix the electric utilities that were serving you. No, Jager. I mean, there's a limit to what can be done in that regard. And it's why we dedicated the resources that we did and why, you know, you see a lot of the folks that are now, you know, looking for access to power and the time frame that they're looking for, taking things into their own hands and, you know, going off and building these teams and building these capabilities to, because they've realized that, you know, there is an issue there as a release to speed to power. And now look, I'd say from the utilities perspective, putting, you know, myself in my customer shoes now, I mean, it's not for lack of trying, right? I mean, like, there are great people at these businesses that are trying to do the right thing, but they are, you have been working in, you know, a certain way for, you know, a number of years. They haven't dealt with conditions like this in quite some time, you know, many of the folks are not, they're not used to being able to operate at that pace. On top of that, they're stretched thinner than they ever have been. And it's a, I empathize with them, you know, having to kind of, you know, change virtually overnight, you know, on the back of, really 18 or 24 months, so just full on rush and, you know, place where we were, you know, just two and a half, three years ago, plenty of excess capacity. And, you know, here we are today, where, you know, we're, we're very, very short, and we're talking about, you know, power demand, I think peak load being at 6X in 2030, you know, what it was, or what it is, you know, today or, you know, a year ago. And so it's a, it's a pretty significant shift. And yes, from the perspective of large energy consumer, that's looking to achieve those objectives of keeping the lights on and keeping costs low, you almost don't have a choice, you know, but to go off and effectuate, you know, all of these new capabilities and, and ways of working to be able to respond to that. Well, one of the things that you saw firsthand from Walmart, right, was that generation costs have basically stayed the same since 2010, right? Like they haven't really gone up that much on the whole cell power side. Then you've got transmission costs, which have gone up, right? From, you know, 1.2 cents a kilo at hour to maybe 2 cents a kilo at hour today. But still in line with inflation, really, since 2010 or so. And it's distribution costs that have just spiked, right? Like in a big way, right? So, and so now we're in a situation where we have to meet this speed to power, this load growth, this increase in peak demand, right? You've been CEO at line vision for nine months, right? And you guys are talking about things on a specific basis, right? Like specific customer, specific states, et cetera, right? But now you've also got this macro view that's coming into focus, right? Which is around how do we get more out of the assets we've already paid for, right? Some people are calling it great utilization, right? Others are, you know, using things like grid enhancing technologies or grid modernization or some of that stuff, right? But, you know, but ultimately there's, there's some real barriers in the way. Like, I mean, I understand the need to sort of say that, well, folks have it hard and, you know, their grandfather's taught them a certain way and, you know, it's hard to lose old habits. But ultimately, part of the challenge is that folks get paid to make money by spending money, right? The model itself is one of rate base, right? And when we had no real load growth from 2003 to 2022, right? Then, you know, he sort of had a manufacturer load growth. He had a manufacturer like, you know, waste to spend money. Today, that's not the challenge, but old habits die hard, right? I mean, so how is it that you guys go to market? Like, I mean, what is the company that you're running? And how is it that you guys go to market? Yeah, I would say first off, you're, I look, I just going back to the Walmart pile. Like I loved what I was doing at Walmart, you know, a great people diversity, the footprint, it kind of touched everything across energy, mobility, facilities. And I was living here in the Boston area the entire time, though. And, you know, for us moving to Bentonville wasn't something that was going to happen because during my whole career arc, you know, we moved 12 times in about 10 years. And on two of those moves, my, my wife happened to be seven or eight months pregnant. And so you talk about the, we'll talk about the critical backbone of our economy at a moment. But I mean, she's the critical backbone of our family. And none of what I do happens without her. But, you know, look, we were, we were done moving, you know, I had two kids growing up super fast. I was missing out a lot of time. I was going to get back as a behavioral logistics problem. But to your point, I mean, around the feeling of being powerless, you know, I was pretty obvious that we have all these problems, right? Like affordability, availability, reliability, and we're not going away. And I hear you on sort of the, you know, focusing on the distribution bit. But like, as, as I tended to do, I key in on the numbers, right? And like we do have a tremendous amount of wasted energy in the US because of great constraints, transmission, great constraints. And, you know, the, the cost of that's on average, $15 billion per year now. And that average has doubled over the past five years. On the cat-bex side, you know, we're, we're spending $45 billion on transmission cat-bex per year. And that number's only going up in a few years time with me north of 50 billion and, you know, 60 billion by 2030. Yeah. And needs to be double that number. Exactly. And PGM transmission is actually a third of wholesale power cost now. And so like all, all of this is coming at us collectively and it's only going one direction and utilities need help, right? And so to me, you know, the, the why around line vision from my perspective is that look to be able to do that in a place where it's unquestionably the hardest to build new infrastructure on the transmission side. And, you know, with the traction that we have had and establishing, you know, relationships with some of the largest utilities across the US and the UK, folks like National Grid, Dominion, Ex-Lon, Georgia Power. I mean, for me, I saw what the company was doing that was tremendously untapped resource that if you could deliver tremendous value for the system large, if someone came in and was able to figure out how to make it all go faster, right? But we are a up against that inherent incentive misalignment, you know, certainly here in a US context. The UK is a bit of a unicorn in this regard and that they actually have policy mechanisms in place to incentivize the transmission operators to reduce congestion by allowing them to share in the savings of the costs that they're able to reduce across the system. That is something that does not exist here in the US in the transmission context. And it requires change, you know, requires repositioning of our solution to be able to ultimately help speak to a value proposition that they will respond to, you know? No, I get it. I mean, I, you know, like I often say that our transmission infrastructure is sort of, you know, measured in, you know, by slide rule, right, the amount of capacity that all this transmission has, right? I mean, your technology really is replacing that slide rule with dynamic ratings and, you know, the ability to actually really unlock the capacity that's just sitting there, right? So like, you know, how do you guys think about that? Yeah, well, just simplistically on the technology, and I think about our transmission lines, you know, as highways and, you know, electrons as cars driving along those highways. And there's going to be certain times where you might have extra lanes available on those highways. And other cases, you might just have too many cars out there and you need more lanes. And, you know, it comes to transmission lines, the determination of what is actually available is made on the basis of worst case operating conditions, right? That it's really, really hot with no wind and the lines are there for, you know, really hot. And so when you factor in like hyper local environmental conditions, things like I ambient temperature and what's most impactful is wind speed and direction because of the cooling effect that it has on lines, then you now have the most accurate information on what's actually available. How many lanes are there on the highway? And that's what dynamic line ratings are. I mean, it is critical information to tell us more precisely how many lanes there are on those highways. And in other words, it's a true capacity of transmission lines. And look, that at the core, that's the core of what we do at line vision, like we provide that critical intelligence layer on the critical backbone of our power system. And look, it matters because we do have these problems, checker, right, availability, affordability, reliability. I mean, they're not going away. They're only getting worse. And, you know, what attracted me to the business and where we drive value is we unlock value across all of those things. You know, I want to Vishal, want to go back to, I think one of our favorite topics is that utilities need help. And, and I think that's right. And I think their their intentions generally tend to be good here. You know, Jager and I have spent the last two years sort of building this case policy case for grid utilization, which we've talked about, which is this all encompassing term with what you're doing on the transmission side and a lot of work or doing distribution side, you know, Virginia just passed its first in the nation. A grid utilization bill still to be signed by the governor. And, you know, dominion, one of your customers didn't a burden in fact they supported it and helped us, you know, in the background on it. Is it this legislation? Is this what we need to get utilities to look at what they've what they already have before spending billions more? Well, look, Arnau, I think when you talk about look, what we are trying to do, right, is we figured we feel like we figured out the what in terms of having a product that's flexible, scalable, you know, utility grade, we figured out the why in terms of articulating a value proposition, you know, for our solution. And what we're really now very much focused on is the how, right? How do we make it easier for our customers to do business with us and do more? And so when you talk about, you know, air cover to be able to help things move faster, nothing delivers that, you know, like regulation and legislation, right? But I do think there's other issues at play now and I don't think, you know, stopping it reporting requirements or just commitments to sort of evaluate and study really go far in off when it comes to proven technologies, right? And in the case of DLR, it's been utilized in Europe since the early part of the last decade, you know, we're deploying at scale with national grid in the US and are in the UK, I should say. And look, as a country, I just think we need to deploy proven technology and we need to do it fast when we've got an opportunity to do that because there's not a lot of things that you can do quickly and cost effectively. And I think the dynamic now, you know, are not here is that like for utilities, every giga lot of load that gets built off grid is a tremendous amount of lost profit now. And it also then ends up raising costs for consumers because it's depressing asset utilization of the existing infrastructure. And so I think for, look, for our country rising electricity prices, they don't just cause pain directly for residential customers, they cause indirect pain because when the cost of your core inputs increase, broader prices are going to increase. And then all of a sudden you wake up and your economy is structurally uncompetitive. And so to me, but improving utilization helps the speed helps with affordability and legislation is obviously incredibly helpful in that regard. And in the case of DLR, you know, FERC, as they have done with, you know, with order eight 81 to be able to mandate and be in adjusted ratings and and the steps that were taken to prepare for that, they could just mandate DLR everywhere. And that would solve a lot of problems and do it quickly. Which they're not. And the absence of doing right? I mean, I guess like part of part of my problem, Michelle, is I want to understand as somebody who has also worked on this for 20 years, right? I just want to understand when you have a no brainer, which is what I think DLR represents, right? And you have a crisis, which is what I think load growth from data centers represents, right? Like how much time do I give people to get there? Like I guess what I'm trying to understand is like, is five years what I should, like is what I should be expecting? Like in your job at Walmart or or stead or like at Lincoln or at Barclays? Like, is that what you would do when you're like, Oh, I got a tiger by the tail. This thing's going to really make everyone's lives better. We're going to make a lot of money at it. Let's figure out how to like get it done in five years. I guess I'm just trying to understand. Like I as our knob said, I have a lot of empathy for the utilities. And you said the same thing, right? So I'm not trying to beat them up. What I'm trying to understand from a systems point of view, is it like everyone is in pain, right? The governors are in pain, the utilities are in pain, the public service commissions are in pain, the Walmart's and the people who use electricity are in pain, right? And everyone's like, I don't know, we need to do like a five year study as to whether I should take aspirin. Yeah, I guess some context on what you're saying. I think everyone agrees with what what you what your solution here is. And it's one of those consensus like no brainers. But then when you put it in a resource planning model, which maybe is the counter of the aspirin, I don't know where you're going with this trigger. You know, it's not getting selected, right? And maybe not your technology specifically, but everyone's like, oh, well, we put it in the cost effectiveness calculator and, you know, like, you know, these grid enhancing technologies didn't show up. So we had to build a new line. And I'm over exaggerating a little bit, but not really. So like, what's going on? Yeah. So look, I would say in the case of line ratings in particular, right? Like with DLR, I mean, I think in fairness to your utility counterparts, I don't think the industry did a particularly effective job in articulating the value proposition of the solution, right? Like the the entire construct was based on take a sensor, deploy it on a tower, like have a line rating, right? Now, look, what I what I did when I first got here was I went off and started talking to our customers to understand like, what are we doing? Well, we're not doing well, what are we doing better? Right? So I heard a couple of I heard a lot of things, but you know, I'll point to a couple, you know, one, one is that, you know, one customer says, Hey, look, I really like the information that I get, you know, from your solution. But if you think that I'm going to put a sensor on 40,000 structures across my territory, like it's just never going to happen. Okay? That's kind of number one. Number two was a lot of the work that we've been doing, you know, to be able to to reduce congestion, you know, in some of the territories. What we realized is that, you know, congestion might be resolved in a particular location by virtue of, you know, rewriting a particular line. But the system operator might not actually see any value from it because it would just be getting pushed to another place. And so it really became, it has become about like delivering a fit for purpose solution that can deliver network level of visibility. And you know, I, the dynamic line ratings industry has not, you know, a, particularly the value proposition effectively enough, but then B had that ability to have a fit for purpose solution that can be deployed at that level of scale so that you actually can unlock that ROI. And that's where with a lot of the change that frankly we've driven here at line vision, you know, over not a five year time frame, trigger nine months time frame, you know, we very quickly evolved, you know, our solution from a line level solution that's enabled by a sensor to one that is a network level solution that is enhanced by sensors. And we're able to do that because we had all those sensors out there in the field, thought different types of topography, different terrain, different structures. And that has allowed us to be able to now infer across the entirety of a network, right? And so it's now look, you're not going to have the same degree of accuracy, you know, at a place where you place where you don't have a sensor, whereas you do, but there's also this reality that not all parts of a network are created equal and operated in the same way, you know, some of them are not some of the lines aren't heavily loaded, you know, some of them are very heavily loaded and are serving critical infrastructure. And so you do need that maximum visibility. But having something that's fit for purpose and understanding, you know, of that reality of the fact that not all parts of a network are created equal, and then also understanding that look, a problem today is not necessarily where the problem tomorrow is going to be that these networks are not just static beings, they're going to change over time. The industry now have a fit for purpose solution or value proposition or a narrative to be able to address that. and to have a product that was quickly deployed, cost-effective to actually solve the problems. And so I think we've addressed that, certainly here at LineVision, in terms of the what with the product that we have, the why in terms of why to go off and do this and the value proposition thereof, and it really is about the how. And so like zooming into a particular upgrade, for instance, like if you had used this information in planning, this is what would have changed, you would have not had to effectuate this upgrade, this is what the dollar impact of that would be, but not just with that upgrade, but with everything that that upgrade leads to at the end of the day, right, or obviating that upgrade. And that is faster time to power for a new industrial facility. The tax revenue associated with that, the jobs associated with that. I mean, what we're really talking about is helping people understand the use of imperfect information in planning is actually impeding GDP growth, and then creating awareness on that reality. And I mean, look, electricity is, I go back to, can't be tech powered without power at the end of the day. And we have this incredible invention that is probably the most valuable asset in the history of mankind's our existing grid, right? And I think it's about helping people understand, telling the story about, you know, what are the effects, you know, of failures in planning, or the use of imperfect information in planning. And from someone who's come from, you know, or seen this from every side of the equation, right, where look, and the process by which you, as a power developer, are looking to ultimately get your project into the queue, and then you wait two years, three years for a study to be done, and then you have something that turns up, on the back of a very opaque process that hits you with this massive upgrade. And now maybe you don't have a project, you know, anymore. And what now is sitting on the other side of that project is a data center, or a new perishable distribution center, or what have you. And the effects because of where we are from a demand perspective of inefficiencies in that planning, I think just need to be, folks need to be made aware of that and the connectivity of some of those imperfections and inefficiencies in planning to precluding the ability to grow GDP and win the AI race. - So let's talk about the level of speed to power. - Yeah, but let's talk about scale, right? Because I feel like, look, we're gonna still keep building more generation, we're still gonna keep building out the transmission grid, all that stuff has to happen, right? But if people really took your technology seriously and deployed it at scale nationwide, and then also deployed batteries at Walmart stores, and all of the competitors that you have, and deployed the stuff that you and I believe are piloted, proven, like we have data, we have case studies, we have a story, right? It does feel like you could do a lot. I mean, Chris Wright, the current secretary of energy, just set on stage that he thinks that there's an extra 100 gigawatts of capacity that could be unlocked with all these solutions if they were deployed at scale. Like, is that the kind of scale we're talking about? How much scale can we get to and how fast can we get to it? - Yeah, I mean, look, I, Jury, I think like the, you're gonna have different circumstances in different places, and I'm gonna just speak to kind of DLR specifically, right? Because it's where we spend our time. And I think there are certain parts of the country, you know, where there's a tremendous amount of latent capacity, particularly in the wind resource regimes, right? Where, you know, what we are ultimately relying on to unlock this capacity is having insights into the wind speed and direction, you know, on these transmission lines, and places up and down the middle of the country across RECO, not as BP, MISO, same places where all the wind and down there's a lot of latent capacity. - So thing North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, like these are all, that wind belt where those states are all 30, 40% wind power. - You've got it. There's a, there's quite a bit of latent capacity, you know, in those areas. Now, there are other, you know, parts of the country where you have the opposite issue is that, you know, the use of ambient adjusted ratings, you know, which FERC has mandated because it is also imperfect information is also in some pockets as we're starting to do some work, seeing that like lines are actually now being operating at over capacity because of the use of imperfect information there, right? And so I think Jigger, like, you know, if I, the answer is it's complicated. And in some parts of the country, you have a very robust story as the area is that I mentioned, in other parts of the country, perhaps not so much, but from my standpoint, that is information that then helps you understand, like, okay, well, where do I need to invest, you know, resources to be able to address these issues at that level of scale in the most optimal way? And that's where things like, look, the spark program, you know, round three of the, you know, the deployment office funding that is now being deployed, where, look, there's a lot of, you know, capital that's now going to be deployed towards, you know, re-conductoring and advanced transmission technologies. And, you know, from my standpoint, we can get a whole lot further with those dollars if we have information that can help us understand where and when those dollars are going to go further to the end of that. - I hear you, but just to be clear, I mean, that spark program is like over a billion dollars, right? Of new grant funding to roll out your solution nationwide, it'd be like 500 million bucks, right? I mean, like, I just want to make sure that people understand like the context of what we're talking about here, right? Like, it's not that much money to unlock all this extra capacity, right? It just isn't. And so like, look, I get the fact that you've got a business to run and you've got to like, you know, work with a lot of these customers. But like, from my side, I'm like, God damn it, why can't America do big things? Right? Like, I mean, we've invented all this stuff. We then had to ship it over to the UK because we weren't going to scale it up. So we're like, why don't you take it to scale it up? And then, you know, they went to Belgium, they went to other places. They even Brazil and India are using dynamic line ratings. And now we're like, all right, well, now that 20 other countries around the world have tested it, maybe we should take our homegrown technologies and deploy it at scale. Like the thing that bothers me the most is it, we have this venture capital like, you know, ecosystem. We have all these investors, right? You guys have, I think, S2G and others that are invested in you guys. And like, I want them to make a lot of money. I want them to be a huge return on investment. So they'll keep investing in the next generation of companies. But that requires you to like actually be able to realize your full potential. Am I wrong? No, you're spot on. I mean, I, you know, I would love for all of this to go faster, jigger, right? And, you know, look, I would, I would just say, as it relates to, you know, DLR, you know, I'll go back to like, look, I don't think the industry really gave anyone a reason to scale. Okay. I think that's the change we've driven, you know, here in the last, you know, in the nine months I've been here, right? Like I said, dealt with the watch having a product that is scalable, flexible and utility grade. Because look, I don't want to, I don't want to discount, you know, that like, it's not just hey, flipping a switch, right? Like some people talking about like, hey, you can turn this on like Netflix. Like, it's, it's not that. Like, there is a systems integration that needs to occur, right? Into utility, MS, right? That takes time. That takes resources, right? And we're positioned in a place where we've done that, you know, we're on the roadmap to do that with seven different customers now, right? And so, as I said, got a watch, you know, flexible, scalable, utility grade. And we have a compelling why, right? The ROI is very clear, you know, in terms of the value that it drives. And we are connecting that, you know, with our customers to actual dollar value outcomes to be able to help our customers understand the totality of the value proposition across not just, you know, within operations, but the planning applications of it as well. And I'll go back to Jigger, it's just about the how, right? And the how is complicated, right? Like every utility is different. They've got different problems. They've got different, different types of customers that they're ultimately dealing with and managing against. And, you know, what, what I am trying to do, you know, by spending some time with you and, you know, ultimately through creating more awareness by virtue of, you know, things that we will be working with our customers on, working with states on, you know, proposing we do ourselves as part of that spark funding program, creating awareness of the scalability, the flexibility, the cost effectiveness of our solution, not just as a value driver in and of itself, but as a value driver for how, when and where to deploy the other grid and enhancing technologies like re-conductoring, like storage, you know, on down the list. So, so the shop feed from there to put a finer point on what Jigger's saying and any awareness is important, you know, that's why we do this. But what needs to change? So, like simply like if you, if Jigger gets his wish and he has a magic wand and we get all this stuff in 15, done in 15 months, I know that's maybe not realistic, but it should be done in 15 months. Like what would what was one thing that we could do? We is in the proverbial we not not the three of us here to make that happen. Yeah. Well, look, lots of things should be done in 15 months, right? And look, so I'd, you know, I would having, having gone through what I went through at Walmart, right? And like understanding the scale of the operation, what people are focused on, you know, you're needing to wedge something in that quite frankly, like in the grand scheme of things is, you know, small relative to some of the other things that folks are spending their time and effort on. I will go back to the fact that like people are trying to do the right thing. Okay. I haven't run into any customer who says, yeah, I don't want to do this because it's not aligned to my core business model of wanting to spend more money. Okay. Like people, like these folks were working harder than they've ever worked. Okay. And I do want, you know, folks to be aware of that. Like, you know, can't paint all of it with a broad brush and they're stretched super thin. Now, having said that, like, I think it's about planning. Or not, right? Like, I mean, I think the current planning approach isn't all wrong, right? Because obviously, like, I think when you're on a relative basis, electricity service here and from the both of our cost-perfect and reliability perspective, if you look globally, is generally quite competitive, right? But with all of these new technologies, they can be grid assets. I don't think there's any question about that. You know, the argument has always been that like, look, they're not firm fixed. I can't rely on them in my end minus one case is what have you. But I think current events are demonstrating that nothing is really firm fixed, right? Like if you're sitting there in the UK, for instance, you know, and now you've just had a massive supply disruption to all the gas in your country, well, people were thinking about gas is firm fixed. That's no longer the case anymore because other things can happen, right? But I think the fundamental issue is that there's a need to look at all of these technologies as a whole instead of on an individual basis. And when you do that, like, I am certain that there are many one plus one equals five circumstances when you look at them and it integrated fashion. For instance, DLR and its own, right? Even in the middle of the country where your DLR is going to exceed your static rating, you know, over 80% of the hours, you know, in a given year, look, that's still not firm fixed capacity, right? Like there's a 20% gap that needs to be addressed. Storage, four hour battery on a standalone basis is not firm fixed capacity because the duration limitations. So what happens when you pair those things together, right? Now you have something that potentially can be, you know, firm fixed. And that's just a small example of looking at two of these technologies. If you then start to factor in, you know, VPPs, you know, storage, you know, EVs that are out there on the system, I think one plus one equals five. And probably a hell of a lot more than that when you start to look at these things in an integrated fashion. And so, well, actually, let's talk about, let's talk about one plus one equals five, right? Because I think the other thing you guys do is a lot of work on the resilience and wildfire side of things, right? So you're providing information to utilities on that front too, right? So talk about that a little bit and, you know, how your product not only unlocks the grid, but also provides valuable information to prevent wildfires and, you know, other issues. Yeah. So look, we obviously talked a lot about, you know, our DLR solution, which I think about as being enhanced by sensors, right? What you're touching on triggers like our is our situational awareness solution, which is entirely powered and enabled by our sensors. And, you know, the latest generation hardware device that we're deploying is a camera-based sensor that's paired with a weather station and air quality monitoring capabilities as well. And so not only are we gathering the hyperlocal weather conditions that help enhance the accuracy of our DLR, but it's also unlocking things like visual intelligence along the transmission right of way to monitor a conductor for things like icing and galloping, you know, which were incredibly relevant, you know, to Texas free as a winter storm, but it is also as detecting things like vegetation and conferences or other encumbrances in the right of way. And when you take into consideration the air quality monitoring capabilities, that becomes very valuable information as part of a broader wildfire risk intelligence program, right? And so when you combine the information from our line ratings, you know, with a lot of these other capabilities, it puts us in a position to be able to be able to stack value, you know, for our customers from the same platform. So it's something we're quite excited about being able to deliver, but it goes back to the point around articulating the value proposition, right? And, you know, it's the R in the ROI. There is a reliability in a resilience use case through the use of these technologies. All right, Vishal. I have grilled you, peppered you with questions. Let's do a final question. You've been the investor, the developer, the corporate customer, and now the grid tech CEO. You've seen this from every angle. And if you could change one thing about how utilities approach grid planning, what would it be? I'll build on what I said earlier, Jigger, right? That like I think there's a there's a needs to kind of approach the available solutions, you know, that are out there now in an integrated fashion. Because one plus one will equal five when you do that and maybe even a little bit more of that, you know, depending on the circumstances. And so to me, I would just say to incorporate them, right? Like even if it's worst case assumptions, okay? Like, I think let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, you know, because we're in a circumstance now where these costs are going up, you know, the we do have an imperative to enable speed to power. And by virtue of not capturing at least some degree of this information into these processes is there is inefficiency that is ultimately cascading and anything that we can do to chip away at that cascade of inefficiency, all of it is good. And we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Well with that, Vishal, thanks for all of the leadership you've shown over the years. It's an extraordinary, you know, just journey that you've had, but also just lifetime of impact. I really appreciate your wife, you know, doing all that sacrifice so that you could do it and appreciate that you're now in another extraordinary job that frankly I think is going to be critical for us to be able to unlock data set of load growth and the safety that we all want to see. And Vishal, we'll expect this to be done in 15 months. That's right. Clock ticking, Vishal. I'm doing my best, guys, you know, all I can do is tell you that like, look, if I were asked to be able to build a national intelligence layer for the critical backbone of our increasingly AI powered economy, that is something that can be done, you know, with the right level of data and collaboration. So we're excited to go off and tackle it and excited to make people more people aware of how quickly and how cost-effective we can deliver that for everybody. Amazing. Thanks, Vishal. Well, that was fantastic, our knob. Like obviously you and I, you know, work together on that utility dive piece around getting more out of the grid that we've already paid for and how we really put this playbook in place for the governors. Vishal didn't disappoint. Like it was fascinating to learn about what he's doing at line vision, but also all of the stuff that he accomplished at Walmart and some of his other jobs. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's hard to disagree with anything. He's doing it, except saying like, hey, let's do it faster. And I think there's some consensus around what's going on. So we should go do it. Well, it was funny. Like, I think there were like seven ways that I was trying to get him to like bad mouth the utilities and he figured out a way to slip through all seven. You know, like, I mean, that's got to be a skill in and of itself. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if he went to Harvard Business School or Columbia Business School, but wherever he went, they taught him that tactic and it worked well for him. Well, look, I mean, I don't envy him, but it's very obvious that I think, you know, nine months in, he's really like put in a full court press. It does feel like he has prepared the company now for this moment. And I do think that with the comments that Chris Wright recently made about grid utilization, that we are in a place where all of these solutions, these near term solutions that can be deployed in 15 months. Let's hope it fits. It's 15 months can be essential to us actually unlocking AI load growth and figuring out how to finally get bills down. Yeah. And I think for everyone who sits there and says like, Oh, utility bills are going up. There's actually, and then they'll like whisper like, Oh, well, there's not actually anything we can do about it in the short term. It's like, there is, we've already built the infrastructure. We just haven't figured out a way to use it yet. And I think, you know, the challenge for us and all of our listeners here is, how do we get this in place over the next year or two before, you know, the tsunami of demand and the price increases occur. And we all, you know, suffer from that. You know, this whole thing reminds me of, do you remember when George W. Bush was running for president the first time around? And he had that phrase, the bigotry of low expectations. I do. I feel like this is the bigotry of low expectations. We're just like, like, there is no way that the utility is succeeded at this. And so we're just like praying and hoping for incremental improvement. But I don't know. I think they're going to surprise to the upside. So with that, thank you for joining us, our knob. It was great to have you. And thanks everybody for joining us here on the energy empire podcast. Please listen and provide a review. That's how people find us. If you're watching on YouTube, smash the subscribe button. That's what my son likes to say. So I got to do it. And I really want to thank Simon and the rest of the team. They just do a fantastic job of getting things these things out. Smash and subscribe.