Episode #112: 'Shaping a Dynamic and Modern Power Delivery Landscape' with Mark Gabriel, President and CEO of United Power [an Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast]

One such leader is found at United Power Inc, a member-owned electric coop serving 100,000 meters across Colorado. Mark Gabriel, President and CEO of United Power, is the type of visionary needed to take the company into the future, willing to listen, adapt, and embrace the future. On this episode, which is Mark's second appearance on the Power Perspectives Podcast, he shares with podcast host Jason Price and producer Matt Chester updates on how the power industry has evolved in just a year and a half since his last appearance and what specific has him excited in today's landscape.

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Thanks to the sponsor of this episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast: West Monroe.  

Key Links

• ‘Taking the Grid of Tomorrow from Concept to Reality with Mark Gabriel, Former Administrator and CEO of Western Area Power Administration: https://energycentral.com/o/energy-central/34-%E2%80%98taking-grid-tomorrow-concept-reality%E2%80%99-mark-gabriel-former-administrator-and

• Mark Gabriel's Energy Central Profile: https://energycentral.com/member/profile/mark-gabriel/about

• Did you know? The Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast has been identified as one of the industry's 'Top 25 Energy Podcasts': https://blog.feedspot.com/energy_podcasts/

TRANSCRIPT

Jason Price: 

Welcome to the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast, the show that brings leading minds from the energy industry to discuss the challenges and trends that are transforming and modernizing our energy system. And a quick thank you to West Monroe, our sponsor of today's show. Now let's talk Energy. I'm Jason Price, Energy Central Podcast host and director with West Monroe. Coming to you from New York City. And with me as always from Orlando, Florida is Energy Central producer and community manager, Matt Chester. Matt, it's always a fun day when we get the opportunity to welcome back a returning guest to the podcast. Today we're being joined by Mark Gabriel. Can you remind us about the first episode where he appeared on the Power Perspectives podcast?

Matt Chester: 

Sure can Jason. Pleased that today's guest is Mark Gabriel, and he was on our podcast previously in episode 39, which was entitled, Taking the Grid of Tomorrow from Concept to Reality, all the way back in May of 2021. At the time we recorded that episode, Mark was in his closing days as administrator and CEO of the Western Area Power Administration. And in the year and a half since then, he's firmly entrenched in a new position, but still focusing on many of the same critical areas. Things like building out the grid of tomorrow, solving for some of the headlining challenges in the utility industry today and striving towards that future state goals that our sector is wholly focused upon.

Jason Price: 

Thanks for that, Matt. And Mark has been quite busy since the first appearance. Purely after the first episode, he started a new role as the president and CEO at United Power Inc. United Power is a member-owned electric cooperative serving a hundred thousand meters in Colorado. And through this role, Mark is helping to shape for his members a dynamic and forward-looking vision of electric power delivery amid a rapidly changing landscape, that includes solo power being installed on rooftops at record speeds, electric vehicle chargers, generating increasing load and altering aggregate demand patterns in an ever progressing marsh towards a clean energy transition. No doubt it may be simultaneously the most exciting and most intimidating time to be sitting in the C-suite in our industry. But what we've learned is that Mark is well primed for taking that position and we're eager to get some updates from him on what his vision is about the moment in the utility sector and how we get to that oft discussed future state. So let's waste no more time. Mark Gabriel, welcome to the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast.

Mark Gabriel: 

Great. Well, it's wonderful to be here with you again.

Jason Price: 

And we're thrilled to have you here. So Mark, since this is your second appearance on the podcast, why don't you give our listeners an update on what's been happening in your career since your last position? As I mentioned the intro, you're in a new position and I also understand you recently received an exciting new appointment as well. So tell us all about it.

Mark Gabriel: 

Sure. Well, since we last talked, I transitioned from the Western Area Power Administration, where I ran one of the largest grids in transmission in the United States to running United Power, which is an amazing distribution utility right around the Denver metro area. In fact, as I say, if you've flown into the Denver airport, you've seen all that growth around Denver Metro that that's pretty much the United Power Service territory.

And I've really been blessed to come here because we're both experiencing unprecedented growth. Also have a very visionary board of directors. And also, quite frankly, going back into the distribution side of the world, we've just crested 107,000 meters, which isn't big in terms of an investor owned utility, but is quite large in terms of the rural electric co-op world. And the other point you just mentioned, I was just named chairman of the GridWise Alliance, an organizations that's been around since the early 2000s that really helps to promote advancements in the energy transition.

Jason Price: 

That's great. And congratulations. I know GridWise, they do excellent work. So given your role in the distribution space today, you're at the forefront of many of the hot conversations happening in the power sector. And that includes things like grid hardening and reliability, integration of countless new end nodes from distributed generation, changing workforce, increasing costs and more. So in general, there are never enough hours in the day to get things done. And you are not an IOU, you are not a muni, you are a co-op. How do you prioritize and how do you measure success?

Mark Gabriel: 

Tremendous question. Of course, we work on behalf of our members. In fact, everyone who's in the United Power Territory who owns a building, a home or an office is one of our members. In fact, we call them member owners. For us, it's really interesting because we are very close to what's happening out on the consumer end of the world. We will this month add our ten thousandth solar rooftop. We have somewhere north of 5,800 plug-in electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles, more than 150 batteries. So we're really at the bleeding edge, many would say, of the transition that's occurring. So from our perspective, one of the things that we are preparing for is to understand how do we truly integrate all those actions that are happening on the edge of the grid and take advantage of that for all of our members and quite frankly, for the region at large.

So every day I wake up obviously wanting to make sure the lights are kept on safely, but then we have to look at issues of reliability, affordability, and to make sure that we are being responsive to this change out into the future. When I was on the transmission side of the business, quite frankly, a lot of what was happening on distribution was masked, right? We didn't have a good visibility to what's going on on the edge of the grid. But now every single day what we have to focus on is how we're going to best serve our members, how we're going to integrate the new technologies, and at the same time, how are we going to make sure that we are keeping our cost low? One of the things about being in a rural electric cooperative is understanding community and making sure that the investments we make on their behalf have a payback that's in a fairly reasonable timeframe.

This is particularly critical in a world, at least here in the western United States where large central power stations are closing down. It's very difficult and time consuming to build transmission. And more and more people want to have alternative energy solutions, both in terms of small gas units as well as obviously things like battery storage, solar panels, and wind. So the opportunity for us and the challenge is how do we secure our own grid first within our footprint here at United Power, and then thinking about that as a system which then links out to the broader system into transmission and into the markets.

Jason Price: 

Among the dominant topics for all power players in '23 is the influx of funds coming from the Inflation Reduction Act, and other recently passed federal bills. So Mark, tell us what are you seeing as the impact to that from the United Power perspective and what are your priorities if you're able to secure your piece of the pie?

Mark Gabriel: 

That's a great question. In fact, we just had a meeting on it. In the belt where they're calling them Uncle Ira and Uncle Bill for the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure legislation or law. And I think this is a once in a generation opportunity to move the entire country forward in terms of its energy footprint, in terms of its energy management, and most importantly, the phenomenal benefits that society in general can get from it.

When we look at things like fire mitigation, grid resilience, the second place which we are working very hard in is as the future of energy changes and more and more people are putting equipment on the grid, how do we manage that? And while you can like or dislike cryptocurrency, the underpinning technology, which is blockchain, we believe is going to have a huge payoff in terms of being able to buy and sell and promote energy within the various consumers or as we call them members. So we're really excited about that. We're going after this money. As I said, it's a once in a generation change, and I find it particularly exciting when it comes to the opportunities for all of the members of our community.

Jason Price: 

In talking with you and reading your thought leadership, Mark, it's clear that you're a champion for the end customer and empowering their energy choices. How does that perspective drive the decisions you make for your organization and its members?

Mark Gabriel: 

I think we have to be very careful in society in terms of making requirements under the assumption that everybody can afford those changes. For example, I mentioned earlier we have 10,000 homes now` which will have solar rooftops by the end of this month. That's not available to all segments of our society. So what we really need to figure out is how do we balance the benefits that we can have with distributed generation with those that can pay for it. But most importantly, how do we manage for those people who can't afford it either because they don't have the financial wherewithal, they live in apartments, they're in rented homes, and they've got other financial priorities. That's why when we think about our system, I want to make sure that we are the most efficient that we possibly can be. And keeping cost in mind is one of the ways we do that.

It's very easy when you've got money to say, yeah, I'm going to put a solar panel on. I'm going to put Tesla power walls on. I'm going to drive a brand new Lucid EV, and it leaves out a huge segment of our society. So the one way we can look at that is to say, all right, how do we make sure that our overarching system costs are managed and managed very well?

Because what we don't want to have is, we've talked about the digital divide when it comes to computing, but we also have to think about the energy divide. And in many cases, that's not a solar panel. In many cases, that's helping somebody with insulation or different doors or more efficient lighting. And I believe that if we can consider that in the deliberations of how we deal with this new energy future, we'll be far better off. Because even a "low-cost EV is still out of reach of many of our members. And we want to be careful to not set up a two class system here where those that can afford to buy an expensive EV are getting all the benefit out of our system.

Jason Price: 

Understood. But given those perspectives and decisions that you are making, how does that compare to your peers? What are they trying to do that maybe is different, and are you facing certain tensions that perhaps they're not? Or is this industry-wide the tensions that you're facing to manage these things?

Mark Gabriel: 

Well, I think there's always tension when it comes to those who are those who are leading, then those are just hoping some of these rules go away. I'll give you a classic example is net metering. Net metering has been a source of high tension in this industry. And the reason it's of high tension obviously, is that each kilowatt hour is worth something different depending on the time of day.

So I know many of my peers want to fight net metering. And in an ideal world, because net metering presents a challenge for those who can't afford to take advantage of solar, for example, it's not an issue I want to fight. Quite frankly, the proverbial ship has sailed. And we have to more importantly figure out, okay, if I have 10,000 net meters out there, how do I take advantage of the generation that's coming off of those rooftops or somebody's battery and meld that together in an operating system where everybody can benefit. It's very easy in this business to say no, or we're going to fix this through rates, which tend to be an artificial solution to what is really a physics opportunity.

And I tend to look at it in that fashion rather than trying to fight a movement. Pick any one you'd like electric vehicles or battery storage or solar panels, let's figure out how to corral those resources so that, for example, at United Power, I don't have to go out and buy more power off the market, but rather I can take advantage of that power inside the system that I'm already operating.

Jason Price: 

All right. So far we're talking about a lot of opportunities and excitement in the space, but of course the reverse side of that coin is that RapidDR is rolling out and grid investments may bring new challenges in areas of implementation, unexpected bottlenecks, and certainly friction integrating new digital tools into the mix. So my question to you, Mark, is the same question I've asked IOUs and munis who have been on Power Perspectives, and that is, what are some of the key potential pitfalls you see in the coming years and how are you trying to stay one step ahead of them?

Mark Gabriel: 

Yeah, that's a phenomenal question. The pitfall, of course, is counting, quite frankly these days on centralized generation. And it's a pitfall certainly in the West because of the closure of large coal plants. And I'm not making a question about environment. I've worked in coal my career, I have nothing against it whatsoever. But that movement away from large central stations is a huge pitfall for terms of reliability and resilience of our grid. So what does that mean in practical sense? At United Power since we're switching our wholesale power supplier at May 1st, 2024, we're looking at resources that are within our footprint. We're looking at how can we put storage at our substations so that we can take advantage of low cost solar or low-cost wind. The biggest pitfall I think this industry faces today is not being prepared for a distributed future. Back in the days when I worked at the Electric Power Research Institute 20 some odd years ago, we always talked about we're going from a one-way grid to a two-way grid.

And I realize now, after all these years, that's not the right analogy. We're going from a one-way grid to a thousand points of light grid. And being prepared to handle that change is really the big challenge that we have. In the case of United Power, for example, because of our growth and because we see what's coming down the line, we're putting in larger conductor, larger wire. We're making sure to properly size our transformers so that we can deal with the fact that when a Ford Lightning plugs in it's 17 kW when the house normally uses four kilowatts, right? So we're trying to think well out in advance and really taking a no regret strategy. I think the biggest challenge we all have is to say, look, today we have a SCADA system, right? Supervisory control and data acquisition. We might have an outage management system, we have an advanced metering infrastructure, and we've got a DERM system, right?

Distributed energy resource management. But right now, most of those systems are independent. So how do we avoid the risk that we turn around on one end and we don't have sufficient generation? And sadly, of course, the last couple of years since we last talked, we've seen some of that. And how do we prepare for this future of change? It's as much of a change as going from those of us who were around for a long time from having a CIS system, computer information system with a dumb monitor, to something that is wildly distributed and yet works amazingly well. We run a real risk in this country because of the time it takes to build transmission, the inability for building large central stations. We've got to be ready in case they're not there. It's just good business. It's just good risk management.

Jason Price: 

Well certainly with your perspective and experience from both the transmission and the distribution side, there's a lot here and it's a rich conversation and wish we had more time to talk, but we do have in our show a section called the Lightning Round where we get to learn more about you, the person rather than you, the professional. So Mark, we're going to pause for a moment with questions. We're going to give you the last word to our audience, but for now, we want to enter into the lightning round where I'll ask you a series of questions and you'll keep it to one word or phrase. So are you ready?

Mark Gabriel: 

I'm ready.

Jason Price: 

All right. So what is your comfort meal?

Mark Gabriel: 

My comfort meal is elk meatloaf.

Jason Price: 

Do you have ay hidden talents or unexpected hobbies to share?

Mark Gabriel: 

Oh, that's really good. I really like hunting and fishing, so anything I can do outdoors is a winner for me.

Jason Price: 

What would be your first indulgence purchase if you won the lottery?

Mark Gabriel: 

Oh, a private jet.

Jason Price: 

If you were to reset your career, what would you be doing?

Mark Gabriel: 

What would I be doing? Actually here, what I would be doing is I'd love to score movies, pick the music that goes into movies.

Jason Price: 

And what is the lasting impact or legacy you hope resonates from your career?

Mark Gabriel: 

That people aren't afraid of change in this industry. That we embrace change, that we enjoy the change, and we do things that are the right activities for all of our members or customers.

Jason Price: 

Oh, nicely stated. Thanks for letting us peel back the curtain a little bit to get to know you a little bit more. And as I said, we're going to give you the last word. So you're addressing your audience of energy and utility professionals. What do you think is the most important role for utility executives and what advice would you share with your peers or those in the industry who hope to one day reach your position?

Mark Gabriel: 

From my perspective, we need to embrace the change that's coming and help facilitate that change. From a distribution level, we should really work to understand how do we satisfy the end consumer's needs and take advantage of their hopes, dreams and desires in terms of reliability, price, availability, and affordability. And the best way we can do that is to look forward and understand the investments we're making today will last at least one more generation. And of course, let's take advantage of Uncle Bill and Uncle Ira. And quite frankly, to reach where I have, you couldn't follow my path, but I can tell you in the 30 years I've been in this business, I've never gone home unhappy that I'm here. I come into work every day fired up because the electric utility business is the lifeblood of this country.

Jason Price: 

Love that. Now you understand, Mark, why we asked you to come back on the show. You've got a lot of sensibility and insight that we really appreciate and I know our audience will as well. So no doubt our community will have follow-up questions and thoughts, and as they share them with Energy Central's community, I know you'll be able to chime in as that happens. And until then, thanks again for sharing your insights with us on today's episode of the podcast.

Mark Gabriel: 

Well, thanks so much. It was my pleasure. Really appreciate the opportunity.

Jason Price: 

We also want to give a shout out of thanks to the podcast sponsors that made today's episode possible. Thanks to West Monroe. West Monroe works for the nation's largest electric gas and water utilities in their telecommunication, grid modernization, and digital and workforce transformations.

West Monroe brings a multidisciplinary team that blends utility, operations and technology expertise to address modernizing aging infrastructure, advisory on transportation, electrification, ADMS deployments, data and analytics and cybersecurity. And once again, I'm your host Jason Price. Plug in and stay fully charged in the discussion by hopping into the community at energycentral.com. And we'll see you next time at the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast.

About Energy Central Podcasts

The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ features conversations with thought leaders in the utility sector. At least twice monthly, we connect with an Energy Central Power Industry Network community member to discuss compelling topics that impact professionals who work in the power industry. Some podcasts may be a continuation of thought-provoking posts or discussions started in the community or with an industry leader that is interested in sharing their expertise and doing a deeper dive into hot topics or issues relevant to the industry.

The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ is the premiere podcast series from Energy Central, a Power Industry Network of Communities built specifically for professionals in the electric power industry and a place where professionals can share, learn, and connect in a collaborative environment. Supported by leading industry organizations, our mission is to help global power industry professionals work better. Since 1995, we’ve been a trusted news and information source for professionals working in the power industry, and today our managed communities are a place for lively discussions, debates, and analysis to take place. If you’re not yet a member, visit www.EnergyCentral.com to register for free and join over 200,000 of your peers working in the power industry.

The Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast is hosted by Jason Price, Community Ambassador of Energy Central. Jason is a Business Development Executive at West Monroe, working in the East Coast Energy and Utilities Group. Jason is joined in the podcast booth by the producer of the podcast, Matt Chester, who is also the Community Manager of Energy Central and energy analyst/independent consultant in energy policy, markets, and technology.  

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