#46: Capacity market funDERmentals with Ben Carron

We’re back! This time with a perfect warmup for DERvos in a few days with DERTF OG Ben Carron. Ben has not only worked for FERC, Nat Grid, SunRun, E3, and now Enel X, but also was one of the earliest presenters at our original, pre-pandemic “DG Beers” happy hours.

We wanted to have Ben on to get back to our energy market wonkery roots, so don’t worry—you won’t hear any stuff about twitter culture discourse on this ep. In it, we talk about the early “DG Beers” days, dunkelflaute, James’ take that maybe market structure doesn’t matter all that much for DERs, Ben’s take how maybe geography is more important than market structure, a reminder that ultimately DERs need to stand on their own merits, different schemes of crediting T&D vs. energy/capacity benefits, if renewables can thrive in a capacity market, trusting the deal-making nature of all governance structures, and so much more about what the hell else who knows! We barely even understand ourselves. Tune in to bathe in the wonkery!