It’s season 3, episode 2 - Into the Metaverse! - week for Public Power Underground. We caught up with a couple special guests, and got back into the regular format covering public-power and public-power-adjacent news. 02:17 - Arin Reports 07:16 - Temporary Gas Plants in California 10:02 - Tu Phan talks Power Markets and Metaverse 20:04 - PNNL’s Research on Heat Pump Water Heaters 22:16 - Roger Gray talks about BPA post-2028 product design concepts 37:37 - Broadband expansion to rural areas 39:02...
Sep 16, 2021•48 min
Public Power Underground successfully pulled off its first-ever-livestream as our Season 3 Premiere! We broadcasted LIVE from across the region, simultaneously. Karen Heim and Humaira Falkenberg joined from remote locations to provide color commentary, insights, and questions. Joining the Underground on-location at the NWPPA Annual Conference were a series of very special guests who became the newest Friends of the Underground and summarize 3 days of conference content in one hour! We also cover...
Sep 10, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Season 3 is the season to ROLL ON ENTHUSTIASTS, ROLL ON! Public Power Underground took the summer off, but with kids headed back to school it's time for the fall season to kick off. We've got some plans. The plans are bound to change. The Underground's own Arin Guillory, CPA and Ian Bledsoe combined their talents to make this special Season 3 theme song inspired by Woody Guthrie's Roll On Columbia, but re-imagined for electric utility enthusiasts. We hope you enjoy, and are ready for the next ad...
Aug 30, 2021•3 min
It’s the SEASON FINALE , and to celebrate the conclusion of another wonderful season of Public Power Underground we invited a special guest of honor, Susan Ackerman , to join us for an after dark, mailbag episode. Susan recently announced her retirement from her role as Eugene Water and Electric Board’s (EWEB) Chief Energy Officer. To celebrate her career and ask her deeply personal and occasionally inappropriate questions the Underground invited a cast of extraordinary characters from around th...
May 28, 2021•59 min
It’s Harquahala Hypothesis! week on Public Power Underground! Northwest power markets are a topic of interest for the Underground, and we dive into a forward market theory on to start the news. After the market hypothesis, we talk to EWEB’s Jon Hart about his philosophy of market fundaments, check-in on transportation electrification with Clark Public Utilities’ Matt Babbitts, learn about public power recruiting from Energy Northwest’s Sarah Giomi, and revisit one of our recurring topics (Resour...
May 21, 2021•55 min
We’re Catching up on all-the-news! this week on Public Power Underground! After a restful week hiatus we’re back catching up on all we missed. Joining to get us up to speed were Clearing Up’s Steve Ernst, Forth’s Erin Galiger, and NRU’s Megan Stratman! 01:22 - Arin Reports 06:49 - Colonial Pipeline begins restart of operations after a cyberattack 09:15 - Clearing Up 's Steve Ernst joins to catch me up litigation and arbitration surrounding Colstrip 15:12 - Fitch Ratings issues Rating Action Comm...
May 13, 2021•54 min
It’s Return Counts are Up! week on Public Power Underground! Some great guest news and insight from returning Friends of the Underground this week. There’s a lot going on in the region and we’re just trying to keep up. We also talk a lot about EVs, because we really find electric vehicle public charging interesting. 01:52 - Arin Reports 05:45 - Guest News : PNUCC’s Tomás Morrisey talks about the NRF 14:31 - Guest News : PNGC’s Greg Mendonca records a promo for an open position 19:47 - PPC’s Exec...
Apr 30, 2021•47 min
It’s Resource Adequacy double-feature! week on Public Power Underground! We talk about the Northwest Power Pool’s Resource Adequacy program in back-to-back interviews. First with NWPP’s Chief Operating Officer, Gregg Carrington, and the second interview with Chair of WSPP’s Operating Committee, Matthew Schroettnig. And to get caught up on the BP-22/TC-22 rate cases we talk to PPC’s Mike Deen about what’s going on! 01:31 - Arin Reports 05:11 - Celebration of ClearingUp’s 2000th edition 07:22 - PP...
Apr 21, 2021•52 min
It’s Cluster of Symbiotic Markets! week on Public Power Underground! Naming for this week’s episode came from a wonderful interview of The Energy Authority’s (TEA) Director of Power Trading - West, Tu Phan. We also got a double-feature interview with Kurt and Austin from Northwest River Partners, and continued our series of interviews by Public Power Underground’s Special Salmon War Correspondent, Matthew Schroettnig, this time touching base with Northern Wasco County PUD’s Roger Kline about the...
Apr 15, 2021•57 min
It’s Bring Your Ideas! week on Public Power Underground! A lot of guests and guest news this week. Arin Reports (01:16), Tacoma Power’s Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, talks about demand response (04:21), Puget Sound Energy’s Integrated Resource Plan identifies biodiesel peakers (19:30), Guest News from Oregon Department of Energy ’s Blake Shelide (20:46), Brian Johnson introduces Holly Dohrman’s interview on the post-2028 Provider of Choice process (26:24), Financial Times article on the next step in batt...
Apr 08, 2021•1 hr 1 min
It’s Be Curious! not judgmental week! on Public Power Underground! We had a great conversation with Energy Northwest’s Greg Cullen about all their non-CGS, got a special guest interview by EWEB’s Matt Schroettnig of BPA’s Crystal Ball, and covered a bunch of other fun public-power and public-power adjacent topics. Arin Reports (01:55), Energy Northwest news with their Vice President for Energy Services and Development, Greg Cullen (05:15), Checking on the California Duck Curve (23:20), EWEB spon...
Apr 02, 2021•57 min
In a special, crossover podcast the host of APPA's Public Power Now, Paul Ciampoli, and Public Power Underground's Paul Dockery interview APPA's Vice President of Strategic Member Engagement & Education, Ursula Schryver, about APPA's upcoming National Conference. https://www.publicpower.org/public-power-now https://www.publicpower.org/event/national-conference Public Power Underground, it's work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts. https://publicpowerundergro...
Mar 31, 2021•22 min
It’s Best and Brightest Week! on Public Power Underground! We have two guest co-hosts (NRU’s Megan Stratman and Clatskanie PUD’s own Sarah Johnson) and a special celebrity guest star (Libby Calnon) participate in the show where we debut a brand new public-power-adjacent show on Slummin’ w/ the Underground. I force the guest co-hosts to read ad copy I’ve written to recruit to public power. Don’t miss the great ad copy, great content, and great conversation about hiring, jobs, and recruiting for j...
Mar 25, 2021•58 min
SPP agreed to sit down for an interview to talk about the Markets+ concept they unveiled at the March 4th Members Forum. It’s the centerpiece of this, bonus, episode of Public Power Underground – Premium!. Bookending the discussion with SPP’s Steve Johnson are conversations with public power professionals from the region to provide context. PPC’s Mike Linn sets the stage for why markets matter to Northwest public power (01:32), SPP’s Steve Johnson joins Public Power Underground as a refresher on...
Mar 23, 2021•1 hr 36 min
It’s One Year! on Public Power Underground! We don’t do any run downs of what happened a year ago, instead we have a Ted Lasso inspired pep talk to start the episode (01:14). There is a visual bit at the end of the pep talk, so you might check out that portion on youtube. Then we got to work! We have an interview with Tacoma’s Clay Norris about CAISO’s EDAM process (16:55), talk electrification with EWEB’s Megan Capper (34:56), and cover lots of other public power and public-power-adjacent news....
Mar 19, 2021•57 min
It’s Friends and Neighbors Week on Public Power Underground! The crew was VERY LOOSE this week with a lot of spring sunshine vibes going on. I think you’ll really enjoy the banter, and the content. We got a guest lede from Clearing Up’s KC Mehaffey about an article she wrote (23:03), got to talk to PPC’s Executive Director, Scott Simms, about virtual events and remote work (26:17), and PPC’s Lauren Tenney Denison returned to talk about PPC's Special Meeting Series with BPA on Potential Resource ...
Mar 12, 2021•45 min
In a special, bonus, episode the Underground tackles The Scourge of Seasonal Time Change. Joining the Underground to tackle the issue is the Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee (PNUCC), Shauna McReynolds, the Power Resource Manager for PUD No 2 of Pacific County, Humaira Falkenberg, and the Executive Director of the Northwest Public Power Association (NWPPA), Scott Corwin. We manage to have great banter while doing a deep-dive into the practice of transitio...
Mar 10, 2021•51 min
We’re Breaking News this week on Public Power Underground! Arin Reports (03:04), APPA's profile of women in high-voltage trades (06:06), RMG Financials’ Reid Grossman joins to talk about counterparty credit in the aftermath of the winter freeze event (07:19), Debrief from BPA’s IRP 2 Workshop (23:03), Idaho Power’s Customer Growth (25:52), Guest Lede by PPC’s Aaron Bush on the March 1stPublic Power / BPA Carbon Forum (32:18), Debrief from the NWRFC’s Water Supply Briefing (32:40), Snohomish Coun...
Mar 04, 2021•57 min
It’s Use Your Illusions of Choice week on Public Power Underground! We’re excited to be joined by a slew of celebrities of the region this week to spice things up. Karen Heim joined as a guest co-host, (07:02) Matt Schroettnig interviews Bo Downen about the Simpson Concept, (32:52) Greg Mendonca talks about the NW Power Pool’s Resource Adequacy program, and (43:44) Kurt Miller does a special guest readout about NOAA Fisheries Science Center’s recent report. Public Power Underground, it’s work to...
Feb 25, 2021•54 min
Power markets are a hot topic this week, and we didn’t shy away from diving into the conversation. It’s Extreme Weather and Extreme Adventurer week on Public Power Underground! On the first half of the episode we’re serious (for us) as we talk about Northwest power markets (02:34), have Ansergy’s Mike Griswold on to talk about next week’s market outlook (05:14), debrief on the current state of the extreme weather events (13:03), and cover some other northwest public power news (16:00). The secon...
Feb 19, 2021•46 min
It’s EVs and Great Stories week on Public Power Underground! This week we were joined by D&R International’s Sr. Director Electric Transportation, John Morris to talk about what electric vehicle manufacturers have in store for us(10:24), and we got an Oral History of the Energy News Digest (25:41) from Joel Myer (it’s Publisher) and Sarah Johnson (Clatskanie PUD’s Customer Relations & Services Manager). As always we started by covering northwest market indicators with Arin Reports (04:02...
Feb 11, 2021•50 min
It’s It Takes a Process week on Public Power Underground! This week we were joined by Snohomish County PUD’s Manager of Power Supply, Garrison Marr to talk about IRPs, and returning champion, Friend of the Underground, and Rates and Policy Director for NRU, Megan Stratman to talk about revenue financing in BP-22. And in true Public Power Underground fashion, we’re debuting a brand new innovation in Northwest Public Power infotainment: Zoom Duels! 02:40 - Arin Reports; 07:30 - Public Power Deskto...
Feb 05, 2021•44 min
It’s Coalition of the Willing week on Public Power Underground! This week we were joined by BPA’s Rachel Dibble to talk about Resource Adequacy and PNGC’s Roger Gray to talk about a investigating a Northwest RTO/ISO. As always we started by covering northwest market indicators with Arin Reports and cover other public power and public-power-adjacent news on Public Power Desktop. 05:03 - Arin Reports; 09:35 - Public Power Desktop; 10:46 – Roger Gray on Northwest RTO/ISO; 28:16 – Rachel Dibble on R...
Jan 29, 2021•48 min
It’s Breach-Ladder-Repower week on Public Power Underground! This week we were joined by PPC’s Karen Heim on a re-vamped version of Slummin’ w/ the Underground where we had a lot of fun and toned down the overall seriousness we’ve gotten into with Public Power Underground. As always we started by covering northwest market indicators with Arin Reports and cover other public power and public-power-adjacent news on Public Power Desktop. 02:21 - Arin Reports 05:48 - Public Power Desktop 09:23 – Slum...
Jan 22, 2021•44 min
It’s Resource Adequacy week on Public Power Underground! This week we were joined by Susan Ackerman to talk about the Northwest Power Pool’s Resource Adequacy program, Mark Ohrenschall to talk about NewsData’s upcoming webinar on Electric resource Adequacy in California and the West, and lastly by Mike Linn to talk about CAISO’s Summer 2021 readiness initiatives. It was a fun week of banter while covering important topics, as always we started by covering northwest market indicators with Arin Re...
Jan 14, 2021•42 min
Public Power Underground is a pandemic diversion written, edited, and published by the Power Department. We cover Northwest public power and public-power-adjacent news with occasional special guest correspondents to talk about regional topics. In this week’s episodes we stuck to the basics: covering northwest market indicators with Arin Reports and running through public power and public-power-adjacent news on Public Power Desktop. 02:33 - Arin Reports 05:54 - Public Power Desktop 18:58 - Plug-P...
Jan 07, 2021•21 min
