For me, providing accessible, affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy for all is the goal – a “green electron revolution.” I believe it is paramount – not just for my children and their future, but for future generations across the world.

For the last decade, I have tackled these challenges by focusing my career on renewable generation development – primarily onshore wind. The need was pressing; the market opportunity was huge; the pace and scale of technology evolution and adoption is incredible. Generating green electrons is a core component of the energy transition. Still, when you look at the broadest view of what energy transition means, what it needs, moving green electrons around is the key.

The Grid has existed for a long time, it was designed for large, centralized fossil fuel power generation, with one-way power flow, supply greater than demand, and vast amounts of spinning inertia that stabilized the grid. It was not designed for large-scale, intermittent, and increasingly distributed renewable generation. Energy generation and demand patterns are shifting, electrification needs, and opportunities are rapidly evolving, and so must the grid. To unlock the energy transition, the grid must modernize and operate differently.

I realized that it is not simply about generating low-cost, clean, renewable energy, but about transferring this clean energy effectively and efficiently to where it’s needed.

In simple terms, the grid was becoming the bottleneck to unlocking the movement of green electrons and the energy transition at scale. There are thousands of GWs of renewable projects waiting for grid connections around the world. These generators are waiting on grid upgrades that take years due to financing, permitting, planning, and construction. Solving today’s problems is one thing. When we consider how many green electrons are needed to move through networks to electrify sectors like heating, transportation, and industrial processes – I knew this problem would only get more extensive and more painful.

I discovered the grid was not only under-utilized today, but there are solutions out there that can quickly unlock this capacity. I was so amazed by the potential for impact – I felt it was larger here than anywhere else in the electric sector. And I was blown away by the technology – unique, innovative, and perfectly timed for the growing global need.

This was my ah-ha moment. This was when I realized I could do even more for my children, their future and society, by helping the grid.

Smart Wires has been positioning itself for the last decade to play right here, at what I believe will become the nexus of the energy transition – providing technology to help utilities modernize, optimize and monetize grid capacity.

As a recent Battle Group report finds, grid enhancing technologies can allow more than double the renewable generators to connect to the grid – compared to the status quo approach to transmission planning – over the next five years. These investments could be made before the end of the year and would pay for themselves in six months.

This is the impact I am talking about – this is how we unlock a quick, affordable revolution of green electrons. We have the tools today; the opportunity is there for the taking.

The energy transition is upon us, a critical evolution of technology and behavior. As the champion of evolution so eloquently said: It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change. -Charles Darwin

Be the leader the industry and the world needs. Explore non-traditional solutions, question the status quo, and be open-minded to change or get out-competed in the revolution.