Do we have enough energy to power the country?
Strong economic growth and the rise of new technologies are contributing to an unprecedented surge in energy demand, stressing the country’s aging power grid and creating new challenges for policymakers. Governors Bredesen and Haslam sat down with Ragan Farr, Co-Founder and CEO of Silicon Ranch, and Shameek Konar, former CEO of Pilot and current partner and head of Energy at Ara Partners to discuss the changing demand in energy consumption and how changing policies are affecting our nation’s energy and climate.
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“I don’t believe the general public fully understands the energy revolution that’s going on right now”
This episode opens by discussing the realities of the current energy demand, how growing demand has been addressed in the past, and the way new technologies are contributing to the increase in usage.
Ragan Farr, the Co-Founder and CEO of Silicon Ranch—one of the largest independent power producers in the country—put it this way, “We’re coming out of multiple decades where any growth and demand happened at one, one and a half percent a year. And most of that was offset by increases of efficiencies as we went to LED bulbs and more efficient HVAC units.”
Shameek Konar, formerly the CEO of the Pilot Company, and now leading a firm that optimizes and decarbonizes conventional energy assets, added more specificity to how the energy demand is increasing with new technologies. “An average US home uses 1.2-kilowatt load across the year. So, 1.2-kilowatt average load across the year. One DC fast charger, a charger that can charge your car in 40 minutes is 350 kilowatts. So, think about one charger that you’re expecting to have available at your office so that you can get your car charged is equivalent to 300 US homes,” he stated.
“It’s the part of the base that’s growing most quickly”
The conversation then turned to where our energy comes from and how energy production is built.
Discussing the total energy mix, Farr acknowledged that, “Ninety-six percent of the generation that we added last year was either wind or solar.”
Answering Governor Bredesen’s question about if solar and wind energy production is easier to put in place, Farr emphasized that, “it can be built in almost any location.” He then compared solar energy distribution to traditional fossil fuels saying, “[solar is] by far the quickest generation source that you can bring onto the grid.”
However, when asked about if renewables can realistically make up the increase in energy demand, the guests acknowledged the challenges facing the renewable energy sector.
“One of the challenges you run into with solar and with wind is you need about four to five times as much generation when you include solar plus batteries,” Konar remarked.
“I personally believe that we need a national policy.”
Addressing partisan policy shifts, the guests agreed that the instability of policies cause significant sector challenges.
Farr confronted the political division by saying, “I think we’ve fallen into this trap of trying to pick, do we like these red electrons that are all generated from coal and natural gas, or do we like these blue electrons that are wind and solar?”
Konar offered a slightly different perspective, pointing out the challenges stemming from different rules and governing bodies saying, “I need these 50 public utility commissions to be aligned to say that, look, when you hit the border of Tennessee and Kentucky, we are aligned on what we are doing and we’re not going to have different policies.”
Comparing the electric grid to the investment in a highway-interstate system, Farr argued, “We’re going to need to build infrastructure to help us compete in this new digital global economy that is going to be driven a lot by AI. And it is a huge industrial project. It’s going to create jobs. It’s an incredible opportunity. So, I think we can all agree we want the US to be an energy dominant player. And then I would say, I would call on Eisenhower and say there was a time when the federal government got involved.”
For more on this topic, listen to previous YMBR episodes Can We Still Count on the Separation of Powers? (Season Six) and Can the Supreme Court be Impartial? (Season Five).
Join the conversation on Twitter by following @UTBakerSchool, @PhilBredesen, and @BillHaslam.
Subscribe and follow You Might be Right wherever you get your audio content – including Apple Podcasts and Spotify – to never miss an episode, or sign up for our email list to receive new episodes straight to your inbox each week here.
