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Hello, welcome to Ask Jigger, a 
weekly segment on Energy Empire 

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where I answer your energy 
questions. 

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Ask Jigger is supported by our 
friends at Octopus Energy. 

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If you want to submit a 
question, the link is in the 

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show notes. 
All right, let's get into it. 

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Our first question is from our 
good friend Andy Refkin and he 

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asks when you were running the 
energy loan program, there was 

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an abundance and federal assets 
for clean energy inefficiency. 

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You wisely told me that the key 
need was for community based 

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energy mavens to connect local 
decision makers with federal 

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resources. 
What's your advice to local 

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leaders now? 
I would say that my advice is 

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the same, right? 
I mean, I think when you think 

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about how much energy costs have
gone up and just how many 

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solutions we have that are right
to go, whether it's solar and 

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battery storage or whether it's 
electric vehicles, whether it's 

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heat pumps or insulation or you 
know, these days there's next 

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generation technologies for 
heating, ventilation and air 

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conditioning, right, to really 
reduce your costs of managing 

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your HVAC units at your work. 
We have a lot of technologies 

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that have paybacks that are less
than four years that just aren't

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being installed. 
And when you ask people, they 

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say, well, we've never heard of 
them. 

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We don't know those companies, 
right? 

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I mean, and so I talk about a 
lot of those companies on my 

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LinkedIn or on my podcasts or on
Twitter. 

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But I think that we've got to 
collect that information. 

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And we've got to go to City 
Council meetings. 

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We've got to go to County 
Council meetings. 

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And we've got to go to the 
school board meetings and say, 

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hey, you know, this stuff is 
cost effective. 

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How about we figure out how to 
deploy it at this moment of an 

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energy crisis? 
The next question is from Joe 

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Murray. 
And he's a student at Duke 

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University and he was talking 
about being at a Goldman 

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recruiting event this past fall 
and asking a managing director 

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what he thinks about virtual 
power plants and how it'll 

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influence valuations for 
utilities. 

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Look, I think that at the end of
the day, the virtual power plant

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grid utilization stuff that I'm 
working on, other people working

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on is not going to reduce 
utility stock prices. 

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I think what it'll do is to get 
them to stop overspending on 

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infrastructure that is 
underutilized. 

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And so today, we're faced with 
9% rate increases for as far as 

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the eye can see. 
Whereas if they deploy virtual 

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power plants, if they deploy 
grid enhancing technologies, 

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advanced conductors, lots of 
stuff that's lower cost, then 

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you could imagine using the grid
that we've already paid for more

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efficiently and keeping rates 
flat, right? 

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And then if you then add data 
center load growth, then you 

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might actually be able to reduce
the utility bills by 10%, right?

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So I think that this is not a 
bad thing for utilities as much 

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as it's a culture change. 
And they're used to doing things

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the old, most expensive way. 
And we got to get them to do 

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things in a way that's smarter 
for their repairs and their 

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governors, frankly, many of whom
are running for election right 

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now. 
The next one is from Rod Adams. 

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He asks, please explain why 
nuclear energy supporters should

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love cheap battery storage. 
And the answer is because it's 

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not about nuclear and it's not 
about solar and it's not about 

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wind. 
It's not about natural gas or 

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coal or hydro. 
It's about the grid. 

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The grid is the greatest 
engineering accomplishment of 

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the 20th century, not any of 
those one technologies. 

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And battery storage actually 
allows you to manage the grid 

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better. 
So we have the largest commodity

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supply chain in the world that 
doesn't feature storage in the 

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electric utility system. 
What do you think about our food

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system? 
Or we're all learning about 

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storage with the Straits of 
Hormuz challenge in fuels, or 

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whether we talk about other 
commodity supply chains, we 

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feature storage. 
But in the grid, we don't really

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feature storage except for some,
you know, like pumped hydro. 

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And so now I think we're adding 
storage. 

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And the storage helps nuclear, 
it helps solar, it helps wind, 

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it helps natural gas, it helps 
everything run better. 

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And higher grid utilization is 
how we get to lower electricity 

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bills for everybody. 
Our last question is from karma 

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dispensary from the energy 
subreddit on Reddit. 

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And he says or she says. 
I live in Northern California 

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and the utilities feel less 
reliable every year after buying

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a place. 
We're in the process of getting 

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enough solar and batteries to be
entirely self-sufficient. 

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I know there are many benefits 
to distributed grids. 

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I can't shake the impression 
that if everyone makes this 

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decision, grids will be much 
worse off. 

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Fewer users to spread capital 
investments over. 

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Is mass disconnect something you
think about much? 

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And if it is a significant 
threat to the grid, look, I 

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think mass affection is a 
significant threat to the grid 

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as is not metering 2 point O as 
you get to 10% of all the homes 

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in California having solar on 
them. 

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But now we have NEM 3 point O 
NEM 3 point O features a much 

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higher fixed cost and it also 
features that you don't really 

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get paid much to export power 
back into the grid. 

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So you're really running your 
home more like a micro grid 

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where you basically take it off 
grid, right? 

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That's awesome because remember,
we are going to have to 

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electrify everything. 
So right now the United States, 

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our primary energy is roughly 
25% electricity, 75% non 

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electricity. 
China is at 35% electricity, 65%

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non electricity. 
So we should be able to meet 

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what China has done if we went 
from 25% electricity to 35% 

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electricity, right? 
That means a lot more electric 

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vehicles. 
It means a lot more heat pumps. 

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It means maybe induction stove, 
all of that is increased demand 

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on the circuit that your home is
on. 

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And the question becomes how do 
we get the utility to use the 

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battery that you're going to 
install as part of the grid? 

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And that's a lot of the work 
that we've been doing in 

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California through a nonprofit I
support con deploy action, but 

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it's also a lot of the arguments
that we're having across the 

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country. 
So when you think about data 

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center load growth, when you 
think about all these other 

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things, figuring out how to do 
virtual power plants with your 

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battery is how we actually get 
to electrify more of the grid, 

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more of our primary energy, 
while reducing electricity costs

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for everybody. 
So everybody should be thanking 

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you for putting solar and 
battery storage in. 

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And when the utility finally 
offers you a virtual power 

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plant, you should opt in and get
the discount that they offer you

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for doing that. 
That's it for this week's Ask 

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Jigger. 
Thanks to our great friends at 

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Octopus Energy for supporting 
this segment. 

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If you've got a question you 
want me to answer, send it in. 

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The link is in the show notes.