Distributed energy, from plug-in batteries to data centers.
DER Task Force stays close to distributed energy: virtual power plants, plug-in batteries, solar, and the data centers pushing on the grid. Some episodes are relaxed talk among the voices behind the show, and others are panels and a keynote recorded at DERVOS 2025 with founders and operators.
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DER Task Force is about distributed energy resources, and it makes no apology for that. Near the end of 'The dawn of a new DERcade', the voices behind the show promise to wander into DERs-adjacent territory, then admit the talk always comes back to DERs anyway. That is a fair guide. Its episodes cover virtual power plants, plug-in batteries, solar, data centers as grid loads, and the market rules that decide what gets built. A run of episodes titled DERVOS 2025 captures panels and a keynote from that event. The event keeps a tradition, started the year before, of saving its most intense conversation for the end of the day. That slot goes to 'Energy Dominance and the Electrostate', with Drew Baglino, founder and CEO of Heron Power, among the panelists. One stretch argues that the US once held every piece of the electric tech stack, pointing to GM's labs in the late 1980s and to the invention of the solar panel at Bell Labs. It closes with a quick yes-or-no round on whether the country will be an electrostate in 50 years. The virtual power plant panel is more practical. Seth Frater-Thompson, CEO of Energy Hub, answers the moderator's opening question about his favorite resource to aggregate. One panelist is frustrated with California's program-by-program approach and the risk of 'death by a thousand pilots', but still hopeful because rates there are so high. The session ends with career advice: go work at a utility or a public utilities commission rather than a DER company. 'Permissionless DERs Wait for No One' turns to plug-in devices. Kevin Chu, founder and executive director of BrightSaver, describes state legislation that started with Utah's HB 340, which allows people to plug in up to 1.2 kilowatts. The panel also spends time on a UL certification that has been due 'any day since May', and on the point that codes and standards are co-written by the trades, manufacturers and advocates. 'Big DERs Energy' goes the other way, toward the very large. Hallie Craio of Google's Advanced Energy Team joins a discussion of utility-scale DERs serving data centers, and of flexible data centers counting as DERs themselves. One panelist calls it an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object: load arriving faster than a planning process built for worst-case peaks can handle. Jesse Peltan's keynote is a numbers-first case for solar that weighs the uranium in the oceans and the Earth's crust, then thorium and fusion fuel, against the sunlight Earth has left. It ends by declaring solar the past, present and future of energy. The looser episodes feel different. Banter about a friend compound in New England gives way to worries about rising bills and weaker reliability, a remark that AI is not a bubble yet, and one speaker's prediction of a turbulent 2026. The listener gets both halves: operators on a conference stage and a frank, sometimes salty take on where the grid is heading.
Made for: Suits a listener who follows grid policy and energy markets closely and wants the specifics, such as certification delays, state bills and how virtual power plant programs are designed, alongside some unscripted opinion.
What sets it apart: It pairs relaxed, opinionated talk among the people behind the show with stage recordings from DERVOS 2025, where founders and operators argue concrete points like Utah's HB 340, California's program approach and flexible data centers as grid resources.
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A home battery meets a 200-amp connection, and suddenly you care about the copper.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A rusty New Year's reunion turns friend-compound daydreaming into a sharp look at electricity's turbulent year ahead.
A new DER-adjacent year starts with a loose fantasy of friend-compound living near Portland, a possible 40 acres in New Hampshire, and room for an EV-tall landing strip, then eases into a rusty New Year's return.
A forceful panel on electrification, manufacturing capacity, and the technology that may shape future economic power.
Dervos's closing panel frames electrification as both an industrial race and a geopolitical one, moving from lithium-ion batteries and high-performance stoves to the manufacturing base behind the electric tech stack.
A VPP panel tracks distributed capacity from flexible data centers to California's unsettled programs.
Virtual power plants are treated as an operating problem with real stakes: how to aggregate distributed energy resources, use flexible data-center load, and bring residential batteries and bidirectional EVs into rules and programs that were not built around them.
A panel maps the legal, safety, and hardware hurdles facing permissionless plug-in energy.
Permissionless plug-in energy is treated here as both a policy experiment and a product problem. Kevin Chu of BrightSaver explains how Utah's HB 340 allows households to plug in up to 1.2 kilowatts, with the possibility of sending energy back into the home grid without an…
Data centers become grid actors in a focused conversation about DERs, planning, and strained power systems.
Data centers land here as both huge electricity loads and possible distributed energy resources, which gives DERs a more concrete technology story than a routine grid-policy conversation.
A candid conversation about nuclear power, policy shocks, and how companies handle abrupt rule changes.
The episode frames nuclear power less as a simple for-or-against issue than as a test of timing, incentives, and policy design. Isabel Bemike, described as the creator of Isodope, founder of Save Clean Energy, and author of the forthcoming Rad Future, argues that abrupt changes…
Pila's low-storage, high-power batteries turn a missing extension cord into a practical case for permissionless energy.
Energy infrastructure gets an unusually tactile opening here, with a missing extension cord, a Blue Eddie battery, and a permissionless joke setting up a practical conversation about how power moves through buildings.
Practical conversations from the decommissioning front line.
Commodity shocks, traced to market mechanics.
Kentucky tech, explained from the ground up.
Finance stories with consequences attached.
DER adoption comes down to lower bills, not backup power, and James McGinnis says permissionless plug-in batteries can be installed for about $500 within five days.
DER Task Force's DERVOS 2025 panel frames the U.S.
DER Task Force's "DERVOS 2025: Deploying and Orchestrating GWs of Distributed Capacity" puts Seth Frater-Thompson, Dana, Ryan Long, and Chris on a panel about VPP scale, California DSGS, and utility battery programs.
DER Task Force's panel on permissionless DERs centers on plug-in solar, home batteries, and industrial power systems.
["DER Task Force's \"DERVOS 2025: Big DERs Energy\" asks whether AI data centers can scale without turning most sites into DERs themselves.", "Hallie Craio from Google's Advanced Energy Team, Sean Jones from Tesla Megapack, Tyler from Duke University, and Vic Hsiao of DC Grid each bring a different view of 24-7 carbon-free energy, storage, interconnection, and off-grid power.", "The panel treats 250 gigawatts by 2033, megawatt-scale racks, and one-gigawatt data-center clusters as planning assumptions that could force new rate design, dedicated substations, and different grid rules.", "The clearest throughline is flexibility: Google cites demand-response contracts, SPP's CHILS, Dominion's app flex, PG&E's FlexConnect, and a study saying about 10 hours a year of flex can deliver thermal-like ELCC."]
DER Task Force interviews Isabelle Boemeke, creator of Isodope, founder of Save Clean Energy, and author of Rad Future, about nuclear power and distributed energy resources.
DER Task Force interviews Cole Ashman, founder and CEO of Pila Energy, about “permissionless” distributed batteries that users can plug in without a bespoke electrical installation.
DER Task Force host Duncan interviews Astrid Atkinson, co-founder and CEO of Camus Energy, about naming a grid-software company after Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus.
DER Task Force interviews Dana Guernsey, co-founder and CEO of Voltus, about virtual power plants, distributed energy resources, and demand response.
Duncan interviews Jenny Chase, a global solar analyst from BNEF, about Pakistan's distributed solar boom and her career in solar analysis.
Charlotta Holmquist discusses her company Blixt's innovations in solid state circuit breakers and the importance of distributed energy resources in Sweden.
An energy regulatory attorney discusses her role in accelerating distributed energy resource policy for a task force.
Ben Carron and host reminisce about early meetups where Ben presented on capacity markets and VPPs, sparking industry interest.
The hosts and guests from Production Club and Solar Punks discuss their upcoming solar-powered eco-rave event in Los Angeles.