Sheri Givens is on a mission to connect U.S. energy sector professionals with their global counterparts.
In the early 2000s, when she was doing legal work in her native Texas, Sheri Givens held state government roles that put her in the thick of energy policy-making. And in 2009, Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Sheri the chief executive of Public Counsel of the Texas Office of Public Utility Counsel. That made her, in effect, the consumer advocate for all 20 million Texas utility ratepayers.
To do that job well, Sheri wanted to sit down with consumers across the state. So she spent days crisscrossing the state in her truck advising consumers on their energy utility choices.
Sheri went on to consultancy and executive roles in the energy sector. Now, as president and CEO of the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), a non-profit organization for energy sector professionals, she still has that same enthusiasm for empowering people. Amid tremendous demand for clean energy and deep uncertainty around federal energy policy, SEPA convenes folks from across the sector, the country, and the world to learn from each other.
This week on With Great Power, Sheri shares why she’s bullish on states' progress toward clean energy goals despite federal headwinds, and what strategies utilities are using to advance policy and innovation right now.
With Great Power is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.
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Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Grid X production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.
Brad Langley: One of Sheri Givens' first jobs after law school was working as senior attorney for the Public Utility Commission of Texas. She was in the thick of energy policymaking.
Sheri Givens: I advised the three governor-appointed commissioners on a biweekly basis in preparation for open meetings. That could be a rate case, it could be a policy proceeding, it could be a legislative issue.
Brad Langley: After a couple of years in that job, and then a couple more in the state's workforce development office, Sheri joined the Texas Office of Public Utility Council. Then in 2009, Governor Rick Perry made her the head of that agency, basically the state's consumer advocate for utilities.
Sheri Givens: I pretty much operated what would be considered a small law firm. It was a state agency that represented the 20 million-plus residential and small business customers across Texas.
Brad Langley: That meant representing them in legal matters and serving as a consumer spokesperson in the legislature. But beyond representing Texans, Sheri wanted to educate and empower them, and that was important because in 2002, Texas had deregulated its energy market in order to set up a competitive marketplace forcing providers to compete on lower rates, but that also meant some consumers were suddenly inundated with confusing offers.
Sheri Givens: You have 200 to 300 providers to choose from, and you have a website that you can try to down-select from, and you have a hundred percent renewable energy. You have airline points. You have all of these different shapes and ways to look at energy for your home.
Brad Langley: After a big outreach campaign in 2002, consumers were now more on their own.
Sheri Givens: The education component wasn't as loud and proud as it was in those early days of deregulation, so I found it really important to be able to go out and talk to customers and understand their journey with energy.
Brad Langley: So Sheri summoned that renegade Texan spirit of self-reliance and hit the road to meet ratepayers face-to-face.
Sheri Givens: I figured I could just get in my truck and drive across the state. I would go to different cities across the state, West Texas, go to the panhandle, go to the valley in the south, go out to East Texas or Southeast Texas, which is where I'm from originally, and I would hold town hall meetings. I would couple up with a legislator or just go out on my own and invite folks.
Brad Langley: Sometimes it was just a few people. Other times she'd fill entire meeting halls. No one asked her to do this. She had to get scrappy and do it on a shoestring budget. But Sheri thought it was really the best way to advocate for consumers.
Sheri Givens: People brought their bills to me. Some of them were paying 15, 17 cents per kilowatt hour, and they had the choice to pay as little as 6 to 8 cents per kilowatt hour. That's a huge difference when you're thinking about paying for food or medicine.
I could also share with them about weatherization, energy efficiency, other savings mechanisms and things that they could do around their home so they could be personally responsible and proactive in their energy journey.
Brad Langley: After four years in that role, Sheri launched a consultancy focused on policy research and regulatory strategy for wholesale and retail electric markets. Then she made a big move, literally and figuratively. Sheri left her native Texas for the Northeast to serve as VP of US policy and regulatory strategy at National Grid.
Sheri Givens: Moving from that kind of competitive market to the New England ISO and the New York ISO was quite eye-opening and quite different. I didn't find myself going out talking to customers about choosing their electric provider, although there are pockets of that happening across New England. But the great thing was I got to work a bit with the regulators and the policy makers, and that's really what I enjoyed most.
Brad Langley: In 2022, Sheri brought her mix of experiences as an advocate, an advisor, and an executive to lead the Smart Electric Power Alliance, or SEPA. This nonprofit membership organization brings together diverse stakeholders, including utilities, vendors, and regulators to learn from each other as they work to advance clean energy goals. And she admits it's not an easy time to be working in clean energy.
Sheri Givens: We've got a lot of challenges that we're facing right now when it comes to clean energy, where we're going to site it, where we're going to put it, what are the innovations that we really need to focus on.
Brad Langley: But Sheri still has that enthusiasm for empowering people, something that she tapped into on those long Texas road trips.
Sheri Givens: Energy is everything and where I am now, now that I've been doing it for so long, it's just like it's constantly changing. It's probably one of the most exciting areas to be in right now.
Brad Langley: This is With Great Power, a show about the people building the Future Grid today. I'm Brad Langley. Some people say utilities are slow to change, so they don't innovate fast enough, and while it might not always seem like the most cutting-edge industry, there are lots of really smart people working really hard to make the grid cleaner, more reliable, and customer-centric. Today my guest is Sheri Givens, president and CEO of SEPA. We talk about SEPA's approach to education, how utilities are leaning on policy and innovation to advance their goals, and how states are continuing to pursue the clean energy transition despite federal headwinds. But first, I asked her about SEPA's international fact-finding missions. Since 2008, SEPA has led 15 of these trips. So we talked about recent ones and an upcoming mission to Portugal, and I asked Sheri to explain what SEPA members get out of these events that they couldn't get from, say, attending conferences or reading reports.
Sheri Givens: Yeah, so it's boots-on-the-ground intelligence. When we go on these missions, it's not a boondoggle, which some might think, oh wow, you get to go to Portugal, but it's kind of an Indiana Jones-style adventure, planes, trains, and automobiles. We are all across the country for some of these missions. Some of them are single-city missions, but we always make sure we do field trips. So if you come on a SEPA mission, you're going to learn from the utilities that are making stuff happen in that country. You're going to learn from the system operator. There might be an academic representative from one of the local universities talking about policy and legal changes and regulatory challenges. So for example, in Denmark, we went to Skive and went and viewed the Green Lab, which was this circular economy demonstration of all the things that they're working on from hydrogen to biochar to wind, and it was just amazing to see what's happening in real time. It's really about learning from those folks who are doing the work in those countries and also meeting your peers who are working on similar challenges in different states and building a lifelong connection with those peers.
Brad Langley: So let's dig into some specific learnings. What did you discover in Australia in 2022 about high rooftop solar penetration that utilities here should know?
Sheri Givens: Well, it's really interesting what Australia is doing when it comes to rooftop solar. They do have incredibly high rooftop penetration, but they also have—the government is incentivizing it. So the cost of rooftop solar is much less expensive than it is in the US. They also are doing some really innovative things when it comes to voltage control and really trying to make sure that customers can contribute to any kind of system demand or system issues in real time. So it seems like the customers trust their utility a bit more and they really try to help with any kind of system demand or load issues.
Brad Langley: And then in Germany, in 2024, you saw green steel production and repurposed industrial plants. How do these models apply to industrial decarbonization efforts in the US?
Sheri Givens: Yeah, so they are looking at industrial decarbonization from the standpoint of using green hydrogen to really think through how they lower their greenhouse gas emissions and really implement their clean energy transition. In Germany right now, they're doing what's called Energiewende, which is German for the clean energy transition. They're trying to tap into a hundred percent renewable energy by 2045. So there's a rapid coal phase-out, and they're really trying to ensure that they don't have that dependence on Russian gas anymore. So the industrial sector is leaning in as well, as I mentioned, with really focusing on green hydrogen as a way to decarbonize industrial projects.
Brad Langley: So you're heading to Portugal next. Why Portugal and any specific objectives or things you're hoping to learn from their energy system?
Sheri Givens: Yeah, my team does a really great job, Brad, of looking at different countries that are making a difference when it comes to clean energy. And Portugal has done some amazing things over the past few years. In 2023, their grid ran for 149 hours, six days on a hundred percent renewable energy, and that is truly a global beacon that we can look to as an example of how things get done. Seventy-one percent of their electricity came from renewable energy in 2024. That's inclusive of wind, solar, and hydro. They're piloting wave energy and floating PVs and floating offshore wind and green hydrogen, and they're really leaning in on energy equity and energy poverty alleviation and really focused on educating consumers around Portugal. It's going to be an exciting trip, and I heard just the other day from my team that we are fully subscribed and have a wait list. So it's going to be an excellent trip, one of our best.
Brad Langley: Is there a reason why you guys keep it small? I mean, I think I know the answer to this, but why do you keep it so intimate? Why not invite anybody who wants to come?
Sheri Givens: We try to keep it small, so again, we can encourage those really strong relationships and connections throughout the industry. We bring, as I mentioned, all the different business models from the utility side. We bring a few of our technology partners and we bring a regulator when we can. It just allows us to travel easier and better. And I also have a small team, so accounting for a larger group of people might be challenging. In years past, we've done two fact-finding missions in a year. So again, if it becomes important to our members for us to do multiple fact-finding missions or even reverse fact-finding missions, bringing international delegations to the US, I think it's an opportunity that we're interested in exploring.
Brad Langley: What's been your favorite trip and why?
Sheri Givens: Oh, that's a great question. I really enjoyed Australia. We met with folks from the energy suppliers, from the technology companies, from the transmission companies, and one of the battle cries that I heard throughout the country in each of the meetings was, there's no transition without transmission. And I know we're starting to pick that up here in the US and that's a big point of conversation. But it's interesting from the standpoint with Australia, 20% of their landmass is desert. So when you look at their transmission lines, it's really stringy along the coastlines. So it's really important for them not only to have a high penetration of renewable energy, but to connect it all. So that was something that they were really laser-focused on ensuring they had the transmission to push out all of the clean energy that was coming online.
Brad Langley: And obviously one of the core focuses of this is the US entities going into these different countries and learning from them, but is there an exchange of ideas? Are they learning from us on these trips as well?
Sheri Givens: Absolutely. So when we go and speak with the governmental organizations or the policymakers in those countries, they certainly want to hear from us not only what's happening at the federal level, but specifically what's happening in the states. Because as you know, the US is a bit of a patchwork quilt of regulation and clean energy innovation with 50 states and US territories going at clean energy in different ways. So there's always that opportunity for bilateral discussion and opportunity for our executives from the US to share what's happening. And whenever our counterparts in these international countries are talking about energy, a lot of times our executives will jump in because they have similar problems or similar challenges, and sometimes they've solved some of those problems. So they're able to share that information in real time, and we provide the information for contacting our international counterparts after the mission if they ever want to follow up. I know a number of our US executives have kept those relationships going with their international counterparts as it's really that continuous flow of information and learning from each other.
Brad Langley: And given the political uncertainty around clean energy policy in the US, how important is it to maintain these international learning partnerships?
Sheri Givens: Well, I mean, I'm going to push back on that one, Brad, because I don't know that there's political uncertainty all across the US. As I mentioned, a lot of our states are still pursuing and progressing clean energy goals. I currently live in the US Northeast. I have a lot of colleagues and some of my board members who are in California. They're not stopping. They're not taking the foot off their pedal. They're going to continue progressing their clean energy goals at any speed and at any rate, just because the federal government might not be as supportive in these next few years, that doesn't mean they're going to stop. So I think that's a really salient point that we have to share with our counterparts. I was just in Lisbon at the beginning—at the end of June, and I was at a dialogue and everyone was kind of down on the US about what was happening when it came to clean energy and climate change, and I made sure that I told everyone there every chance I got that, look at the states, look at all the incredible work they're doing, look at the progress that they're making. Don't necessarily look at what's happening on the broader scale. Look at the individuals that are making it work.
Brad Langley: Yeah, it's a really good point. I think the federal news is what generates the headlines, but the states are doing some tremendous work, and frankly, if it wasn't for that, companies like GridX and others in this space would certainly struggle, but we're also feeling very bullish as well. So I agree that's a good distinction to make. Drawing on your deep regulatory and policy background, what do you see as the biggest regulatory challenges utilities face as they try to integrate these new technologies and approaches?
Sheri Givens: Well, I think the biggest opportunity they have is policy. I think, again, our secret sauce is our convening and our diversity of membership. If there's an opportunity for utilities to work with policymakers, to work with technology companies so each can understand what each is working on, I think that's where the magic's going to happen. I think utilities really are leaning in to their policymakers. They're really trying to make sure that policymakers understand their business models, understand some of the challenges they're having, whether it's supply chain or permitting or cost. Affordability is top of mind across the board, whether you're a utility or if you're a policymaker, you're thinking about affordability and the impacts on the customers that are paying those bills. So I think it's just a great time for us to convene and gather together and work on these issues.
Brad Langley: How do you think about continuing to push innovation and learning from the international community when utilities are navigating these complex regulatory frameworks?
Sheri Givens: So our strategic priorities are growth, grid, globe. Grid, making sure that the distribution grid and the transmission grid are working together to be able to be resilient against the weather events that are impacting the system. From a growth perspective, being ready as a system to take on all the load growth that's coming on, whether it's AI or data centers or electrification from transportation or buildings. And then finally globe, which is what we're focused on today, taking the learnings from our counterparts in other countries, bringing those back to the US and vice versa, sharing our learnings from the US with our international counterparts. And yes, there's a lot going on in everyone's states, but I think it's really important for us to learn together what's working and what's not so we can pivot quickly from those things that aren't working and really explore those areas that will progress the transition.
Brad Langley: So to that point, on the flip side, where are you seeing regulatory innovation really leaning in and helping utilities move forward with clean energy technologies?
Sheri Givens: With an investor-owned utility, they're thinking about their customers first and foremost, and ensuring that there's a clean, reliable, affordable system in place, but they also have to think about their shareholders and ensuring they get a return on their investments. So performance-based ratemaking has been successful in a number of jurisdictions to really incentivize and allow utilities to go forward, but also to make sure that they're doing the right thing. They're not just cashing a blank check. They're doing what's right and what's necessary on behalf of their customers. There's a lot of incentive-based mechanisms out there that are being utilized in various states. There's been conversation about a regulatory sandbox, a way that you could create an innovation fund, which utilities could dip into if they wanted to try a new technology. I think we're moving from pilot programs to more phased approaches. I know when advanced meter infrastructure was new to the industry, that was kind of in a phased approach, and I'm seeing a lot more innovation that's progressing from our states and a lot more allowances for the utilities to try new things that could be helpful to their customers.
Brad Langley: So Sheri, where do you see clean energy standing today?
Sheri Givens: I see it progressing in a lot of the states that I work in and with my members across the US and really around the world. Clean energy is a form of energy that's going to help us meet demand, meet growth, and meet customer needs. I heard someone at a conference the other day, every electron counts. So whether that's wind or solar or other resources, we're going to have to lean into every electron. So I think clean energy is part of the solution to the challenges that we're facing today.
Brad Langley: We call this show With Great Power, which is a nod to the energy industry. It's also a famous Spider-Man quote: “With great power comes great responsibility.” So Sheri, what superpower do you bring to the energy transition?
Sheri Givens: I bring the power of bringing everyone together into the room to talk about the challenges of the day. I mean, it's important that we make sure that the utilities, the technology providers, the regulators, the consumer advocates, the energy offices, all of those that are part of the decisions that are going to impact their states, their regions and the nation have to talk about these issues, have to find solutions. I'm not looking for consensus. I'm not looking for everybody to agree and sing from the same hymnal from the songbook, but I think they need to have that conversation and that's what SEPA does.
Brad Langley: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Sheri Givens: Thank you. I appreciate it. Great talking to you, Brad.
Brad Langley: Sheri Givens is president and CEO of the Smart Electric Power Alliance.
With Great Power is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios.
Delivering on the clean energy future is complex. GridX exists to simplify the journey. GridX is the enterprise rate platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future. We design and implement emerging rate structures and we increase consumer investment in clean energy all while managing the complex billing needs of a distributed grid.
Our production team includes Erin Hardick and Mary Catherine O'Connor. Anne Bailey is our senior editor. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. Sean Marquand composed the original theme song and mixed the show. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and me, Brad Langley. If this show is providing value for you and we really hope it is, we'd love it if you could help spread the word. You can rate and review us on Apple or Spotify, or you can share a link with a friend, colleague, or the energy nerd in your life. As always, thanks for listening. I'm Brad Langley.