Ellen Zuckerman shares how the company works on community weatherization and with policymakers to innovate large load tariffs.
Ellen Zuckerman followed her nose, literally, into her first career as an energy auditor in New York City. She had an uncanny ability to sniff out dangerous gas leaks in apartment buildings.
That led to energy efficiency work in states across the country – everything from helping utilities, regulators, and businesses advance efficiency projects to helping ratepayers lower their bills through weatherization programs
In 2022, Google took notice and offered her a position with its community energy program – a program designed to fund energy efficiency programs in communities where the company is building data centers.
This week on With Great Power, Ellen describes how this program works. She also outlines how Google has worked with regulators and utilities in Nevada, Minnesota, and other states to develop large load tariffs in support of bringing hundreds of megawatts of clean energy and storage to the grid.
Credits: Hosted by Brad Langley. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor. Edited by Anne Bailey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The GridX production team includes Jenni Barber, Samantha McCabe, and Brad Langley.
Brad Langley: We all have our strengths. One of Ellen Zuckerman's is her sense of smell.
Ellen Zuckerman: Turns out that I have this really uncanny ability that I can go into a boiler room and I can automatically detect a gas leak.
Brad Langley: It's a talent that she discovered early in her career when she was working as an energy auditor for the Association for Energy Affordability in New York City.
Ellen Zuckerman: We were working with individuals and with families who were really struggling on a day-to-day basis to pay their utility bills — or in some cases wouldn't have hot water or heat.
Brad Langley: Ellen and her team were on the hunt for gas leaks, poorly insulated windows, outdated light bulbs, things that collectively waste a lot of energy across apartment buildings and homes and also the kind of thing that makes a big difference for residents and their wallets.
Ellen Zuckerman: To help them reduce their utility bills and redirect those savings back into their groceries or to pay for their medicine at some of the most rewarding work that I've had the privilege to do.
Brad Langley: Ellen spent a year doing those energy audits in New York and they got her thinking about what efficiency and weatherization upgrades could mean on a much larger scale.
Ellen Zuckerman: But I realized that there was a bigger role that I could play if I could figure out a way to clone myself and effectively make thousands and thousands of energy auditors to provide those kinds of services and help to families and individuals who are in need.
Brad Langley: So in 2010, Ellen moved to Arizona and joined the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, also known as SWEEP. It's a public interest organization that works with utilities, regulators, and businesses across six states to advance efficiency projects. That's where she met Jeff Schlegel, a major force behind many efficiency programs across the US.
Ellen Zuckerman: At the time, what states were leading with energy efficiency? If you were to go back and look, it was actually Arizona, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. But a common thread behind all of those states was this individual, Jeff Schlegel, who really had a vision and was able to make the case across diverse political environments, diverse decision makers that investing in more energy efficiency is the right thing to do.
Brad Langley: With Jeff's mentorship, Ellen spent the next decade-plus advancing clean energy policies, programs, and investments across the country, first at SWEEP and then as part of her own consultancy. She partnered with multiple Fortune 100 companies, state and local governments, philanthropic institutions, and nonprofits. And then in 2022, Google called with an offer she couldn't refuse.
Ellen Zuckerman: So at Google, I oversee a team that's working regionally with stakeholders, regulators, legislators, all sorts of decision makers to help Google grow their data centers and to do so in a way that's responsible to communities responsible to our resources.
Brad Langley: And that's meant a lot of things from innovating state level energy policy to investing in distributed energy resources and new technologies. But mostly it's meant matching the resources of a tech giant like Google with the needs of communities.
Ellen Zuckerman: We are trying to use our best minds, our capital, and our position to spur investment in a broad suite of technologies that we think are essential for decarbonization. We're also really focused on what our role is to play as a grid citizen. So one of the areas that I'm excited about is thinking through ways that Google can invest in distributed energy resources in the communities where we're located and in exchange for capacity credit for those investments really use those investments in the furtherance of our growth. And the benefit of that is as we grow, that means we're also bringing clean energy technologies and strategies not only for Google, but for the communities where we're located.
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, 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 Ellen Zuckerman, head of energy market development for North and South America at Google. We talk about how efficiency upgrades, grid modernization and workforce development are integrated into Google's outreach to the communities that surround its data centers and we discuss how Google balances data center development with its decarbonization goals. But first, I asked Ellen to explain the clean transition tariff that Google helped incubate in Nevada.
Ellen Zuckerman: So the clean transition tariff is a novel energy regulatory mechanism and it is designed at its core for a large energy user like Google to sit down with its utility service provider in the context of a resource planning decision and mutually identify resources that are good for the grid and but for the large energy user would not happen. Basically the utility and the large user like Google identify resources that could be accelerated and that large user pays for the full cost of that resource, shielding other rate payers from any of the risk or the costs. And in exchange, that large energy user gets to count the capacity and energy and the environmental attributes that that resource enables towards their goals and towards their growth. It sounds pretty simple, but a lot of what exists in the utility regulatory space right now is not designed to enable that acceleration, that rate payer protection, or the capacity crediting in particular.
And in Nevada we were able to design this new tariff, it's actually our flagship implementation of it. And thanks to its adoption, we were able to accelerate 115 megawatts of enhanced geothermal. Getting the clean transition tariff in place was about a three and a half year process. So anytime you're doing something new in an energy regulatory arena, it obviously needs to be considered to make sure you're not unduly impacting other customers. And because this was completely new territory, there was a lot of process associated with it. So for example, to get it going, we had to intervene in the utility’s rate case to put on a case to basically suggest that we needed a new mechanism to work with in order to further our 24/7 carbon-free electricity goals. The regulators in the state agreed with us and then told the utility to sit down and work with us on designing something to bring back.
That then took about another year to figure out the design. And then once we had come up with something, it then kicked off three additional regulatory processes. Because this was centered on an integrated resource planning integration, we needed to make sure that the resource itself was approved in the context of the utilities resource plan, but also the tariff, because it was completely new, had to be approved because there needed to be an overarching construct. And then once that was approved, our agreement also needed to go through the regulatory process. So I raise all of that to say that I think we are in this incredible moment where large load growth is poised to be a catalyst. And I think Google has gone above and beyond to demonstrate that and there's so many proof points in the recent agreements that we have brought forward, but also one of the big challenges that we have is that when we show up to a new market and are trying to do new and innovative things, we're often designing from scratch and we need to get the regulatory process and the vehicles aligned to support us and what we're trying to enable.
And that's why actually part of the charge of my team is to try to look ahead and figure out: How can we put clean transition tariffs in place across the country? So that as Google grows or hopefully others follow in our footsteps, those vehicles are available to them to do the right thing. I'm really excited that since the Clean Transition Tariff was approved in Nevada a little more than a year ago, we've been able to put clean transition tariffs or at least get regulatory directives to establish them in a number of states and across the political spectrum from Kansas to Minnesota to Missouri.
Brad Langley: In Minnesota, Excel and Google are partnering to bring 1.9 gigawatts of new clean energy to the grid as part of their capacity connected program. How was that partnership informed by state policy efforts Google has made in Nevada and elsewhere?
Ellen Zuckerman: So as I mentioned, Nevada was really our flagship implementation of the clean transition tariff. A lot of decision makers, a lot of stakeholders saw that and saw a lot of value in what it could enable. And I give incredible credit to decision makers in Minnesota. They did a lot of work over the last two plus years to really enact state level policy tied to large load growth, ensuring that it's in the furtherance of the state's goals, including its climate goals. As part of that legislative framework, it also charted a path to create a clean transition tariff and having that kind of directive can be really important. Utilities can often be quite risk averse and so having state level support indicating that this is the right thing to do can really be helpful in the context of the negotiations that a large energy user like Google then plans to have with a utility service provider like Excel.
So again, I think because of the leadership in Minnesota, the work to put in a legislative framework, we were really able to capitalize on that and design this energy supply agreement that, as you mentioned, is enabling a diverse resource set, including the world's largest long-duration energy storage battery, which we're really proud of. Assuming our agreement is approved, Google will be investing $50 million in Xcel Energy's Capacity Connect program. And if that is approved, we will be funding batteries across the distribution system with a focus on commercial and industrial customers. And so really this is a first step where we are trying to ensure that as we grow, the benefits of it are accrued across the community.
Brad Langley: You're doing other work in Nevada. Google and NV Energy are now developing a large load customer offsite demand side management pilot program. Can you maybe describe this pilot and what you're hoping for in terms of results?
Ellen Zuckerman: Yes. So this is a pilot that we have worked with stakeholders and with NV Energy on for a little more than a year and a half now. And the idea is how can we take advantage of energy efficiency, the clean firm resource that is available today and how can we make sure that as Google grows, that the money that we are investing into the energy system is not only on the supply side, but it's also on the distribution side. And this pilot program, should it be approved, would have Google working with NV Energy building on top of its utility demand side management programs, providing HVAC, so air conditioning upgrades to low to moderate income customers, but also installing batteries at those homes really to provide them with resilience benefits. And this is a very important first step, assuming it gets approved for Google to make investments in homes — especially homes that are struggling — and make that a key component of the energy supply strategy moving forward.
So we are incredibly excited about this. We are also working with a number of other utilities on similar constructs, including with a utility in Arizona, Salt River Project. And I'm very bullish about what this opportunity and this platform can provide. For example, if we're interfacing with those customers and we're providing them with an HVAC upgrade or with a battery, what other services could we potentially provide to them so that they can lower their utility bills and the grid writ large benefits? So that's something that we are actively exploring. This gets a little bit wonky and I don't know how familiar your whole audience is with the design and the valuation of utility demand side management programs, but they're often held to a very strident bar where they have to demonstrate cost effectiveness so that every dollar that goes in needs to show that it returns more than $1 back to rate payers in the system writ large.
And while that is an incredible bar that the efficiency industry has set for itself, it also means that sometimes certain things are precluded from investment because they have health and safety issues because they have structural issues. So if Google can come in and provide capital that doesn't need to be held to a cost effectiveness bar, we can actually provide the funding to expand the customer base that can benefit from the ultimate services that the utility and in some cases the federal government are funding. And I really see this as an avenue for us to rethink and really double down on energy efficiency as a resource. We can take advantage of new technologies, we can think about new strategies. We can maybe meet customers more where they're at in terms of what their income situation might be. So I think the opportunity is untapped and what we're doing with Xcel in Minnesota and what we're doing with NV Energy with this proposed pilot is really a first step in that direction.
Brad Langley: I believe those types of investments in homes are part of your program called Community Energy. Anything more you want to say about that? And maybe how does that relate to data center development, if at all?
Ellen Zuckerman: So energy affordability and safeguarding rate payers is core to the way that we show up at every market and the way that we design our contracts, but it's also in the way that we are thinking about our supply and it's also core to the way that we are thinking about community investments. So the example that I talked about with Xcel in Minnesota and with NV Energy, that's about thinking through energy affordability avenues that are connected to the dollars we would spend on energy. But in addition to that work, we are making investments in energy affordability, partnering, for example, with community action agencies. For instance, when we announced we were coming to the state of Arkansas, we announced a major energy impact fund. We have since convened a local stakeholder advisory group who's really giving us input on the places where that money is sorely needed and can help to address the affordability concerns in that community.
And that really builds on work that we have been doing for a number of years now. We began partnering with our South Carolina co-ops and really digging into this pre-weatherization challenge. So this idea that there are a lot of individuals, there's a lot of families who are poised to benefit from weatherization assistance, but they cannot access that assistance because their homes are unsafe, they're structurally unsound, for example. So we brought forward dollars and have been working with program implementers there to really address those underlying issues. So that is something that we are doubling down on and working across all of our communities and we're really trying to take an approach that's informed by the community needs themselves.
Brad Langley: So let's zoom out and look at the big picture. How have growing demands for energy to power data centers impacted Google's overall clean energy plans and particularly its decarbonization goals?
Ellen Zuckerman: Clean energy is Google's first option and we remain committed to our ambitions, which includes our 24/7 carbon-free electricity commitment. And I think that really bears out in some of the recent announcements that we have made, whether that's our agreement with Xcel in Minnesota, our recent work in Michigan with DTE or even our follow-on clean transition tariff with NV Energy in Nevada where we're working to enable an additional 150 megawatts of geothermal. So I think our ambitions have become more complex because of large load growth, but Google also likes to work on really hard problems. It's part of our DNA and I'm really proud to be part of a team that is working around the clock — some of the brightest minds I've had the privilege to work with who are really trying day in and day out to make sure that as our data centers grow, that we are doing so responsibly.
Brad Langley: So obviously huge demand growth brings concerns and challenges, but there are also opportunities therein. What opportunities are you seeing through this significant demand growth?
Ellen Zuckerman: It really plays out in the energy supply that we're enabling the new approaches that we're furthering, the advanced technology investments that we are supporting, whether that's fusion or small modular nuclear reactors. I understand that there's a lot of consternation right now about large load growth, but this is also an incredible opportunity. We talked earlier about how for the last decades we have critically underinvested in the power system and you now have a company like Google willing to put its brand and its capital into the type of catalytic investments that are needed and it's why I'm here in the role that I am because it is such a huge opportunity to really invest in ways that we have not done for decades.
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 Ellen, what superpower do you bring to the energy transition?
Ellen Zuckerman: I think my superpower might be empathy and it's really grounded in the work that we discussed earlier that I lived and breathed in New York, which is understanding how these big decisions have impact at the individual level. And we have to be absolutely mindful that as large load grows that we are doing so responsibly because it's not just about Google, it is about all of us who are connected to the power system. I and my team try to bring that lens every single day that we do our jobs because this is about real life impacts and it's important that we use this opportunity to invest and grow responsibly.
Brad Langley: Thank you, Ellen, for your time and for giving us a peak under the hood of all the great work that Google is up to. Really appreciate it.
Ellen Zuckerman: Thank you.
Brad Langley: Ellen Zuckerman is Google's head of energy market development for North and South America. With Great Power is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios.
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