Speaker 1: Hi, This is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switch
Speaker 1: It on the BNAF podcast. Today, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about corporate energy procurement and how renewable energy power purchase
Speaker 1: agreements or PPAs for short, have been able to help
Speaker 1: companies meet their sustainability targets. But we're also going to
Speaker 1: discuss their limitations. How about the fact that even under
Speaker 1: the best of circumstances, wind and solar are not able
Speaker 1: to fully decarbonize the company's scope two emissions when we
Speaker 1: think about it as around the clock and everywhere in
Speaker 1: the world at a specific place. So what will it
Speaker 1: take for twenty four seven carbon free energy? Well, that's
Speaker 1: what Google's goal is by twenty thirty, So it's time
Speaker 1: to get creative. And here to talk about Google's journey
Speaker 1: with PPAs and how they plan to innovate with the
Speaker 1: help of their energy suppliers is Caroline Golin. She's the
Speaker 1: global head of Energy Market Development and Policy at Google.
Speaker 1: Caroline was interviewed by Kyle Harrison, and he is head
Speaker 1: of sustainability research here at bf NOW. As a reminder,
Speaker 1: B and EF does not provide investment or strategy advice,
Speaker 1: and we have a more complete disclaimer that's at the
Speaker 1: very end of the show. But now let's listened to
Speaker 1: Caroline and Kyle's conversation. Caroline, thanks for joining us today. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. I'm really excited for the
Speaker 1: conversation som and actually, I feel like in many ways,
Speaker 1: I've been an unofficial member of Google's energy procurement team.
Speaker 1: So I've been covering corporate procurement at BNF for many
Speaker 1: years now, and I remember when companies like Google and
Speaker 1: Apple and Amazon we're signing the first corporate ppa's five, six,
Speaker 1: seven years ago, and it's really cool to see kind
Speaker 1: of how far this space has evolved over time. So
Speaker 1: maybe my first question for you, and starting from the top,
Speaker 1: can you walk us through Google's history of clean energy
Speaker 1: buying kind of how does that fit into the broader
Speaker 1: sustainability strategy of Google as a whole. Yeah, I'd be
Speaker 1: happy to And well, then I'm glad we're having a
Speaker 1: little bit of a team reunion here with this podcast,
Speaker 1: So you know, i'd start out with saying that sustainability
Speaker 1: has really always been at the heart of Google's operations.
Speaker 1: It's led by the employees. I mean, it's a very
Speaker 1: important aspect to our employee culture. That's led by our customers.
Speaker 1: It's a very important aspect to our customers, and it
Speaker 1: has led you by our leadership. It is important across
Speaker 1: the board, and at the center of that sustainability initiative
Speaker 1: has really been a commitment to cleaning our operations. And
Speaker 1: this has been something that I would say we're two
Speaker 1: decades really in the making here. So in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, we had sort of set the goal for
Speaker 1: our operations to be carbon neutral, and we really met
Speaker 1: that goal largely by the use of offsets, which is
Speaker 1: where many companies are today. As we evolved, we recognize
Speaker 1: that we had a role to play in the energy
Speaker 1: market and in the communities that we operated in, and
Speaker 1: those communities that we operate in as usually where our
Speaker 1: data centers are. So when we're talking about our operations,
Speaker 1: we're talking about our data centers or our office buildings,
Speaker 1: and those are global, right, I like to say, we
Speaker 1: serve communities from Singapore to South Carolina. And so we
Speaker 1: made the commitment then to run all of our operations
Speaker 1: on one hundred percent renewable energy, and we did that
Speaker 1: largely through an approach which is very common today of
Speaker 1: global matching. So it's a bit of an accounting exercise,
Speaker 1: but we took all of our electricity consumption across all
Speaker 1: of our data centers and across all of our large
Speaker 1: office buildings. We aggregated that up and then we said,
Speaker 1: this is how much renewable energy we need to go
Speaker 1: out and purchase in the market globally. And we did that,
Speaker 1: and we were the first corporate to do that. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's something that we take a lot of pride in
Speaker 1: and it's something we've been doing year after year after
Speaker 1: year after year. And what that meant really was that
Speaker 1: where there were markets where we could go out and
Speaker 1: sign PPAs for solar and win, we went out and
Speaker 1: did that. Right, So you have markets in the United
Speaker 1: States like MYSO and ERCOT where we could sign large
Speaker 1: hundred megawatt two hundred megawatt wind and solar deals and
Speaker 1: we aggregated all that up and that was equal to
Speaker 1: our total electricity demand for all our data centers and
Speaker 1: large office buildings across the globe. Huge, huge deal. The
Speaker 1: biggest impact I think was that it sort of standardized
Speaker 1: the corporate PPA and drove down the cost of wind
Speaker 1: and solar globally. And we did this along with many
Speaker 1: of our peers. You'll see this along many of the
Speaker 1: tech company piers, Walmart, Microsoft like. In that sort of process,
Speaker 1: we learned a lot right. The first thing we learned was, Wow,
Speaker 1: there are only a few markets in the world where
Speaker 1: we can really execute at this scale. That's a problem.
Speaker 1: When I joined Google a little over four years ago,
Speaker 1: we only had a handful of data centers in each
Speaker 1: area of the world. As we grow, as the digital
Speaker 1: economy grows, we're going to have data centers and office
Speaker 1: buildings all over the world. Does it makes sense to
Speaker 1: continue to only purchase in the markets that are available.
Speaker 1: The other thing we realized was that by operating in
Speaker 1: this sort of global annual match paradigm, there were many
Speaker 1: hours of the day and in some cases complete data
Speaker 1: centers that weren't actually running on any renewable energy at all,
Speaker 1: and that a lot of the time we were still
Speaker 1: very much reliant on fossil fuel. From a philosophical perspective,
Speaker 1: the goal was to drive renewable energy to get off
Speaker 1: fossil fuel, but that wasn't actually happening. So we had
Speaker 1: to take a step back and really assess, well, what
Speaker 1: are we trying to do here with our capital, with
Speaker 1: our influence, with sort of our collective action, and we
Speaker 1: settled on what we're really trying to do is decarbonize
Speaker 1: the electricity grid. We want to decarbonize the electricity grid
Speaker 1: because that is the lifeblood of our economy. That means
Speaker 1: that our society can evolve in a clean way. It's
Speaker 1: a stewardship towards our own operations, but it's also a
Speaker 1: stewart ship to the communities that we operate in. So
Speaker 1: how do we actually decarbonize the electricity system? Can we
Speaker 1: do that with just this global matching approach? We came
Speaker 1: to the opinion that we cannot do that with just
Speaker 1: this global matching approach, and so we set the goal
Speaker 1: of twenty four seven carbon free energy, And twenty four
Speaker 1: seven carbon free energy is really the goal that we
Speaker 1: will operate all of our operations, and again that's data
Speaker 1: centers in large office buildings on completely carbon free energy
Speaker 1: every hour of every day by twenty thirty. And the
Speaker 1: other caveat there is that all the energy that we
Speaker 1: will procure to meet that goal has to be generated
Speaker 1: on the grids where we operate, right, so there is
Speaker 1: no more buying in Iowa to match our needs in Singapore,
Speaker 1: or buying in the Netherlands to match our needs in
Speaker 1: South Carolina. Right, we have to now source all the
Speaker 1: clean energy that is going to meet our operational needs
Speaker 1: where we are, and it has to be every hour
Speaker 1: of every day has to be met with carbon free energy.
Speaker 1: And that is a huge, huge shift, and that's the
Speaker 1: path we're on now. We like to call it our
Speaker 1: moonshot goal. It's the most aggressive corporate goal out there.
Speaker 1: But there are many other companies that are seeing this
Speaker 1: and also joining in and making similar goals because we
Speaker 1: all sort of have collectively realize what's the most impact
Speaker 1: we can drive, and the most impact we can actually
Speaker 1: drive is the fold carbonization of the grid. So let's
Speaker 1: put our focus there. Yeah, I think you know that
Speaker 1: keyword of impact is really important here, right, You hit
Speaker 1: on a lot of really important points. There's talking about
Speaker 1: Google strategy obviously creating that blueprint and trailblazing with that
Speaker 1: power purchase agreement model and beingf we're tracking power purchase
Speaker 1: agreement volumes globally and you saw our record thirty one
Speaker 1: gigawatts of these deals signed last year alone and this
Speaker 1: year it's going to be a nail writer, but we
Speaker 1: could see another record year. But you're absolutely right when
Speaker 1: you look at the kind of the geographic dispersion of
Speaker 1: those deals, a lot of this activity is occurring where
Speaker 1: clean energy is the cheapest. So you see a huge
Speaker 1: glot of corporate power purchase agreements being signed in markets
Speaker 1: like Texas right or markets like SPP like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: where the wind blows a lot and wind powers is
Speaker 1: very cheap. But if you actually look at the renewable
Speaker 1: development queue in the mix of energy generation and some
Speaker 1: of these markets, they already have a lot of renewables,
Speaker 1: and so it's thinking a lot more about where can
Speaker 1: you buy clean energy that makes the biggest impact. And
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, there are a lot of markets around
Speaker 1: Asia and parts of Eastern Europe in Sub Saharan Africa
Speaker 1: that have a much heavier fossil fuel mix and clean
Speaker 1: energy buying today is much less accessible for a corporate buyer.
Speaker 1: I think you're totally right that this twenty four seven
Speaker 1: carbon free strategy that you just outlined really is going
Speaker 1: to open the door for a lot more companies to
Speaker 1: start thinking this way. Maybe another question for you, would
Speaker 1: you consider this an evolution of Google's clean energy strategy
Speaker 1: or would you consider it more of a pivot away
Speaker 1: from kind of that traditional PPA model. I think it's
Speaker 1: an evolution. Just with any evolution, you have to sort
Speaker 1: of learn from where you started and learn as you go.
Speaker 1: I mean, when we sign the first corporate renewable PPA,
Speaker 1: or when we set up the first solar program with
Speaker 1: the utility in the United States, we did so with
Speaker 1: the same goals that we have now, which is that
Speaker 1: we want to drive impact, we want to decarbonize the grid.
Speaker 1: But it was only really through that learning process of going, oh,
Speaker 1: so you're not going to retire that coal plant even
Speaker 1: though we added one hundred and fifty megawatts of wind. Okay, wait,
Speaker 1: you're actually going to bring on natural gas to firm
Speaker 1: that solar. Okay, that's not computing in our head, So
Speaker 1: why is that not computing? And I think the crux
Speaker 1: or sort of the inherent beauty I like to say
Speaker 1: of our twenty four seventh goal is it means we
Speaker 1: actually have to roll up our sleeves and start reforming
Speaker 1: the regulations, the market structures, and the policies that have
Speaker 1: guided our elect city system for the past hundred plus years.
Speaker 1: This is something we didn't necessarily have to do in
Speaker 1: one hundred percent are global matching space, because as you said,
Speaker 1: where we could go to market, we went to market.
Speaker 1: And we have a phenomenal procurement team, you know, and
Speaker 1: they have worked their butts off for years signing all
Speaker 1: these deals. But if we say no, no, no, you can't,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that anymore, then we have
Speaker 1: to say we're going to have to change the markets
Speaker 1: everywhere we operate. And market reform means regulatory reform, it
Speaker 1: means policy reform. It means working with suppliers, It means
Speaker 1: working with utilities and developers to become more creative, to
Speaker 1: be more innovative, to say, okay, the structures that have
Speaker 1: guided us for the past hundred years are insufficient for
Speaker 1: the future, and so what are we going to do
Speaker 1: to go faster, to be smarter, to get to that
Speaker 1: clean energy transition. That's a much bigger undertaking. And so
Speaker 1: why I think it's an evolution, it's because we've learned
Speaker 1: and we've just grown in the way we think about things.
Speaker 1: We still are meeting our one hundred percent renewable goal,
Speaker 1: and all of that renewable energy that we're signing is
Speaker 1: being counted and used towards our twenty four seven goal,
Speaker 1: but now we're having to work on top of it,
Speaker 1: and how do we meet that gap? So even if
Speaker 1: we're at one hundred percent renewable, which is when we
Speaker 1: started this goal, even when we were at one hundred
Speaker 1: percent renewable, we were still only around sixty six percent
Speaker 1: carbon free on an hourly basis. So what are we
Speaker 1: doing about that other thirty to forty percent everywhere we are?
Speaker 1: And that's where it's that evolution in thinking, and that
Speaker 1: evolution in thinking is really fundamentally changing all the market structures. Right,
Speaker 1: We'll still use ppa's for wind and solar, but we've
Speaker 1: got to do more than that. And you mentioned that
Speaker 1: there are other companies that are starting to do this
Speaker 1: as well. Right, How sticky is this kind of carbon
Speaker 1: free strategy? Are you seeing this catch on with a
Speaker 1: lot of companies? Because, like you mentioned, right, Google was
Speaker 1: the first company to achieve one renewable electricity matching on
Speaker 1: an anual basis, and we of course have seen more
Speaker 1: companies go out and do that. And the R one
Speaker 1: hundred is growing. I think it has close to four
Speaker 1: hundred members now, But a lot of these companies are
Speaker 1: not at one percent renewable yet, So how many of
Speaker 1: those companies are ready for this evolution as you called it.
Speaker 1: I'd like to take the conversation a little broader and
Speaker 1: not just talk about companies, because the way that I
Speaker 1: look at this is twenty four seven is the end goal,
Speaker 1: but it's also sort of the paradigm and the framework
Speaker 1: by which we all collectively work. So whether or not
Speaker 1: you've set a twenty four seven goal for your company,
Speaker 1: it's really about are we using our collective action to
Speaker 1: put in place the market structures, the products, the technologies
Speaker 1: that we all know we're going to need for a
Speaker 1: decarbonized grid. So last year I had the pleasure and
Speaker 1: was really humbled to work with the UN to launch
Speaker 1: the twenty four seven Carbon Free Energy Compact. And this
Speaker 1: is compact that invites every single player in the energy
Speaker 1: ecosystem to work together towards the full decarbonization of the grid.
Speaker 1: The one thing about twenty four to seven is that
Speaker 1: it is inclusive of other technologies. You know, if you
Speaker 1: set a one hundred percent our goal right now or
Speaker 1: any other goal, you are de facto excluding the next
Speaker 1: generation technologies that everyone knows we're going to need to
Speaker 1: fully roll off fossil fuel. This makes the tent a
Speaker 1: lot bigger, and we need the tent bigger. And the
Speaker 1: compact right now is populated with governments, companies, advocacy organizations, suppliers,
Speaker 1: other large scale thought leaders on this. We have Iceland
Speaker 1: in Scotland and a g as Microsoft New Core. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have a number of signatories here. They're all there
Speaker 1: not necessarily because they've set a twenty four seven goal,
Speaker 1: but because they believe that we need to change the
Speaker 1: structure to get to a decarbonized it, and so that's
Speaker 1: what they're committed to do. So one thing that I
Speaker 1: love about twenty four seven is it is more inclusive.
Speaker 1: And so I think for other companies or other organizations
Speaker 1: that have other goals, that's part of their evolutionary process, right,
Speaker 1: and as they work, they need to be cognizant and
Speaker 1: work towards the baseline structures that we're all going to need.
Speaker 1: I think that we get sometimes in a place where
Speaker 1: we say, oh, this corporate goal versus that corporate goal,
Speaker 1: or this corporate goal towards that corporate goal. As corporates,
Speaker 1: we have a responsibility to the economy, to the communities
Speaker 1: where we operate in to drive scaled impact so that
Speaker 1: not just our businesses, but every single household has the
Speaker 1: opportunity to run on clean energy. And if we do
Speaker 1: that collectively, then we are moving towards the right trajectory.
Speaker 1: And because this transition to clean energy, it's bigger than
Speaker 1: any of us often talk about, like me, the economic
Speaker 1: future of our generation or my children's generation. This is
Speaker 1: how we are going to evolve as a society, and
Speaker 1: so we need to really be collectively focused on society,
Speaker 1: on the public good. That's why I love being in
Speaker 1: the policy space, That's why I love being in the
Speaker 1: market design space, because it's really about driving the public good.
Speaker 1: I hesitate to say this corporate goal versus that corporate goal.
Speaker 1: It's really about how are we working together to drive
Speaker 1: that collective action so that everyone behind us and everyone
Speaker 1: to the side of us also gets to realize a
Speaker 1: clean future. I think that's a really smart way of
Speaker 1: thinking about it, and you're absolutely right that benefits many
Speaker 1: more parties than just corporate buyers. And I think something
Speaker 1: else that you hit on there that was super interesting, right.
Speaker 1: You mentioned flexible technologies You've mentioned policy, You've mentioned suppliers,
Speaker 1: So I want to dive a little bit deeper now
Speaker 1: into kind of the different factors that are really important
Speaker 1: in executing a twenty four seven carbon strategy twenty carbon free.
Speaker 1: And I know you said to kind of expand this
Speaker 1: beyond the corporate buyer, but I did want to specifically
Speaker 1: talk about corporate buyers and make an analogy here. And
Speaker 1: I've been workshopping us for a little while, and what
Speaker 1: better time to kind of unveil this analogy than a podcast.
Speaker 1: Of course, to me, I think of clean energy buying,
Speaker 1: especially from the corporate space, that the evolution of clean
Speaker 1: energy buying, it reminds me a lot of the evolution
Speaker 1: that you would see in a sport like baseball. And
Speaker 1: we've got two Americans on the podcast here, so maybe
Speaker 1: you'll pick up on some of this, but I'm happy
Speaker 1: to kind of explain it more for a broader audience.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the history of baseball, a
Speaker 1: lot of people know that the most famous baseball player
Speaker 1: ever his name is Babe Ruth. What made Babe Ruth
Speaker 1: so famous was he would go out and he would
Speaker 1: hit home runs. So he would hit the baseball outside
Speaker 1: of the park, and it would get him and anyone
Speaker 1: else that was on base a run, and that changed
Speaker 1: the way the sport of baseball was played. Before Babe
Speaker 1: Ruth came into the league, players intentionally wouldn't hit for power,
Speaker 1: and they would intentionally hit it within the field. They
Speaker 1: wouldn't hit home runs, and it was a much more
Speaker 1: kind of strategic way of playing the game. And then
Speaker 1: when Babe Bruth came in and started shattering all these
Speaker 1: records around home runs, the sport of baseball changed fundamentally,
Speaker 1: and all of the interests and all a wow factor
Speaker 1: was going into hitting home runs. And to me, that
Speaker 1: reminds me of the corporate energy space a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago. It was all about volume, right who could
Speaker 1: sign the most power purchase agreements. But if you look
Speaker 1: today kind of at in revising history and you look
Speaker 1: at who were the greatest baseball players of all time,
Speaker 1: you'll still get a lot of people that will say
Speaker 1: Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth was a fantastic player all around.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot more focused now on what we
Speaker 1: call a five tool baseball player. So it's not just
Speaker 1: about hitting for power. It's not just about hitting home runs.
Speaker 1: It's about getting on base more, it's about running the
Speaker 1: basis faster, it's about fielding better, right, it's about a
Speaker 1: better all around baseball player. And what that's doing is
Speaker 1: it's shining a light on all these other players that
Speaker 1: maybe used to not get as much attention as Babe
Speaker 1: Ruth and now they are. And to me, it's very
Speaker 1: similar to twenty four seven carbon free, right, And you
Speaker 1: can kind of equate each of those tools to a
Speaker 1: specific important factor that goes into a twenty four seven
Speaker 1: carbon free strategy. So you can think about base running
Speaker 1: as flexible generation, you can think about that supply side,
Speaker 1: working with utilities as something like being a better fielder.
Speaker 1: But then of course you do have something like hitting
Speaker 1: for power, which is still a very important part of
Speaker 1: the game, and buying clean energy, which is still a
Speaker 1: very important part of a twenty four seven carbon free strategy.
Speaker 1: So maybe kind of going through each of these five
Speaker 1: tools one by one, one of the things that you
Speaker 1: just mentioned and you've mentioned a few times on the
Speaker 1: podcast today is the procurement of flexible technologies, and that's
Speaker 1: obviously going to be a very important part of a
Speaker 1: twenty four seven carbon free strategy. So it's buying geothermal,
Speaker 1: it's buying nuclear that more closely resembled base load power,
Speaker 1: but it's also looking at things like energy storage. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me a little bit more about what Google's
Speaker 1: doing here? Yes? Happy too, And you're right. I like
Speaker 1: your baseball analogy. I was a little nervous. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: get it at first, to be honest, but it is
Speaker 1: pointing it right. Yes, it makes sense to me. So
Speaker 1: I go back to what I was saying before. Right,
Speaker 1: So we set this goal. We're one hundred percent renewable
Speaker 1: on our balance sheet in terms of if you add
Speaker 1: the left side and the right side of the equation up.
Speaker 1: It worked. When we dug a little deeper we got
Speaker 1: to the hourly level, we realized only sixty six percent
Speaker 1: of the time, really we were running on clean energy.
Speaker 1: That's unfortunate. All right, how do we actually think about
Speaker 1: getting to one hundred percent running on clean energy? Will
Speaker 1: solar and wind do it? Then? Answer is no, solar
Speaker 1: and wind is not going to do it. Every single
Speaker 1: research paper I've seen said solar and wind can get
Speaker 1: us about seventy eighty percent of the goal of a
Speaker 1: completely clean grid, and that sort of subject to what
Speaker 1: we do on transmission, which if we get a chance
Speaker 1: to talk about, I'd love to talk about. But what
Speaker 1: is going to happen is that we are in a
Speaker 1: state where we don't have that last piece of the
Speaker 1: pie figured out. So if we actually want to get
Speaker 1: that last piece of the pie figured out, we're going
Speaker 1: to need to start investing now. So that means that
Speaker 1: we have to think bigger than wind and solar, and
Speaker 1: that's what we've been doing for the past coup beers,
Speaker 1: and we have a phenomenal team led by my colleague Mode,
Speaker 1: who is looking across the globe to say, what are
Speaker 1: the technologies that we need to invest in now, And
Speaker 1: we tend to look at sort that kilowat to megawat
Speaker 1: space that have already shown their proof of concept at
Speaker 1: the kilowat space and we've said, okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: now try to scale you beyond that. What are the
Speaker 1: technologies that we're going to need to fill those firm hours,
Speaker 1: like you said, those firm baseload hours. And so we've
Speaker 1: been investing across the globe in this One of the
Speaker 1: most recent investments that we made was in Nevada where
Speaker 1: we invested with a company called Fervo Energy, and this
Speaker 1: was the first partnership for what we're calling always on
Speaker 1: clean Energy for geothermal, and so if this is successful,
Speaker 1: we will see the fruits of those labors to be
Speaker 1: able to scale geothermal not only for us, but for
Speaker 1: other customers. We've also taken this approach in PGM, where
Speaker 1: we've invested in battery storage with the same idea where
Speaker 1: we're actually looked to do it as a model not
Speaker 1: just for us, but for others, and we did what
Speaker 1: we called a clean Energy manager model there. And so
Speaker 1: we're looking at this, We're looking at hydrogen, we're looking
Speaker 1: at next generation advanced nuclear, we're looking at everything that's
Speaker 1: on the board. The other thing that we're looking at
Speaker 1: is how do we just not have to purchase a
Speaker 1: kilowatt hour in the first place, So demand response, energy efficiency,
Speaker 1: all of these become tools in your toolkit when you
Speaker 1: are in a twenty four seven world. To me, it's
Speaker 1: more creative and you get to sort of be the
Speaker 1: wind behind the sales of the next technologies that we're
Speaker 1: all going to need. And that's been really, really, really exciting,
Speaker 1: and Mode's team has done an amazing job leading this,
Speaker 1: and the goal is to get this to a point
Speaker 1: where we can now get the markets and the policies
Speaker 1: to be supportive of these next generation technologies and figure
Speaker 1: out how to best utilize them in a world where
Speaker 1: within ten years we're going to have zero price signals
Speaker 1: in a renewable space. So it's an exciting time and
Speaker 1: that key component of investing in these next generation technologies.
Speaker 1: I'll say, like, if we don't use our capital now
Speaker 1: to do it, they will not be available when we
Speaker 1: get to these higher penetrations of renewable energy, and we
Speaker 1: are going to be in a very very, very overbuilt
Speaker 1: and over expensive system as a result. It's a very
Speaker 1: good point. And speaking of that availability, in those markets
Speaker 1: where those flexibil technologies are not necessarily available, there's obviously
Speaker 1: the element where you can tap a utility or retailer
Speaker 1: work with one of those companies to offer you more
Speaker 1: reliable electricity as well. And I know Google and other
Speaker 1: tech companies in the past have signed what we call
Speaker 1: green tariffs with regulated utilities in the US, but of
Speaker 1: course there's a slew of other retailers and utilities around
Speaker 1: the world that offer sleeved programs where they will buy
Speaker 1: an intermittent source of renewable energy, they'll firm it up
Speaker 1: with either their portfolio or buying power from the wholesale market,
Speaker 1: and they'll deliver that and firmed up blocks to Google
Speaker 1: as well. So where do utilities fit into this? Retailers
Speaker 1: how important are they to a twenty four seven carbon
Speaker 1: free strategy? Oh? Well, utilities and retailers are incredibly important.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can set the demand, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, we are looking for our partners
Speaker 1: on the other side to drive the creativity and the
Speaker 1: innovation and deliver and we need to work together in
Speaker 1: every situation. So from a utilities perspective, and I think
Speaker 1: we have to be honest, especially in the United States.
Speaker 1: And this is different obviously in Europe, but in the
Speaker 1: United States, most utilities have been governed by a regulatory
Speaker 1: process that hasn't changed substantially in the past sixty plus years.
Speaker 1: And while we were really proud of the inaugural green
Speaker 1: tariff program and large scale solar programs for corporate buyers,
Speaker 1: it is something that exists on the margin. We are
Speaker 1: initiating these programs really with the idea that we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to take a portion of whatever is the
Speaker 1: projected generation mix for that utility, and then we're just
Speaker 1: going to add solar or at best add solar and
Speaker 1: wind on and sort of make the math work, as
Speaker 1: opposed to taking it from a different posture, which is
Speaker 1: to say the goal is to commoditize clean energy. The
Speaker 1: goal is to roll off fossil fuels completely, which means
Speaker 1: we have to have a very different approach to capacity valuation,
Speaker 1: to ancillary service valuation, to reactive powerflow valuation, and to
Speaker 1: energy valuation. And so that means deconstructing the regulatory paradigms
Speaker 1: that have put power on our system and turn the
Speaker 1: lights on in our homes for decades. And so it's
Speaker 1: that deconstruction which is critical right now, and so Google
Speaker 1: is playing a part in that and working with our
Speaker 1: utilities and in multiple parts of the country right now,
Speaker 1: we are in partnership with utilities to try to get
Speaker 1: to that next level, that next generation tariff where you're
Speaker 1: actually fully creating a power stack of clean energy, not
Speaker 1: a power stack that is fossil fuel that is netted
Speaker 1: out by an addition of renewable energy, but a full
Speaker 1: power stack from capacity energy, ancillary and reserve that is
Speaker 1: all clean, that's never been done before, and for a
Speaker 1: utility to be able to do that and take on
Speaker 1: that role and create tariffs around it will be a
Speaker 1: game changer for customers because a tariff is something that
Speaker 1: all customers can buy into, right whether or not you
Speaker 1: have a procurement team like Google does. A tariff is
Speaker 1: something that everyone can take on the supply side. It's
Speaker 1: very similar. Our entire market and our entire system has
Speaker 1: been based on a single source PPA structure. So corporate
Speaker 1: goes out, they sign a large PPA for solar, they
Speaker 1: sign a large PPA for wind, and then they add
Speaker 1: them up together. Wonderful. That is really inefficient and also
Speaker 1: I think derivative of what we actually want to do
Speaker 1: moving forward. What we need to get to a point
Speaker 1: with is where a customer, big or small, can go
Speaker 1: out to the market and say, I want an eighty
Speaker 1: percent carbon free energy score, I want a ninety percent
Speaker 1: carbon free energy score. I want one hundred percent carbon
Speaker 1: free energy score. I want you to go out to
Speaker 1: the market, very innovative supplier, and figure out the technologies
Speaker 1: that need to stack up to deliver that to me.
Speaker 1: Here's my hourly footprint. You go figure it out. It
Speaker 1: puts the innovation on the supplier to do that. It
Speaker 1: a challenge is the market, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: good posture. We need to be pushing each other and
Speaker 1: going forward. And we just did this actually with AS
Speaker 1: in Virginia, we did this exact same thing. We said,
Speaker 1: here is our carbon free energy score today. We want
Speaker 1: you to get it. Here. You go out and figure
Speaker 1: out the technologies and how they're going to stack, and
Speaker 1: we're going to work. And it was a back and
Speaker 1: forth process, but at the end of the day, it
Speaker 1: was much more efficient as a blueprint for how the
Speaker 1: market really should work. So it's about innovation, it's about
Speaker 1: working together, and it's about having that shared goal which
Speaker 1: is not just to lay a renewable energy onto an
Speaker 1: existence system, but to fundamentally change the way we stack
Speaker 1: power so that we get to a clean system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good thing that you have companies like on
Speaker 1: g an As, like you mentioned as part of this
Speaker 1: twenty four seven carbon hub or carbon free Hub, right,
Speaker 1: so they're you know, you're actively workshopping with them on
Speaker 1: these types of strategies. Maybe let's move on to the
Speaker 1: third tool here and again another one that You've brought
Speaker 1: up a bunch of times today which is policy, and
Speaker 1: I should say, right, you mentioned before that Google historically
Speaker 1: was only signing PPAs where PPAs were available, and I
Speaker 1: do want to give credit to companies like Google and
Speaker 1: a lot of other tech companies. There's a lot more
Speaker 1: countries that offer a corporate power purchase agreement model than
Speaker 1: there was a couple of years ago. You've seen big
Speaker 1: developments of course in markets like Taiwan and markets like
Speaker 1: Japan and South Korea as well, where signing a power
Speaker 1: purchase agreement or just buying clean energy in general as
Speaker 1: a corporate buyer is much more accessible than it was
Speaker 1: a few years ago. But maybe let's open this discussion
Speaker 1: up a little bit further. Of course, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: policy for twenty four seven, carbon free is is a
Speaker 1: lot more elaborate and a lot more expansive. So can
Speaker 1: you tell us about some of the work that Google's
Speaker 1: been doing there? Yes, I'd love to. This is my wheelhouse,
Speaker 1: this is where I sit most days. I said this before,
Speaker 1: but I'll say it again, but one of the inherent
Speaker 1: commitments in a twenty four seven goal is a commitment
Speaker 1: to fundamentally change the markets and the policies and the
Speaker 1: regulations which guide our electricity system. That's because there isn't
Speaker 1: a market out there today that is built for a
Speaker 1: carbon free electricity grit. There isn't one. The truth is
Speaker 1: that our electricity systems globally are built because of and
Speaker 1: in service of fossil fuels a namely natural gas. But
Speaker 1: that's where we have come from and that's where we
Speaker 1: continue to be, and I think we all need to
Speaker 1: recognize that the commodity by which our electricity system runs
Speaker 1: is natural gas. If we want our electricity system to
Speaker 1: run on clean energy in full force, we have to
Speaker 1: commoditize clean energy. The reason why we have commoditized natural
Speaker 1: gas is because we created policies and regulations and infrastructure
Speaker 1: to support that commodity. So if we want to run
Speaker 1: on carbon for energy, we have to create the policies,
Speaker 1: the regulations, and the infrastructures to commoditize clean energy. And
Speaker 1: that is a fundamental difference from where we've been and
Speaker 1: a refocus for everyone. Lee. In April of this year,
Speaker 1: we released our first policy roadmap for twenty four seven
Speaker 1: carbon free energy. And if my colleague Devon is listening,
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you again for your blood,
Speaker 1: sweat and tears on this paper. And this was a
Speaker 1: paper that we released because we wanted to put this
Speaker 1: out there. We wanted to put the call to arms
Speaker 1: out there, which is saying, if you really care about
Speaker 1: decarbonizing the grid, it's not just about signing PPAs. It's
Speaker 1: about getting involved in the policies that we need now
Speaker 1: and we're going to need in the future so that
Speaker 1: everyone can realize this goal. And we really lumped these
Speaker 1: policies into three big buckets. The first one is market reform.
Speaker 1: All of our price signals right now, you know this
Speaker 1: better than anyone is run or correlated on the price
Speaker 1: of natural gas, which is a fuel cost. What are
Speaker 1: we going to do in a world where we have
Speaker 1: eighty percent penetrations of renewable energy has zero marginal costs,
Speaker 1: the market structure is today don't support it. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the existing market structures don't support it. But then in
Speaker 1: multiple areas of the world, and especially in the United States,
Speaker 1: we don't even have markets where customers can access clean energy.
Speaker 1: So we need to reform existing wholesale markets so that
Speaker 1: they're actually supportive of the commodity of clean energy, and
Speaker 1: then we need to expand them so that customers can
Speaker 1: reap the benefits of wholesale markets, which is to drive innovation,
Speaker 1: drive down costs, and integrate at scale clean energy resources.
Speaker 1: The second big bucket we have is investment in next
Speaker 1: generation technology. We're putting our capital there. I just talked
Speaker 1: about that with Fervo, but we need policies that support that,
Speaker 1: and very encouraged recently by what we've seen in Europe
Speaker 1: with fit for fifty five and what we've seen in
Speaker 1: the US with the IRA And actually I would argue
Speaker 1: that the capital game for renewables is there. It's been
Speaker 1: there for quite some time now. We have a capital
Speaker 1: game for next generation technologies, so we all need to
Speaker 1: get on that train, right, We all need to be
Speaker 1: investing there. And then the last bucket we really see
Speaker 1: here is consumer empowerment. And so this gets at the
Speaker 1: heart of a lot of what we're doing, which is
Speaker 1: that at the end of the day, we want every corporate,
Speaker 1: every customer, every buyer to be making the most informed
Speaker 1: decision on where to deploy their capital that will have
Speaker 1: the greatest amount of impact. You cannot do that if
Speaker 1: you don't know where something is generating, when it's generating,
Speaker 1: and what it's generating, and you cannot know that unless
Speaker 1: you know the carbon footprint of your load. So to
Speaker 1: empower consumers, we need policies that inform them. So we
Speaker 1: need much more transparency in our regulations. We need to
Speaker 1: be using things like teaks across the board that give
Speaker 1: buyers the right price signals so that we actually invest
Speaker 1: where we need clean energy, and we need transparency. I've
Speaker 1: used this joke so many times, but I don't think
Speaker 1: people realize that one of the most informative pieces of
Speaker 1: paper on how utilities operate and utilities footprint in the
Speaker 1: US is still uploaded in a PDF and sent to FIRTH.
Speaker 1: And if you want to actually download it and get
Speaker 1: anything out of it, you need to spend lots and
Speaker 1: lots and lots of money on that type of data.
Speaker 1: But that data needs to be open so that we
Speaker 1: can empower customers so that they are all rowing in
Speaker 1: the same direction. So those are three big buckets, and
Speaker 1: building on that, we've been building coalitions globally. We've built
Speaker 1: a number of coalitions in the US. We've built the
Speaker 1: Carbon for Energy Compact. We just launched a recent partnership
Speaker 1: with C forty, which is a major network of cities
Speaker 1: to see these work on launching pilot programs to see
Speaker 1: twenty four seven grow. This year we saw Paris in
Speaker 1: London and Copenhagen as our inaugural pilot cities. You know,
Speaker 1: as I said, it's not just about corporates, but it's
Speaker 1: about everyone who's at the left and right of us,
Speaker 1: in front, back of us to get this going. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in many ways, it does seem like policy is kind
Speaker 1: of the central component of this twenty four seven carbon
Speaker 1: free strategy, and I think that point about transparency is
Speaker 1: actually a really good segue into the next kind of
Speaker 1: tool in a twenty four seven carbon free strategy. So
Speaker 1: we've obviously seen a lot of really exciting developments, especially
Speaker 1: in the EU, happening when it comes to the certification
Speaker 1: of energy generation. Right, So you have the Guarantees of
Speaker 1: Origin system in the EU, which is your renewable energy
Speaker 1: certificate equivalent in Europe. But of course now there's proposals
Speaker 1: and there's policy in place to expand that to every
Speaker 1: type of generation technology. And so I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more just about what do we need
Speaker 1: on the technology side to enable a twenty four seven
Speaker 1: carbon free strategy. Part of this is obviously adapting on
Speaker 1: the demand side. Google has done some really cool work
Speaker 1: using Internet of Things and other technologies to change data
Speaker 1: center activities so that they're using more energy intensive processes
Speaker 1: at times when renewables are generating. And then of course
Speaker 1: you have all these companies now that are trade are
Speaker 1: creating sorry ourly renewable energy certificates. How important is this
Speaker 1: kind of technology development area in this broader overall strategy.
Speaker 1: I think it's hugely important, and I'm really glad we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about it. So let's take it from
Speaker 1: both sides. You mentioned teaks our time stamping of geos
Speaker 1: in the EU, and this is something that's really important
Speaker 1: for us right now and that you and really should
Speaker 1: be important for anyone who's driving towards a decarbonized grid,
Speaker 1: which we have an opportunity right now with the Renewable
Speaker 1: Energy Directive drafts to really get time stamped geos in there.
Speaker 1: And the importance of this is that when you attach
Speaker 1: an hour and a location and a fuel source to
Speaker 1: your geos, you start creating the price signals that investors
Speaker 1: need to put their capital where the grid needs it,
Speaker 1: and really the goal is to move every one towards
Speaker 1: focusing on what the grid needs wear to accelerate decarbonization.
Speaker 1: That's sort of why these types of registries, a teak registry,
Speaker 1: a timestamp geo registry, they're really, really, really important because
Speaker 1: we don't have those market signals right now and rex
Speaker 1: are insufficient for creating the impact that we need, and
Speaker 1: so we need to go farther. And so I think
Speaker 1: if we get teaks deployed across the board, that will
Speaker 1: sort of be a game changer and the way we
Speaker 1: think about capital deployment because then you're sitting from a
Speaker 1: financial perspective and you actually can see the value of
Speaker 1: your investment not only for your footprint, but for the
Speaker 1: overall grid, and that should have a larger value sign
Speaker 1: with it. Right if you are decarbonizing in the hours
Speaker 1: that are really hard to decarbonize in, that creates more value,
Speaker 1: That creates more long term capital assurance for these next
Speaker 1: generation technologies, in the same way that a long term
Speaker 1: ppa for solar and wind created the capital assurance for
Speaker 1: the developer market to go out and to finance these
Speaker 1: new projects. And what we need to do is create
Speaker 1: the revenue certainty for the hours that we're not creating
Speaker 1: clean energy for. So how do we do that? We
Speaker 1: have to create those price signals, So that's why teaks
Speaker 1: are so important. On the other side you asked about really,
Speaker 1: which was like the demand side. You know, what are
Speaker 1: we doing from our load? This is something that is
Speaker 1: really interesting that I think Google is doing and I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting for data centers, but I think it's
Speaker 1: actually more interesting for what it could mean for the
Speaker 1: broader industrial economy. So we have a carbon compute system
Speaker 1: and a clean compute system, which it basically is a
Speaker 1: system that says we are going to pilot matching our load,
Speaker 1: matching our demand with the carbon intensity of the grid,
Speaker 1: and where we can shift load, we are going to
Speaker 1: shift load so that our footprint is following along with
Speaker 1: the footprint of the carbon intensity of the grid. Everyone
Speaker 1: knows that demand response right now is based on the
Speaker 1: price of the grid. If you're in Europe right now,
Speaker 1: you're seeing this day in and day out, and we've
Speaker 1: seen this in the US, which is that the signal
Speaker 1: that customers are given is based on the marginal cost
Speaker 1: of electricity generation. The signal moving forward, if we're going
Speaker 1: to get to an eighty percent penetration of renewable system
Speaker 1: where there is no marginal cost because there's no fuel
Speaker 1: cost is going to have to change. So do we
Speaker 1: scrap marginal cost altogether? No, I don't think we scrap
Speaker 1: marginal costs altogether. We redefine marginal costs. So what is
Speaker 1: marginal costs in a frankly zero fuel cost system. Marginal
Speaker 1: cost means carbon intensity. Marginal cost means reserve, it means answllery,
Speaker 1: it means transmission costs, it means all these other things.
Speaker 1: But largely, what it's going to mean for buyers that
Speaker 1: have and the industrial sector that have these huge goals
Speaker 1: is when can I shift to make my load more clean?
Speaker 1: And so the idea of the software that we've been
Speaker 1: piloting is not only to make data centers follow along
Speaker 1: with the carbon intensity of the grid, but to get
Speaker 1: it out there across the entire industrial economy. The interesting
Speaker 1: thing about data centers is that we don't have very
Speaker 1: variable load. We're kind of always on. But I think
Speaker 1: about general manufacturing that has that ability to shift up,
Speaker 1: we would be able to get to a point where
Speaker 1: you have the industrial policy sector merge with demand response
Speaker 1: in a way that is really focused on creating a
Speaker 1: CFEE per megawat score for your demand response signal as
Speaker 1: opposed to a cost of gas per megawat score for
Speaker 1: your demand response signal. And I think that builds innovation
Speaker 1: around energy efficiency in the industrial sector, It builds innovation
Speaker 1: around building structures about how we build our manufacturing, how
Speaker 1: we design our parts, how we design transmission and industrial
Speaker 1: parks in general. So it could really change the way
Speaker 1: we think about this because you're getting out of just
Speaker 1: this price signal to something much more impactful, this carbon signal. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think what that also does is it takes
Speaker 1: some of the burden off of some of these other
Speaker 1: areas that we've talked about today, right around flexible generation
Speaker 1: and about the collaboration and the work that you do
Speaker 1: with utilities. All right, So moving on now, I wanted
Speaker 1: to just really quickly highlight that that fifth tool, right,
Speaker 1: and of course in baseball, hitting home runs is still
Speaker 1: very important. Aaron Judge on the New York Yankees just
Speaker 1: set the record for home runs this past season, and
Speaker 1: he just signed a massive new contract yesterday as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, to show how much, you know, people
Speaker 1: still care about hitting home runs, and it's the same
Speaker 1: in clean energy buying. Right. Of course, signing corporate PPAs
Speaker 1: is still a very important part of the market, and
Speaker 1: I want to make sure we gave it a little
Speaker 1: bit of love on today's podcast. Where does a traditional
Speaker 1: corporate PPA fit into Google strategy moving forward? Will you
Speaker 1: still be signing them? We are still signing them today,
Speaker 1: but we are signing them much faster and much more
Speaker 1: simply than we were signing them before. The truth is
Speaker 1: it's completely inefficient for a company like Google to spend
Speaker 1: six months going back and forth on the terms of
Speaker 1: a traditional PPA. We need to be able as an
Speaker 1: industry to agree on a certain number of terms and
Speaker 1: move forward and move quickly. And we are piloting and
Speaker 1: looking at that right now. So I think traditional PPAs
Speaker 1: will be there, and it will be there. As we
Speaker 1: said in the beginning, how the market evolves. If we're
Speaker 1: not in a very evolved market and the best we
Speaker 1: can do today is a traditional corporate PPA, we will
Speaker 1: do that, of course, but we are going to be
Speaker 1: pushing everywhere we can to at the market to evolve.
Speaker 1: We would be happy to do a traditional corporate PPA.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to you know, as you say,
Speaker 1: pooh pooh that model. We're using it where it is
Speaker 1: the best and brightest that it's available, but we're always
Speaker 1: pushing it to be better. And I think that this
Speaker 1: is where we as an industry can really work together
Speaker 1: and knowledge share because we have a lot of collective
Speaker 1: experience around this and it's time to evolve. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's a very good point, and you're totally right
Speaker 1: if you look at all the companies that are going
Speaker 1: out and setting net zero targets or making one hundred
Speaker 1: pledges for all those companies to go out and sign
Speaker 1: bilateral over the counterpower purchase agreements that can, like you say,
Speaker 1: take six months or a year to negotiate. It's not
Speaker 1: sustainable and candidly, there's not enough bodies to go ahead
Speaker 1: and do that for every company in the world. And
Speaker 1: so I think that's a very smart way of looking
Speaker 1: at it is just continuing to sign corporate PPAs, but
Speaker 1: evolving how we go out and procure those contracts. So
Speaker 1: I know we're running out of time here, Caroline, So
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of move on to the final
Speaker 1: one or two questions that I have for you today.
Speaker 1: How does the investor community interpret a twenty four seven
Speaker 1: carbon free strategy. I know you that you mentioned that,
Speaker 1: of course it benefits the broader grid, and it could
Speaker 1: change the way that we think about the energy system
Speaker 1: in general and how companies, of course buy energy as well.
Speaker 1: But how are investors baking this into their strategies today?
Speaker 1: Are they starting to consider these things? And maybe it's
Speaker 1: is it from that risk angle where they're really focusing today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great question, I would say, and I mean
Speaker 1: I've said this before, which is that the clean energy
Speaker 1: revolution is not necessarily a capital issue. I think we've
Speaker 1: all lived in a world where politically, maybe we have
Speaker 1: said that there isn't enough capital out there. There isn't
Speaker 1: enough capital appetite to deploy renewable energy to finance next
Speaker 1: generation technologies at the scale we would need them to be.
Speaker 1: It's just too expensive. I think probably anyone who listens
Speaker 1: to your podcast knows that is true in some areas
Speaker 1: of our globe. But in the United States and in
Speaker 1: Europe and increasingly in South America and even parts of Asia,
Speaker 1: that's not the case. The capital is there. What the
Speaker 1: capital is there for is, as you've said, is for
Speaker 1: tried and true contracts that makes sense on their ballot sheet.
Speaker 1: So I think Wall Street has been lining up for
Speaker 1: a long time based on the tax incentives and the
Speaker 1: tax structures that we've deployed in this country and in
Speaker 1: others to get a guaranteed return. It's a good one,
Speaker 1: and let's be thankful for that, right, Let's all take
Speaker 1: a moment and say we're really glad that happened, and
Speaker 1: be thankful for the tax incentives and the tax equity
Speaker 1: that we've been able to monetize over the past decade
Speaker 1: to really to make that capital market firm. And so
Speaker 1: your question is really about, well, how do we evolve
Speaker 1: this if we know it's not just wind and solar.
Speaker 1: So one thing I'll say is that it's been really
Speaker 1: encouraging to see where the EU and the US is
Speaker 1: thinking about this, and we can see there's a lot
Speaker 1: amount of public money right now going towards the deployment
Speaker 1: of next generation technologies. There's a lot of money right
Speaker 1: now in hydrogen right there's a lot of money right
Speaker 1: now in battery storage, long duration storage. And thinking about
Speaker 1: this where I would take your questions slightly differently, if
Speaker 1: you'll give me the allowance is that is that there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of money thinking about the infrastructure that
Speaker 1: we are going to need to deploy all of this.
Speaker 1: So I think the capital market knows how to finance
Speaker 1: a big piece of steel in the ground. It's done
Speaker 1: it for a long time. Honestly. If that piece of
Speaker 1: steel is generating solar electrons or wind electrons or geothermal electrons,
Speaker 1: the structure is largely there. I'm not saying it's cut
Speaker 1: and paste. It's not cut and paste. And obviously you're
Speaker 1: going to need companies like Google and other companies and
Speaker 1: utilities to be those firm off takers. But the structure
Speaker 1: is largely there. What the structure is not there for
Speaker 1: is investing in monetary rising and securing off take for
Speaker 1: the infrastructure we need in infrastructure a transmission and substations
Speaker 1: and long HDVC lines and piping offshore wind from Ireland
Speaker 1: to the rest of the UK, and wheeling solar in
Speaker 1: Arizona to New England. And if I was to say
Speaker 1: anything to the capital market right now, it's that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of energy going on. Sorry pun intended, I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of energy right now going on about
Speaker 1: getting clean energy onto the grid. And then there's a
Speaker 1: lot of energy right now the regulatory bodies, whether it
Speaker 1: be in the US or in Europe, around grid planning,
Speaker 1: transmission planning, Q reform, interconnection reform. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of capital going in into wind and solar in the US.
Speaker 1: Even in PJM that just did this watershed docket, we're
Speaker 1: not going to get anything interconnected before twenty twenty seven
Speaker 1: that we signed today. That's the quickest something's going to happen.
Speaker 1: So there's this huge backlog on the grid. And while
Speaker 1: we have all these planning docks, and we have all
Speaker 1: these process docks, which are great, I'm very excited for them.
Speaker 1: We've lent our comments, we've intervened. We want to see
Speaker 1: transmission planning, we want to see Q reform, we want
Speaker 1: to see interconnection reform. We fundamentally need that if we're
Speaker 1: going to get a single electron on the grid anytime
Speaker 1: soon in this country. But if we don't figure out
Speaker 1: how we're financing our infrastructure, and if we don't change
Speaker 1: cost allocation of our infrastructure in this country and in Europe,
Speaker 1: all of this capital behind clean energy really doesn't mean
Speaker 1: much because it's going to have nowhere to go. We're
Speaker 1: just going to continue to build these loops of transmission
Speaker 1: lines in multiple areas of our country countries, as opposed
Speaker 1: to actually investing in the broad backbone of a transmission
Speaker 1: system that we're going to need to commoditize clean energy
Speaker 1: in the way that gas pipelines and rail systems commoditized
Speaker 1: coal natural gas. If that's not there, and if the
Speaker 1: capital market doesn't get invested in that another pun, then
Speaker 1: a lot of this is just going to stall. So
Speaker 1: I would sort of take your question and say, if
Speaker 1: we're really thinking about decarbonizing the grid, we have to
Speaker 1: think about that infrastructure backbone. And that's where I'd like
Speaker 1: to see the capital markets get more involved and work
Speaker 1: with policymakers to figure out what's the best cost allocation here,
Speaker 1: what's the best investment strategy because this is a public good,
Speaker 1: we need it, we fundamentally need it. Or everything we
Speaker 1: just talked about before is you're sort of going to
Speaker 1: sit on a shelf. Yeah, of course, No, that's a
Speaker 1: very interesting spin. And then honestly, when I asked the question,
Speaker 1: that's not the angle that I was thinking of it from.
Speaker 1: And it's a fascinating perspective and maybe just to close
Speaker 1: things out here, I think a lot of this, of
Speaker 1: course comes down to spreading the word and you know,
Speaker 1: of course these messages and talking about the importance of
Speaker 1: transmission and getting that in front of as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: investors and policymakers. That makes a world of difference. And
Speaker 1: of course Google has done a great job and being
Speaker 1: public and communicating publicly about its twenty four seven carbon
Speaker 1: free strategy. And what we hope with this podcast is
Speaker 1: that we can further spread the word about all the
Speaker 1: good work you guys are doing. So maybe let's wrap
Speaker 1: it up there, And just to say, Caroline, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us today. Fascinating to hear as always
Speaker 1: what Google's been doing when it comes to clean energy procurement,
Speaker 1: and I look forward to hearing about many interesting developments
Speaker 1: in the future around the strategy. Oh well, thank you
Speaker 1: for having me. This was a wonderful way to spend
Speaker 1: my morning. Today's episode of Switched On was edited by
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