The Energy Optimist Episode 0: Trailer
Welcome to The Energy Optimist, a monthly podcast highlighting solutions to energy policy challenges through bite-sized interviews with leading experts, brought to you by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC). Each episode, we’ll explore a challenge with how we regulate the electric distribution system that powers our homes, devices, and, increasingly, our cars. And, we’ll end with solutions and reasons for optimism. Tune in to this trailer episode to get to know your host, Radina Valova, IREC Regulatory Vice President, and learn what to expect from The Energy Optimist.
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Episode Transcript
Welcome to The Energy Optimist, a monthly podcast that highlights solutions to energy policy challenges through bite-sized interviews with leading experts, brought to you by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.
On each episode of the Energy Optimist, we’ll explore a challenge with how we regulate the electric distribution system that powers our homes, devices, and, increasingly, our cars. And on each episode, we’ll highlight solutions to those challenges, because no matter how insurmountable the issues may seem at times, there are amazing people working to develop and implement effective solutions.
I’m Radina Valova, Regulatory Vice President with the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, and I’ll be your host. My passion for energy policy got its kick-start more than a decade ago, when I was a frazzled law student looking for an interesting subject to write a term paper on. I’m from Bulgaria, where it’s hard to ignore the enormous impact that energy has on the environment, people, and geopolitics. So I decided to focus my research on laws regulating methane gas, and that rabbit hole led me to an engulfing interest in everything related to how we run the energy system that fuels our lives. Since then, I’ve spent years in the wonky world of utility regulation, where big-picture energy policy is whittled down to dollars and cents.
In many ways, how we run and regulate the energy system hasn’t changed as much as you might think in more than a hundred years, and it’s often expensive, inequitable, and unsustainable. But we’re at a turning point. More and more states in the U.S. are adopting aggressive climate and energy goals, and they’re embracing new policies and technologies to achieve them.
The Energy Optimist will cover many of those issues, including how we can safely and reliably integrate large amounts of renewables with the grid; new ways of regulating the energy system that support energy equity and justice; and many more.
If you’re totally new to how we regulate the energy system, we’ll demystify it for you. If you’re a seasoned practitioner, we’ll hopefully leave you with renewed optimism to keep doing the work. Because hope is the fuel for change.
You can find The Energy Optimist and subscribe through your favorite podcast streaming service, or by subscribing for updates on our website at IRECUSA.org/TheEnergyOptimist, that’s “IRECUSA.org forward slash the energy optimist” (no hyphens).
