ThinkEnergy

As energy demands continue to grow, and the global fuel market's volatility increases, hydropower—or water power—becomes more and more valuable.  Lorena Patterson, President and CEO of WaterPower Canada, joins host Trevor Freeman in conversation about energy bleeding together with security, incorporating hydropower into Canada's plans to double the grid by 2050, and the importance of Indigenous consultation when looking to do so. They also explore how Canada is in a unique position with its hydropower abilities, and why it's hard to draw international comparisons.  Related links  Lorena Patterson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenaapatterson/ WaterPower Canada: https://waterpowercanada.ca/ Hydropower Sustainability Standard: https://www.hs-alliance.org/hs-standard Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114  Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en   -- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405 To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/@thinkenergypod Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkenergypod/  Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thinkenergypod  Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod   

Summer rewind: When we say 'the cloud' what we mean is 'the data centre'. Globally, data centres are projected to consume over 1000 terawatt hours in 2026. What does that mean for energy production, distribution, and consumption? Guest Phil Harris, Cerio President and CEO, joins thinkenergy to shed light on something we all rely on but may not fully understand. From efficiency to sustainability, environmental concerns to Cerio's role improving how data centres manage energy. Listen in for the future of cloud computing. Related links  Cerio: https://www.cerio.ai/ Phil Harris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paharris/ Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114  Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en      To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405 To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited  Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa  Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa  Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod  --- Transcript:  [00:00:00] Trevor Freeman: Hi everyone, and welcome to the summer edition of Think Energy. As a reminder, we are in podcast vacation mode, and while our normal day-to-day work continues, we are on a brief pause from our regularly scheduled episodes to recharge, rethink, plan for the fall. But we don't want to leave you without anything to listen to. So, we've pulled some of our favorite insights and episodes from the past year related to the energy transition and where we are. So, welcome to episode two of our summer rewind, the August episode. So, as a reminder, this summer, we're looking at that collision between digital infrastructure and physical infrastructure, how the world of evolving technology is shaping and influencing and changing the way that we interact with energy and, in fact, interact with the energy grid as well. Last month, we looked at my conversation with Lynn Pettis from Overstory and how Overstory and Hydro Ottawa have partnered together to use satellite imagery and AI to protect our grid. In part two of our summer rewind today, or the second episode, we're looking at the world of data centres, and we're hearing lots about data centres as AI grows and takes kind of more of an ever-present role in our day-to-day lives. And I had a conversation with Phil Harris from Cerio. So, we're going to dive back into that episode and look at kind of the staggering energy footprint of AI data centres, of the cloud, etc., and how this boom is really changing how we do data centre design and really forcing a change in how we do data centre design just because of the sheer magnitude of energy required here. And we're going to look at kind of what this means for the future of global power distribution. So, sit back, relax, hopefully somewhere cool in the heat of the summer, and listen to this episode of Summer Rewind with Phil Harris from Cerio. [00:02:18] Podcast Intro: Welcome to Think Energy, a podcast that dives into the fast-changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional, and up-and-coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback, or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected]. [00:02:49] Trevor Freeman: Hi everyone, and welcome back. Data centres have come up a number of times on this show, and for very good reason. They have become a key underpinning technology for so much of our lives. Every time we pull out that phone from our pockets to pull up directions or buy something online, or doom scroll on your social media or news site of choice, every time you use your phone, stream a movie, leverage an AI model, whatever you end up using your phone for. It's funny, as I read this list, I'm sure there's like some university student out there who's thinking, man, what is this old man talking about? We don't use our phones for that. Whatever the kids are doing these days, whatever we're doing these days with our phones, with our computers, our tablets, etc., all of that leverages infrastructure that most of us have never seen, and quite frankly, probably don't really understand. We talk about the cloud like it's this amorphous, nebulous thing. But in reality, we're talking about real hardware in a real building that uses real energy, mainly electricity, a lot of water. And this isn't really new. Like, we've been leveraging centralized data centres for many years now. But what is changing is the scale of the data centres that we're seeing now and the pace of growth in computing power that we need to do the things that we want to do and that our data centres are able to deliver. So, just to throw a few numbers at it, the traditional data centre servers that maybe powered the early days of on-demand online streaming services, for example, they used anywhere from 5 to 15 kilowatts per rack. But modern server racks that are used to power AI searches, for example, can hit anywhere from 60 to 100 kilowatts per rack. This is great from a power output per rack perspective, but it means massive energy needs. And that is showing up in the size of load requests that we're seeing from new data centres. New data centres today are asking for service connections that are orders of magnitude higher than those built even just 5 years ago. Globally, data centres are projected to consume over 1,000 terawatt-hours in 2026. And just a quick kind of refresher from high school or wherever you would have learned this, a terawatt is 1,000 gigawatts, which is 1,000 megawatts. So, 1,000 terawatt-hours, which is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity demand from the country of Japan, an entire country. So, given all of this, there are a lot of incentives to find ways to maximize efficiency and reduce some of that energy demand. And that's where my next guest, Phil Harris, and his company, Cerio, come into play. I'll let Phil get into the details of exactly what Cerio does, but essentially, their goal is to reimagine the data centre to maximize sustainability and reduce energy needs. Phil is Cerio's President and CEO, and has been in the networking and data centre industry for over 35 years, including at well-known companies like Intel and Cisco, to name two. And I'm really excited about this conversation, one, to understand how do we make data centres a little bit more efficient, or maybe a lot more efficient, but also just to really understand, like, what are we talking about when we talk about a data centre? What is actually happening, what is physically inside these buildings? And we'll get into a little bit of that in our conversation. So, Phil, welcome to the show. [00:07:05] Phil Harris: Well, thanks, Trevor. I appreciate it. [00:07:07] Trevor Freeman: So, Phil, obviously, we're here today to talk about your work building sustainable data centres, or trying to make data centres a little bit more sustainable. But before we get into that, you know, you've spent your career, you know, decades of your career at different tech giants, let's call them, Intel, Cisco, to two to mention. You've seen quite a bit of change, no doubt, over your time. Has that change, like does this industry change linearly? Does it grow fairly steady, or is it kind of big jumps? And are we on the cusp of any major shifts? What can you kind of tell us about the future of this sector, data, tech, etc.? [00:07:54] Phil Harris: It's interesting. I think as companies start, and I was at companies like Cisco, for example, when it was a very small company to where it was a very large company, and this should be no surprise to anybody, the bigger the company gets, the harder it is to change. And they really find that the only way they change is when they absolutely have to, not because they want to. And that's a combination of just inertia and shareholders' expectations and a whole bunch of things. So, I would say that the bigger the company is, the harder it is for them to react. And so, I think small, nimble companies tend to do much better when there's a lot of transformational technology and development and changes in the overall ecosystem we live in. I think your, the second part of your question, you know, I look at the current situation as a point in time where a lot of companies will have to make some significant changes simply because we are hitting two new walls: technological walls, commercial walls, geopolitical walls, that are really sort of confining what people can do. So, I think what's about to happen is we're about to see a significant change. And this is not atypical in the industry. If we think about back into the start of what we would think of today as computer science around mainframes that were happening in the '60s, you know, for about a decade and a half, two decades, there was a lot of dominance around a particular way of doing things. And then some new innovational technology came along that rapidly changed that, scaled out, and it went from a very dominant set of players to a much larger number of smaller players who could then provide more innovation and more scale and more choice. And I think we're about to see that transition occurring as well. [00:09:47] Trevor Freeman: So, is this, is there sort of like an analogous time, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, are we on the cusp of like the big, the big change that we've seen before? Like, what would you compare this to, you know, in the last 20, 30 years? [00:10:01] Phil Harris: Yeah, I mean, I think there's been eras of compute. And if we say, I mean, we can find analog

Trees are a major cause of power outages. They're also a wildfire risk—when branches hit a conductor, a small spark can become a big blaze. Lynn Petesch of Overstory joins thinkenergy to talk trees, exploring how AI, satellite imagery, and vegetation intelligence help utilities prevent outages and reduce wildfire threats. Including Hydro Ottawa, who saw a 44% drop in tree-related outages since partnering with Overstory. Listen in for how we work together to keep the grid safe in an era of extreme weather.   Related links    Overstory: https://www.overstory.com/ Lynn Petesch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnpetesch/    Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114    Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en      To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405 To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod --- Transcript: [00:00:00] Trevor Freeman: Hi everyone, and welcome to the summer edition of Think Energy. We are officially in podcast vacation mode. So while our normal day-to-day work continues, we're taking a brief pause from our kind of regularly scheduled episodes to recharge, to think about what's coming up in the year ahead content-wise, and just do some planning. But while we do so, we don't want to leave you without anything to listen to, so we look back at some of our favorite insights and episodes over the past year, and that is our summer rewind. So this summer, we're tackling a pretty significant and overarching theme that's really defining the current state of the energy transition, and that is the collision between digital infrastructure and physical infrastructure as it relates to our energy grid. It's this really kind of fascinating look at old versus new, traditional versus up-and-coming, and how we progress to meet the energy needs of our customer base, the growing energy needs as we electrify, as we, you know, expand, while also implementing new technology to protect our grid, protect our assets, to better manage things. So it's kind of a common theme in a lot of episodes that we have done in the last little while and a lot of the conversations that we're having. So in Part 1 today, we're kicking things off with a look at the physical world of our grid and how we're using new technology to protect it, and that is our conversation with Overstory. So we'll re-examine how we use high-resolution satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to act as kind of a shield almost, you know, helping utilities proactively manage our vegetation and reduce vegetation-to-powerline contact, which can reduce power outages, wildfires in many cases, and really has been an important tool for us here at Hydro Ottawa as well as in the utility industry more broadly. So sit back and have a listen to my conversation with Lynn Pedesch from Overstory, and enjoy this summer rewind.   [00:02:26] Trevor Feeman: Welcome to Think Energy, the podcast that dives into the fast-changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional, and up-and-coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback, or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected].   [00:02:58] Trevor Freeman: Hi everyone, welcome back. Today on Think Energy, we're going to be talking about trees. Yes, you heard that correctly—trees. I know this is a show about energy, but there's actually a very real connection between our electricity grid and those slow-growing, majestic givers of shade, lumber, fruit, and so many more benefits. Honestly, who doesn't love trees? But I'm not just kicking this episode off in my capacity as a tree hugger. Let's take a look at this through a utility lens, and I will use Hydro Ottawa as an example. Hydro Ottawa's service territory includes some very rural and very forested areas. Even our urban territory has a fairly extensive tree canopy. As a result, Hydro Ottawa trims about 60,000 trees each year. Now why? Because trees contacting power infrastructure is a big problem. Tree interference remains a leading cause of power outages for us. Strong winds force them onto our wires. Heavy snow or freezing rain builds up and weighs down branches, breaks limbs, and increases the risk that part of a tree may touch a line. And in some extreme cases, heavy storms can even send trees or branches crashing into our poles, damaging the poles. The struggle between power lines and trees—which again, don't get me wrong, we all love trees—has been going on for years. There is a constant struggle between trimming enough and getting the right trees trimmed and maintaining as much tree coverage as we can. In 2022, we identified a disruptor in this stance. The solution came through a partnership with Overstory, a company that uses satellite imagery, infrared technology, and artificial intelligence to help utilities manage vegetation and trim trees more efficiently. And the timing could not have been better. Just days after we started working with Overstory in the spring of 2022, the Derecho hit Ottawa. Our Ottawa-based listeners will remember this storm well. It was monumental in the history of our city and indeed for us as a utility. Winds reached 190 kilometers an hour. For our non-metric listeners, that's nearly 120 miles per hour. The storm ripped through poles, houses, and caused considerable damage to our city's urban forest. Overstory played a crucial role during the cleanup and in helping us level up our vegetation management strategies moving forward. We realized that the insights we got from Overstory would help improve our proactive approach to tree encroachment and hazard identification, and this is essential in this era of extreme weather events. We know that climate change is causing more frequent and more extreme weather events. According to Climate Central, the number of weather-related power outages in the United States increased by 78% between 2011 and 2021. And severe weather accounted for over a thousand outages across Nova Scotia just in the year of 2024. We want to keep you connected during these heavy storms, and that's why we're looking to organizations like Overstory. So what does Overstory do to help us keep the lights on? Well, without giving away too much, because we're going to get into the details shortly, Overstory, through a detailed analysis of the scans they do of our entire grid, identifies high-risk areas which we can then prioritize and better focus our resources when it comes to vegetation management. This level of monitoring and focus reduces the risk of trees from coming into contact with our poles and disrupting your connection to the grid. The results speak for themselves. Since partnering with Overstory, we've reduced vegetation-related outages by 44%. And that's only part of the story. As we'll discuss further, Overstory also plays a crucial role in helping utilities prevent wildfires in high-risk areas across North America. Similar to extreme weather, wildfire frequency and intensity is also increasing, in part due to climate change, expanding cities, and many other factors. And when wildfires do happen, these stories are heartbreaking. What many people don't realize is that lots of wildfires are sparked by trees making contact with power lines. And that is why Overstory plays a key role in tagging areas where those fires are most likely to ignite and spread, making it easier for utilities to prioritize trimming work and vegetation management in those areas. To dive more into how Overstory is helping us here at Hydro Ottawa and other utilities, helping us identify and act to mitigate risk associated with vegetation, I'm really excited to have Lynn Pedesch on the show today. Lynn is Overstory's Head of Customer Success and has spent the past 10 years building customer-facing teams with a specific focus on technologies that tackle the climate crisis. She began her career working for the United Nations and the diplomatic service of her home country Luxembourg, before moving into the tech sector to really work in environments where she could drive impact more quickly and at greater scale. Lynn Pedesch, welcome to the show.   [00:08:05] Lynn Pedesch: Thank you. Thanks for having me.   [00:08:07] Trevor Freeman: Okay, so let's start at the very top with a high-level look at what Overstory does and how the organization came to be.   [00:08:15] Lynn Pedesch: Yeah, let me tell you about Overstory. I mean, we are a vegetation intelligence platform. We use remote sensing and AI to give electric utilities, including Hydro Ottawa and others, a clear system-wide view of their risk. They always do it because they want to address three things, or sometimes more, but kind of there's always a few goal posts, and it's either improving reliability, reducing wildfire risk if that is if they're in an area where that is a concern, and/or improving operational efficiencies. So Overstory very much becomes a decision-making tool for their programs. We're used mostly by the vegetation management people, operations people, wildfire mitigation teams, and they each time they want to either use a program that exists, prioritize it, reshape their work, they might be preparing for a storm, they might be working on a wildfire mitigation risk. So the company more broadly was founded in 2018 by Aniek Schouten and Indra den Bakker—this was back in the N

The era of top-down energy projects is over. Today demands collaboration, equity, and stakeholder engagement. And in the clean energy movement, Indigenous partnerships often lead the way. James Jenkins, Executive Director of Indigenous Clean Energy, joins thinkenergy to unpack the Regenerative Energy 2026 Report. He explores what a just transition looks like, how Indigenous communities are shaping the future, and what the industry can learn from working together. Related links:  Indigenous Clean Energy: https://indigenouscleanenergy.com/ James Jenkins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-jenkins-27787913b/ Regenerative Energy 2026 Report: https://indigenouscleanenergy.com/regenerative-energy-national-survey-2026/ Bringing it Home Program: https://indigenouscleanenergy.com/our-programs/bringing-it-home/  Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114  Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en    To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405 To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/@thinkenergypod Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkenergypod/  Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thinkenergypod  Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod -- Transcript: [00:00] Trevor Freeman: Welcome to Think Energy, a podcast that dives into the fast-changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional, and up-and-coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback, or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected]. [00:26] Trevor Freeman: Hi everyone, and welcome back. We often talk on this show about the what of the energy transition. What needs to happen, what is happening, what technologies or initiatives are growing or up-and-coming. But it's also important to consider the how of it all. Energy systems are complex. That is something that should be clear in all the conversations we have around here, but it's not just technical complexity that we need to consider. Our energy systems are also socially, politically, and societally complex. It's not just a matter of picking the right technology and implementing it. If it was that case, we've got, you know, most of the technology we need, and we'd be in a much better position than we currently are. We have to figure out how we move these projects forward. [01:14] Trevor Freeman: Traditionally, energy projects have been these large, top-down infrastructure projects. But increasingly, we're moving into a time when collaboration, equity, and stakeholder engagement are critical components of project success. One area where this can be seen—and, in fact, it's an area that's really pushing a lot of this change—is Indigenous leadership. [01:38] Trevor Freeman: Over the past decade here in Canada, at least, we've seen a profound evolution where Indigenous communities are not just participants in the clean energy transition or kind of bystanders; they are actively leading it in many cases. That's not to say all the problems or challenges have been solved, but we're seeing a lot of movement here. And that's the topic of my conversation today. [02:02] Trevor Freeman: To help us understand the scale of this movement, I'm joined by James Jenkins. James is the Executive Director of Indigenous Clean Energy, which is a leading organization accelerating First Nations, Inuit, and Métis participation in clean energy projects from coast to coast. I'm really excited to have James on the show today because his expertise comes straight from real, actual experience on these projects. As a proud member and former CEO of the Walpole Island First Nation, James personally drove the equity development for two 100-megawatt wind farms for his community. Today, he leverages that firsthand experience along with a diverse background in consulting, local government, and academia to serve as a national champion for Indigenous clean energy partnerships. [02:54] Trevor Freeman: His organization just released their third national survey, the Regenerative Energy 2026 report, which provides a really eye-opening snapshot of how Indigenous communities are shaping Canada's energy future through innovation, equity ownership, and community-driven solutions. So today, we're going to dive into the findings of this report, talk a little bit about, you know, what a just energy transition looks like, and explore what utility and industry players can learn from these successful partnerships. James Jenkins, welcome to the show. [03:31] James Jenkins: Hi Trevor, thank you for having me. [03:34] Trevor Freeman: So, James, let's start a little bit with some background. Tell us about Indigenous Clean Energy and how your organization works to advance First Nations, Inuit, and Métis participation in the clean energy sector. [03:47] James Jenkins: Sure. Indigenous Clean Energy is a not-for-profit organization, and we've been operating for about 10 years. So we started 10 years ago with the 2020 Catalyst Program, which was designed to develop a cohort of clean energy leaders coming primarily from Indigenous communities and businesses that could really shape the future of Indigenous participation in the energy transition. So we started with a cohort. It was led by just a few staff and our founding director, Chris Henderson. And this is our 10th year, so we'll be celebrating 10 years of the 2020 Catalyst Program at our national gathering in August. [04:24] Trevor Freeman: Awesome. Congrats. [04:26] James Jenkins: Thank you so much. So the goal of that program was to really expand the opportunities, the capacity, and the number of communities engaged in clean energy. And we have seen that progress tremendously over the last 10 years. We've seen federal grant programs to support that work also emerge as major contributors, and we've seen utilities across the country get on board and try to find ways to expand Indigenous participation. [04:54] James Jenkins: So we've seen quite a bit of success, and with that success, we've grown as well. So we're now a team of about 35, and we're much larger. So we've expanded into a few other areas. One of them is youth, so we have two different youth programs. And we've expanded into energy efficiency as well, mostly under our "Bringing It Home" umbrella. [05:16] James Jenkins: And the idea behind that is we've seen the success of the 2020 Catalyst Program and clean energy leaders really pushing the envelope in terms of what is possible when it comes to Indigenous-led generation projects. So now we're identifying a gap still existing when it comes to energy efficiency. And so, in a way, we're trying to replicate the success of the 2020 Catalyst Program. We'll be running our third year of the Project Accelerator soon. So that's geared towards energy efficiency; it's an intensive training program, and it comes with a grant. [05:47] James Jenkins: And finally, we have a policy arm as well that's also very involved in engaging at the community and regional level. So that's through our Energy and Climate team, and we have a national hub that just completed a series of directional gatherings regionally. We also have a global hub as well that's active in Oceania and Latin America. [06:09] Trevor Freeman: Oh, that's fantastic. Tell me a little bit about the youth programs that you're running. [06:14] James Jenkins: So, we support youth across our programs, but we have two programs in particular that are geared towards youth. One of them is the Imagination Program, which comes with wrap-around supports and training. Right now, we're developing a micro-credential with the University of Saskatchewan for our program participants. It comes with a grant to lead a community-scale project. A good example might be a solar-powered greenhouse. Many of them are linked to schools, and, you know, we see the passion of younger members of communities that want to move these projects forward, but it's entrepreneurial in spirit. [06:49] James Jenkins: The second is called Generation Power, which is a wage subsidy program for Indigenous youth, and we pair them with employers in the clean energy field. So some of them are utilities or renewable businesses; in some cases, they're communities or Indigenous businesses that are moving forward on projects. And it's more than just a wage subsidy; we identify all of the potential barriers for Indigenous youth entering these jobs and provide those kinds of support to increase their chance of success and staying in the workforce after the placement. [07:22] Trevor Freeman: Oh, that's very cool. We've talked a few times on this show about building that next generation of energy champions and people that are focused, you know, on this new form of energy—this new energy transition or this new world of energy that we're moving into. So fantastic to see you guys participating in that. That's really cool. [07:42] Trevor Freeman: So, I want to spend some of our time here talking about the report that your organization recently released titled Regenerative Energy 2026. So before we dive into the specific data and the numbers, let's talk about, you know, just that title itself and what the document sets out to achieve. So first of all, tell us about that term, "regenerative energy." What does that mean? Why did you choose that title? [08:09] James Jenkins: Sure. So just generally, regenerative energy is the idea that these projects are doing more than producing electricity for the market and potentially bringing in revenue. They're also contributing to th

Forget range anxiety. The electric vehicle market is evolving fast. Host Trevor Freeman welcomes back Plug'n Drive CEO Cara Clairman to unpack Canada's new EV policies. They discuss the surge in used EV sales and the truth about public charging stations. Plus, learn how low-cost salt-based batteries could disrupt the global auto industry. Discover what these massive shifts mean for transportation and the future of energy. Listen to the full episode today. Related links  Plug'n Drive: https://www.plugndrive.ca/ Cara Clairman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cara-clairman-84967318/ thinkenergy episode 71 (EV-olving Transportation): https://thinkenergypodcast.com/episodes/ev-olving-transportation/ Geotab: https://www.geotab.com/  Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114  Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en      To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405  To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl  To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/  --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/@thinkenergypod Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkenergypod/  Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thinkenergypod Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod --- Transcript: [00:00] Trevor Freeman: Welcome to Think Energy, a podcast that dives into the fast-changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional, and up-and-coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback, or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected]. Hi everyone and welcome back. So, any discussion about the energy transition or our efforts to reduce emissions to mitigate the impact of climate change or even just the ongoing adoption of what once might have been considered futuristic technology, inevitably will include electric vehicles, or EVs as we're going to refer to them today. Transportation is one of the major interactions with energy, especially fossil fuel-based energy that most of us have. Heating being the other one. For the average Canadian, how they move around, going to work, going to school, shopping, recreation, etc., very often involves getting into a vehicle which up until maybe 10 years ago, would almost 100% for sure have been a fossil fuel burning vehicle with a few very small exceptions. Today, while the majority of vehicles are still internal combustion engines, there is at least a noteworthy percentage of electric vehicles out there. We probably all know someone who owns an EV, or know someone who knows someone who owns an EV. EVs aren't actually all that new. The first EV showed up in the late 1800s, believe it or not, and at that point and into the early 1900s, it really could have gone either way between electric-powered vehicles and internal combustion vehicles. As we know, internal combustion vehicles definitely won out, and the bulk of the 20th century was all about internal combustion vehicles, and still today that's the dominant method of transportation. But, there is some alternate reality out there where EVs just always were the transportation method of choice. Imagine what the world would look like if that was the case here. But alas, that is not the reality we're living in. The more recent modern EV era kind of sputtered a little bit in the mid-1990s, there was a bit of an attempt, it didn't really pan out, but really got going around let's say 2008-2009, and it's been a steady crawl forward ever since. But, if you are listening to this podcast, chances are you already know all this and you've likely either skipped forward or are listening to me on two times the speed just to get through this to the important stuff, which is EV policy. You never knew you were so excited about policy. So, most of us, including governments, inherently know that the move to EVs is a good thing. It's good for the climate, it's good for consumers, they're kind of better vehicles. But, societal changes don't just happen, and they certainly don't happen fast. So, there has been a suite of policy approaches over the past couple of years or many years to help us get there and help us get there a little bit quicker. In the past year, Canada's EV policy has changed quite a bit. Availability mandates are out, and incentives are back in. Tariffs on Chinese-manufactured vehicles are mostly out, so things are definitely changing. And to help us understand these changes and what they mean, and also just to check in on the state of EVs here in 2026, I'm really excited to have Cara Clairman back on the show. Cara is the President and CEO of Plug'n Drive, a non-profit that strives to accelerate the deployment of electric vehicles to maximize their environmental and economic benefits. And they do this by engaging with Canadians to help dispel myths and fears and uncertainties around EVs using approaches like their EV Discovery Centre, mobile EV education trailer, and their EVs Are for Everyone tour. And this is really about bringing the EV to the individual, to the person, letting them test drive it, touch it, feel it, ask questions of experts. Now, Cara has actually been on the show a number of years ago where she talked to my predecessor, Dan, about the back story of Plug'n Drive a little bit. So, if you're interested in the organization, I encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. We're not going to get into too much of that here today. Cara is a fantastic individual. She's got more than 25 years of experience working in the environmental and sustainability fields, including at Ontario Power Generation where she was OPG's environmental lawyer and later in the role of Vice President of Sustainable Development. Cara was the 2017 recipient of the Women in Renewable Energy's Woman of the Year award, and the 2021 winner of the Al Cormier EV Leadership Award from Electric Mobility Canada. And as you will hear, she is a big fan of EVs, and she thinks you should be, too. Cara Clairman, welcome to the show. [05:01] Cara Clairman: Thank you so much, Trevor. I'm pleased to be here. [05:03] Trevor Freeman: So, this isn't actually your first time on the show, Cara. It's the first time you and I have spoken on this podcast, but you were on our show with my predecessor, Dan, nearly 5 years ago now, and you talked then about how you took Plug'n Drive from just an idea during your time at OPG, to really a national non-profit that's now celebrating its 15th anniversary. And for our listeners, if you're curious about the back story on Plug'n Drive, definitely dig back in the archives and listen to that episode. But, a lot has changed in 15 years, and a lot has changed even in the 4 and a half years since you were last on Think Energy. EVs have gone from kind of this niche idea you'd maybe see one or two around here and there, to, you know, maybe not quite ubiquitous and they're not everywhere, but it seems like they're going in that direction. They're a lot more commonplace. Everybody knows somebody with an EV, or you see them around most times you're out and about. Um, and they are also a very much talked about cornerstone of our national policy. It's an often-talked-about tool for decarbonization. We're going to dive into some of the specifics throughout our conversation, but just looking at the work that you and Plug'n Drive are doing from your EV Discovery Centre to your EVs Are for Everyone tour, how has your mission shifted? Are you moving from convincing people that EVs are a real thing that worked to helping navigate how to get one, what's the complex web of, you know, incentives, etc. What's the difference in your mission now? [06:36] Cara Clairman: Well honestly, I feel like it's really uh the same in a lot of ways. The big difference, as you pointed out, is that we don't really have to explain what an EV is or that it's a decent car. You know, there's some sort of what I would call EV 101 that most people already know now. And like you said, most people have known somebody, or they've at least heard of it. But I would say there's still a high percentage of Canadians that have never ridden or driven one. Uh, and so that's an experience that we find is really the key, like getting the butts in the seats is really the key to helping people get over the hump. And uh, that's sort of the experience that we focus on. We really try to pair a test drive with every event that we do and encourage people to drive so that they can see the benefits go far beyond just the savings and the environmental benefits, that they're just really super fun cars to drive, and if you're a person that likes a quiet, peppy drive, this is the car for you. [07:51] Trevor Freeman: Yeah. Are people coming to your events knowing, "I'm going down the EV path, I'm going to buy one, I need to check this out," or they're coming in kind of thinking, "What are these people doing here at this event or in this parking lot?" Like what draws people to your events? [08:05] Cara Clairman: More more of the former and less of the latter as time goes on, but it depends on the event we're at. So, if it's just they've made an appointment to come see us, which often is the case, we have an appointment system, uh, then they know a little bit, and they're thinking about it, and they want to try it. Uh, if we're just at a festival or fair, which we do, you know, we just are at some event, and they didn't come specifically to see us, uh, then we still meet a lot of people who are like, "What is this?" you know, uh, and so they're earlier in their journey. But what we find is that they need the awareness building, and then they might, y