The Grid Mod Pod | Episode 5: Holistic System Planning for Utilities with Brett Ryhal

by Dr. Elizabeth Cook, AEIC DER Subcommittee Chair

Welcome to the Grid Mod Pod, brought to you by AEIC. In this podcast, you’ll hear from the utility industry’s top operations leaders on how their companies are working to modernize and improve our ever-evolving power grid. Thank you for joining us.

In this episode, we’re excited to have Brett Ryhal, Program Manager at Sargent & Lundy, as our co-host. Here’s what you’ll learn when you listen in:

Why situational awareness is one of the biggest grid planning challenges for utilities

  • The benefits of taking a “bottoms-up” approach to grid planning that puts customer needs at the forefront
  • A refresher on distributed energy resources, also known as “DER,” and their importance to the overall grid
  • How we can use data analytics and modeling to predict electrification and optimize the grid in a way that will support future DER
  • Why having massive amounts of data is useless unless utilities have a way to manage and analyze it properly
  • Examples of utilities and states who have been successful with integrated distribution planning