Looking Back and Leaning Forward: A Conversation with GridNEXT Founder Hala Ballouz

Peter Kelly-Detwiler 03-08-2022

At the end of March, and after two years of virtual events, we’re thrilled that GridNEXT will once again take place in the real world.  As with past events, we’ve got a wonderful line-up of talented and inspiring professionals to entertain, engage, and educate us about the evolving Texas clean energy ecosystem.  We’ll cover a broad range of topics, including innovation and start-up incubation, carbon capture and storage, workforce development, and supply chain issues.   We’ll also have keynotes from Lara Cottingham, Chief of Staff of the Houston branch of Greentown Labs, and from Hala Ballouz, President of Electric Power Engineers and the founder of GridNEXT.

And as in years past, we’ll also take pains to ensure that attendees have plenty of time to network informally, building new relations and affirming old connections.  However, there’s also something new with our annual event this time year: For the first time, GridNEXT is being hosted by the Houston chapter, one of three CleanTX chapter cities (GridNEXT will also be hosted in Dallas and Lubbock later this year).

In anticipation of these events, and especially GridNEXT Houston that’s just around the corner, it seemed an appropriate time to talk to Hala Ballouz to gain some perspective on past GridNEXT events as well as its bright future.  

Looking back:

If you ever have a chance to speak with Ballouz about GridNEXT, you’ll likely come away impressed by her energy and sheer determination. You’ll also be struck by her clarity of vision – especially as it relates to broadening the critical energy conversations that will shape our future.  As Ballouz puts it, “GridNEXT has always been about reliable, modern and efficient energy.  But this is a vehicle for everyone to understand that the grid is at the core of enabling all of these new technologies, resources, and business models…the grid is modernizing and it’s all converging. We are talking about an energy transition – and there’s room for everyone.”

Indeed, that energy conversation has changed a lot.  Those of us who have been in the industry for a while remember that the dialogue was quite different just a short while ago.  A decade in the past, we weren’t talking about the grid edge, or an ERCOT queue with tens of gigawatts of new wind, solar, and batteries.  No, just ten years prior, we were looking at a completely different landscape, and the future was anything but clear.

Ballouz recalls that when she was a TREIA Vice President at that time, it was struggling with its membership.  The wind and solar industries were mature - in the sense that developers knew how to build and interconnect the resources to the grid - but they typically only operated and planned within their limited silos.  They knew how to connect assets to the grid, but they didn’t fully conceptualize the grid as an integrated entity that had to evolve in order to enable the future growth of their respective industries.

At that time, Ballouz notes, there was considerable competition between the wind and solar industries, “and each of them saying ‘who needs storage?’  It was early to understand that we needed each other.”  While it had become clear that Texas had a renewable industry with technology that could deliver, a new challenge was emerging, related to a more mature and efficient power grid.  

According to Ballouz, the question then became, “How do we modernize the grid to allow it to work to integrate more – how do we forecast better, bring in more IT, embrace batteries and storage.  Some said ‘we don’t need it,’ but I said. ‘we have to work together.  This is how it becomes efficient.’”

It was at this juncture around 2012/13, with the organization at a low ebb when the board asked Ballouz if she wanted to take the reins.  She readily accepted.  “I said I will take it on because I love the challenge and I love TREIA.”  Part of her vision for the future involved broadening the Texas energy conversation.  She comments that at that time it was becoming clear that while TREIA would always be an advocate of renewables, the mission was going to have to evolve with the times.  The organization was going to have to create a new mission, “with conferences focusing on the question, ‘How do we create a future to integrate more renewables?’”  Arising from that notion came the concept of GridNEXT, with a focus on modernizing the grid to integrate more renewables. Ballouz speculates, “It may have been one of the first of its kind.” 

Leaning forward:

Today, large-scale renewables continue to be relevant, but they are increasingly viewed as only part of a larger, more complex, and inter-related ecosystem.  Ballouz looks around and sees all of this new technology going into the grid.  At the larger scale, she points to continued growth in renewables and an increasing population of batteries, with hydrogen potentially entering the scene as well.  There’s also a growing population of new large industries such as data centers and Bitcoin miners. 

On the customer side of the meter, she identifies an emerging swarm of devices such as electric vehicles and bi-directional chargers, water heaters that change behavior on command, smart air conditioners, and growing populations of rooftop solar and on-premise batteries.  “All of the new technology going in,” she warns, “is something we need to manage carefully.  We need to foster the conversation even if we are not doing policy.  We need to let all of the actors talk to each other because it’s a monumental thing to integrate all of this technology in an efficient way.  Only a well-organized grid can facilitate that…That’s why GridNEXT is there.”

However, the grid doesn’t evolve in the same ways in every location.  Regional challenges and opportunities are different, and so is the related energy discussion.  For that reason, the board of CleanTX decided to decentralize its approach to the hosting and organization of GridNEXT.  This approach, Ballouz asserts, will help create local value, allowing cities and local communities to foster a more focused energy conversation with a distinctly regional flavor.  After all, she observes, “the grid has become part of the economy and its part of attracting manufacturing and technology.”  Each city brings a different orientation to the dialogue.  For example, Lubbock has a huge research presence with its university, cyber security and wind research, and a utility with its own goals.  Dallas has a large industrial presence, and financial backing for the industry as well as is a hub of data centers.  And Houston, the traditional energy capital of the world, is developing into a new clean energy hub, with innovation and transformation driving change across the landscape.  Recognizing these types of distinctions, Ballouz says, “We need to distribute the responsibility and leadership – it’s a great idea to pass on the leadership to others and give them the freedom to do that.”

GridNEXT Houston

Ballouz anticipates a fascinating dialogue in Houston, with a focus on many facets of the rapidly changing electrical grid.  “We really need to talk about the grid and how are we going to manage,” she says.  “It’s going to take all of us to manage, operate, and plan a reliable grid, because it’s a lot of technology, and different resource options and they are moving super fast.  We’ve got to recognize that, and make the effort it needs to put this in place.”

She’s enthusiastic about the upcoming event, in part because it’s one of the first times she hasn’t been intimately involved in the planning, and she looks forward to seeing what happens when others take the helm.  “I’m excited to see what Houston’s chapter is up to.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Houston is working towards, and what is the hot topic related to the grid and clean energy.  I’m excited to hear all of that and learn something new.”  

Finally, Ballouz reminds us, “It’s exhilarating thinking about how we have transformed since GridNEXT started.  In fact, only 7 or 8 years ago the promise wasn’t so clear.  I want to remind people that we need to look back, and say ‘Wow, how did we not see this before?’  We should take that as a lesson and start looking ahead.”