Energy People: Rudy Wynter

Rudy Wynter oversees electric transmission and generation, liquefied natural gas storage, and gas transmission pipeline investments at National Grid. With over 25 years of experience in the utility sector, Wynter has held positions in customer operations, strategic planning, engineering, and operations.

PUF's Steve Mitnick:Rudy, what do you do in your job?

Rudy Wynter: At National Grid, we meet the energy needs of about 20 million people across the Northeast every day, 24/7. We power virtually every aspect of their lives at home, at work, and everywhere in between. It's an awesome responsibility and one we take very seriously.

I oversee the parts of our U.S. business that are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, including our electric transmission system and a fleet of generators that supply power to customers of the Long Island Power Authority.

I also oversee a group we call New Energy Solutions. It's focused on developing and launching innovative solutions and technologies on our energy networks to deliver value to our customers and communities.

It will help get us to a sustainable energy future.

It's a fascinating time to be in the energy industry. Everything is changing: how we make and move energy, even how we use energy. At the same time, customer needs are changing just as dramatically. Customers want more and more choice and control; many want decarbonized energy; some want to generate their own power; others want more data and information about their energy use. We need to understand what our customers will want down the road, what the future energy landscape will look like, and then build solutions to navigate that transition and help create that future.

Our customers will be our guiding light every step of the way.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Some people say the utilities are off on the side watching these developments, and that those new companies are going to drive this transition. Where does National Grid stand?

Rudy Wynter: We're right at the heart of that transition and we need to lead it. We're developing new ways of working, revolutionizing our business model, embracing new technologies and promoting new partnerships. We are doing pilot projects that will help us understand what our customers want and what technologies are available or can be designed to meet their needs.

To provide value for the customer, we're finding that more and more often we need to partner with new technology and service players.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: What are your top initiatives?

Rudy Wynter: We've got some key priorities for our distribution and transmission networks, but our number-one guiding principle is that the customer comes first.

We firmly believe that if customers have the right information, the right tools, and the right incentives, they will make better energy decisions. That's one of the concepts we're testing in our pilots.

We also know we must innovate like never before across the whole grid. The generation mix is shifting to cleaner power sources and distributed forms of energy, so we must make sure that the grid evolves to keep pace with these changes.

We're managing the variability that's inherent in these new forms of energy so the grid can continue to deliver power safely and reliably. At the same time, we're evaluating how we can leverage these new distributed resources to provide other services, such as voltage support, to our grid.

In addition, we're talking to policymakers, regulators, and other stakeholders about potential changes to the current regulatory model, to keep pace with the sweeping changes afoot in the industry. It's important that there are new compensation models that support the investing, testing, and experimenting of these new technologies, as well as the evolving role of the traditional utility.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: If the regulatory model isn't made more optimal, what will the negative effects be?

Rudy Wynter: I think if we really want to achieve the scale of change we want on the grid, the regulatory model must be part of the equation. We really need a combination of technology, a more flexible and smart grid, an updated utility business model and a regulatory framework that accommodates these changes. None of these things alone is the silver bullet to create the energy future we think customers want.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: What are you doing out there to advance your goals?

Rudy Wynter: On the transmission side, we're using UAVs and robotics to enhance our existing inspection and maintenance capabilities. We have about 9,000 miles of transmission, some of which is in remote and rugged areas. These new tools will help us get better access to and data from lines that are challenging to reach by land or even by helicopter.

We're also adding sensors and monitors so we can create a more dynamic grid. It will be better equipped to handle new renewable and distributed generation by giving us real-time information.

That means we can make proactive decisions that will increase reliability. 

And we're beginning to deploy substation automation and online monitoring to help us do predictive analyses that are difficult to do quickly today. Those will give us better situational awareness and a holistic view to make better-informed decisions. This all translates to customer benefits in the form of enhanced reliability, resiliency and cost savings.

On the distribution side, we have our Smart Energy Solutions pilot in Worcester, Massachusetts, which includes about eleven thousand customers. The pilot customers received a smart meter and options to see and understand how they use energy.

They also were given the option to receive alerts for time-of-use rates in advance of "peak days," periods of extremely hot or cold weather when demand spikes. On peak days, we encourage customers to conserve energy. It's an opportunity for them to save money and use energy differently.

This pilot is about figuring out what it takes to get customers to change their behavior around how they use and manage energy.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Do you have any information yet on how people will respond?

Rudy Wynter: The response to the pilot has been very positive. Customers could opt out of the program, and to date our retention rate is about ninety-eight percent. Our surveys also show that customer satisfaction is very positive. Perhaps best of all is that these customers saved about $1.8 million on their electric bills in the first two years of the program. We're currently rolling out a similar pilot in Clifton Park in upstate New York.

There's still much opportunity in this area, including the data services that are being provided by many start-up companies. They are working with the utilities to find out what it takes to really motivate consumers to use energy differently.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: I suppose you could get an app, but maybe it's too hard to do that at this point.

Rudy Wynter: It's an interesting thought and you raise an important point. We're used to just thinking about residential, commercial, and industrial users. Now we've got to think about segments and sub-segments of those customer groups that behave differently and want different solutions from their utility. Some customers just want their energy delivered at a fair price and want to leave everything else to us. In the pilots, however, we're seeing that there is a segment of customers that want to actively engage in managing their energy usage if it's simple for them.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: What's the reaction from regulators?

Rudy Wynter: They know our focus remains on delivering safe and reliable service; that's paramount.

They are reaching out to work with us to develop innovative ideas and approaches to optimize the safety, security, resiliency, and reliability of our energy networks. Especially how we can innovate to help customers save money.

We've been very successful in getting those in-market pilots funded because we develop them collaboratively with the regulator, including setting mutual expectations of what we want to learn over the life of the program.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: It sounds like you've become a tech company instead of a utility. Is that a good business to be in?

Rudy Wynter: It's a great business to be in and we believe technology will continue to play a major role for utilities going forward.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Why is partnering so important?

Rudy Wynter: It goes back to the customer. Most customers want a one-stop shop for all their energy needs. In some cases, it will make sense for us to add new capabilities to our core business to meet customer needs; in others, it's more efficient and makes more sense to partner with a company that specializes in a particular technology so we can meet the needs of a subset of our customers.

The unregulated side of the company is also partnering with emerging technology and distributed energy companies. They can gain insights into how they work with customers and the technologies themselves. For example, National Grid's Business Development group has a joint venture with Sunrun, one of the largest residential solar companies in the United States.

The partnership includes a pilot in downstate New York to determine if co-marketing rooftop solar with the existing utility leads to greater uptake, and whether the cost to acquire customers comes down. We're also going to work with Sunrun to evaluate the feasibility of aggregating distributed resources to provide grid services.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Is National Grid well suited for all this cutting-edge tech stuff? 

Rudy Wynter: Absolutely. We know better than most that the grid must be modernized to keep meeting the needs of our customers, and while we don't have all the answers, we do know we'll continue to work with regulators and the market to find innovative ways to deliver cost-effective solutions. We've embraced the fact that technology's going to play a big role in this undertaking.

We also realize that we're better when we work and focus together as a team at National Grid, so we're broadening the team working on these issues to bring in additional expertise.

We can secure the grid, help our customers manage the transition to the energy future, and balance the increasingly diverse generation mix.

At the end of the day we believe this transition is an economic growth engine that will continue creating jobs in this country. Investment will be required to replace aging infrastructure in the U.S., and to build new infrastructure as we see more and more new forms of generation being developed and sited.

There also will be new opportunities for new types of capital investments on the outskirts of the grid. We are looking to develop cost-effective, reliable means to bring the infrastructure to those markets. Think energy storage and other distributed resources. 

Who is better suited to meet those demands than a large energy company like National Grid? We have a vast transmission grid and a service area that includes urban and rural, remote and densely populated areas. We bring our expertise from the U.S. and the U.K. to solve those problems.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: It's a different job than it was fifteen to twenty years ago.

Rudy Wynter: Absolutely. It's different than it was ten or even five years ago. The pace of change we're seeing is unprecedented.

One thing that hasn't changed - and never will - is delivering safe, reliable service. What has changed and will continue to evolve is how we provide those services. Before, we'd just look at building new transmission or distribution infrastructure. Now, we might consider a solution that includes infrastructure in combination with battery storage, or a partnership with a distributed energy resource provider. 

We also must stay ahead of the change curve so we can continue to make smart capital investments on behalf of our customers. Over the next five years we expect to invest about fifteen billion in capital in our U.S. business, which means we must have a "no regrets" investment approach during all the ongoing industry changes. 

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Is it a fun job for you?

Rudy Wynter: It sure is! This is not a routine, paper-shuffling type of job.

For starters, all the change in the industry provides plenty of excitement. But there is so much more. If we want to be able to undertake pilot programs and invest in new technologies, we must ensure that we continue to spend capital wisely and that all of our projects are delivered on time and on budget. 

On top of that, we must look for ways to get better every day, including developing innovative internal business processes. And finally, we need to evaluate and incorporate new technologies that help us get more out of our existing networks. These are all new challenges and massive opportunities that make this job fun.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Are you trying to build a different mindset with your staff?

Rudy Wynter: Absolutely! At one point, we were producing several pilots for our regulators. At first, we were having our engineers and other employees work on them part-time alongside their day jobs. Then we realized that was not the most optimal way of working. 

So, we carved out a team of about forty or fifty people to be part of the New Energy Solutions group to focus full time on these projects.

This group is helping us chart the future. They get a lot of support from across the enterprise, in part because people care about and believe in their projects, which include solar installations, microgrids, smart grids and residential smart energy technologies.

We've got about twenty megawatts of solar that we own up and running in Massachusetts, with an additional fifteen megawatts to be built, much of which will be accompanied by battery storage.

We've also got several battery storage projects in the planning stages in New England. In fact, we just issued an RFP for a ten-megawatt storage project. These are cool projects, and our employees want to be part of them.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Where do you want to be three to five years from now?

Rudy Wynter: We need to spend the next two years really understanding what motivates customers to use energy differently and evaluating the full value of deploying technology on the grid.

That three-year mark is when I think we'll be ready to start to scale up what we've been piloting so it becomes business as usual. Just another tool in our toolkit of solutions to deliver the services and benefits our customers want and deserve.