Thought Leadership

Weathering the Storm: Hydropower and Climate Resilience

Jacob Mardian - September 28, 2025

Join EPRI experts Jacob Mardian and Dr. Mark Christian to explore the future of hydropower in the face of extreme weather. Drawing from a recent nationwide hydropower study under EPRI’s Climate Resilience and Adaptation Initiative (Climate READi), guests discuss how extreme weather events, like droughts and floods, are impacting hydropower operations and infrastructure. The experts highlight the importance of proactive planning, data-driven risk assessments, and collaboration across sectors to ensure long-term reliability and safety. After analyzing more than 1,500 hydropower facilities nationwide, they offer insights into regional vulnerabilities, adaptation strategies, and the role of hydropower in a clean energy future.

What's an Energy Wallet? Exploring EPRI's Tool for Tracking Household Energy Spending

Geoff Blanford - September 10, 2025

As energy demand rises and electrification accelerates, understanding household energy affordability is more important than ever. In this episode of the EPRI Current, Geoff Blanford from EPRI and Michael Kohlhaas from Con Edison join host Samantha Gilman to discuss the Energy Wallet - EPRI’s new holistic metric for capturing total household energy usage and spending, including gas, electricity, and transportation. The experts share findings from EPRI’s recent report, which projects a 36% decline in the average U.S. household energy spending by 2050, and highlights how utilities like Con Edison are using similar models to guide long-term planning and support communities. Tune in to learn how data-driven insights are shaping the future of energy affordability and resilience.

Powering Through: How Power Companies Can Weather the 2025 Hurricane Season

Andrea Staid and Erik Smith - July 8, 2025

As of June 1, the North Atlantic Basin officially entered the 2025 hurricane season. NOAA’s 2025 forecasts project a 60% chance of an above-normal season, with 13-19 named storms, 6-10 hurricanes, and up to 5 major hurricanes. EPRI experts Andrea Staid and Erik Smith explore how power companies can build resilience and maintain reliability amid intensifying storms. They tackle key questions: How accurate are hurricane forecasts? How should power companies plan around the unknown? How do regional differences shape preparedness strategies? The conversation highlights EPRI’s Climate READi initiative, which provides science-based guidance to help utilities assess hazard risks, support operational decisions, and plan for climate adaptation.

FACTOR THIS Podcast: Preparing the grid for the climate of tomorrow

Laura Fischer and Andrea Staid - June 24, 2025

On this episode of the Factor This podcast, host Paul Gerke chats with EPRI’s Laura Fischer and Andrea Staid about the newly released Climate READi power framework, a robust collaboration that included insights from more than 40 electric companies, 100 academic, consulting, and finance institutions, as well as national labs, regulators, and government agencies.

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USEA Power Sector Podcast Episode 106: EPRI Energy Systems and Climate Analysis Program Manager Nidhi Santen

Nidhi Santen - January 21, 2025

EPRI Energy Systems and Climate Analysis Program Manager Nidhi Santen answered questions by journalist Herman K. Trabish about how variable and customer-owned energy resources, rising demand, and new policy are driving innovations in utilities’ longstanding use of integrated resource planning, or IRP, to optimize affordable reliable electricity delivery.

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EV Efficiency Gains - What's Down the Road?

Geoff Blanford - April 24, 2024

EPRI and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently released a study that found that EV efficiency improvements have the potential to significantly reduce future electric infrastructure buildout, energy usage, and consumer costs over the next three decades. According to the study, continued advances in EV efficiencies could reduce electricity consumption per mile in half and provide consumer energy cost savings of more than $200 billion annually if accomplished without raising vehicle costs.

Join EPRI Current host, Samantha Gilman, as she discusses these findings and more with report authors Luke Tonachel, senior strategist for transportation at NRDC, and EPRI’s Geoffrey Blanford, principal technical executive in the energy systems and climate analysis group.

Wait, how much will the Inflation Reduction Act's climate provisions cost?

John Bistline - March 12, 2024

John Bistline spoke with NPR Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal about the ongoing debate on its effect on clean energy adoption and how the market environment has changed since the IRA was passed.

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How to Be Carbon Free Hour by Hour

Arin Kaye - November 1, 2023

The shift from procuring 100 percent renewable energy on an annual basis to 24/7 Carbon Free Energy (CFE) on an hourly basis marks a potentially important evolution of corporate efforts to promote clean energy.

Join EPRI’s Arin Kaye, and Iron Mountain Data Centers’ Chris Pennington as they provide an overview of this emerging topic, and how companies like Iron Mountain are shifting to CFE 24/7. Plus, find out how EPRI is helping support these efforts through the emergence of a new CFE 24/7 Interest Group.

Supply Chain Opportunities for Clean Energy Technologies

Robin Bedilion - August 22, 2023

Strong supply chains are vital to all businesses. But a series of perfect storm events … COVID, geopolitical issues, environmental and human rights concerns, among others … have created ongoing supply chain challenges resulting in bottlenecks, project delays, and cost increases for clean energy technologies such as wind, solar, and battery storage. This episode explores supply chain challenges and opportunities affecting the clean energy technologies of today and tomorrow and the potential impacts on achieving global decarbonization goals.

Robin Bedilion is a Principal Project Manager in the Energy Systems and Climate Analysis group at EPRI. She conducts techno-economic analyses and cost and performance research evaluating current and emerging power sector technologies to support utility resource planning and EPRI’s energy-economy modeling. She earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Santa Clara University and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering with a focus on energy systems from Stanford University.

Becoming Climate READi

Andrea Staid - August 8, 2023

In this episode of the EPRI Current, our host chats with EPRI’s Morgan Scott and Andrea Staid on the most recent white paper published by EPRI’s Climate READi Initiative. Results show that planning for future climate conditions and proactively implementing resilience strategies may significantly reduce the costs incurred by energy companies for response, repair, and recovery. How much? Listen to find out.

Morgan Scott is the director for Climate READi, Sustainability and Ecosystem Stewardship at EPRI. Morgan leads the Institute’s effort to design and develop a comprehensive industry approach to physical climate risk assessment and mitigation. Andrea Staid is a senior technical leader in EPRI’s Energy Systems and Climate Analysis group. Andrea is a co-lead for Workstream 3 in the Climate READi initiative and also supports other work in the areas of climate resilience and climate impact modeling.

Extreme Heat: How the Changing Climate Raises the Risk

Dan Kirk-Davidoff, Erik Smith - March 9, 2023

Join two of EPRI’s climate experts, Dan Kirk-Davidoff and Erik Smith, as they discuss extreme heat, the relationship between climate and weather, and the ongoing El Nino. With many experiencing record heat this summer, our guests offer insight into the current overall U.S. heat profile and how we can use this data to prepare the energy system for future extreme weather.