National Grid RI Partners with SeaAhead to Launch the Rhode Island BlueGreen Innovation Challenge - A Conversation with Terry Sobolewski

SeaAhead’s Project Manager, Taylor Witkin, caught up with Terry Sobolewski, President of National Grid Rhode Island, to discuss the utility’s role in Rhode Island’s clean energy future, focus on innovation, and support for the RI BlueGreen Innovation Challenge, in partnership with SeaAhead and CIC Providence. Terry Sobolewski joined National Grid in August 2011. In his current role as President of National Grid RI, he leads the company’s efforts to deliver safe, reliable, clean and affordable energy for 750,000 electric and gas customers across the Ocean State.

SeaAhead’s relationship with National Grid really started back in December at a meeting you held for cleantech, energy, economy, and innovation leaders in Rhode Island. Can you talk about the purpose of that meeting and what came out of it?  

Back in December 2019, we convened a group of key stakeholders from across Rhode Island at the Wexford Innovation Center. The meeting was intended to build on National Grid’s Northeast 80x50 Pathway and our efforts to spur new conversations about combatting the growing threat of climate change. We wanted leaders in the state to discuss how to help Rhode Island get to decarbonization across the entire economy. It was a very lively discussion, offering a wide variety of perspectives from policymakers to industry leaders to academics, and most importantly - our customers. We really focused on dramatically reducing emissions in the heat, transportation, and power sectors. The audience was given a charge to use the forum as a launching point for new partnerships and collaboration to solve the climate change threat, which is really how this new partnership with SeaAhead and the Cambridge Innovation Center was born.

Also, in January, Governor Raimondo set some ambitious climate and clean energy goals for Rhode Island. Namely 100% renewable electricity by 2030. How is National Grid working to help meet those goals?

For some time, we’ve been working proactively to help realize these aggressive, yet achievable goals – from energy efficiency, to offshore wind to distributed solar. Our energy efficiency programs are ranked third in the nation, where over the past ten years, we’ve helped save customers over $1 billion in energy costs, added nearly $2 billion to the state’s gross product, and avoided 7 million tons of carbon. In 2016, we helped launch the first offshore wind project in the United States right off the shores of Block Island, which provides enough energy to power 17,000 homes. And in solar, National Grid has completed connections of more than 9,000 applications of distributed generation, totaling more than 285 MW of power. We now have more than 900 MW of clean energy connected or under contract to be generated in Rhode Island.

Has this changed the approach to any of your work?

As a clean energy company helping to power the lives of almost half a million electric customers and over 250 thousand gas customers across the state, we believe in the science of climate change and recognize our shared responsibility to leave this world better than we found it for the next generation. We have been working hard to help lead the clean energy transition and the Governor’s announcement helps create greater urgency around an issue we feel is critically important to the customers and communities we serve.

What role does innovation need to play in helping Rhode Island reach its ambitious clean energy goals?

It’s vital and without it we won’t be successful. Look at our energy efficiency programs – which have been extremely successful in making the most energy efficient technology the standard for all customers. However, there is a risk of diminishing returns if we do not continue innovating. Many believe future savings will be more difficult to achieve as we seek deeper, more comprehensive measures, but innovation can unlock these opportunities and help us continue moving the ball forward and get to our shared goals.

National Grid supports accelerators and invests in cleantech venture capital funds. What motivated you to support the Bluegreen Challenge?

Rhode Islanders have a deep, shared commitment to the health of our communities and our environment. As a coastal state, we have the most to gain from an expanding blue economy, and we have the most to lose from rising sea levels and other threats of climate change. We also have an extraordinary opportunity to capitalize on our nation-leading educational institutions, which will help develop the innovators and workers who will drive us towards a clean energy future. But success is not a certainty. Our state, communities, and local economies are facing unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s crucial that we continue to lean into our shared commitments to enable and progress the clean energy transition.

The BlueGreen Challenge is designed to connect systems in Rhode Island that are often siloed. Can you talk about why it’s important to try to connect the energy system with Rhode Island’s other key systems? Like food, transportation, ports, coastal infrastructure.

I think you said it best in your question. Too often we have great minds and businesses that want to do the right thing - for their customers, communities, and the environment. Unfortunately, it’s often done in silos, or an approach which may ultimately miss opportunities to combine or optimize related efforts. We are facing large, complex, systemic issues which can only be solved through multi-disciplinary coordination and collaboration. The Challenge is a unique step forward to show how cross-industry efforts could identify new solutions and expedite change.

Electrification continues its global march and National Grid is in the middle of it. On the blue economy front, we see Washington State starting to electrify their ferry system. Here, we have a lot of diesel-powered vessels on the waterfront. What stakeholders do you think need to come together to start this sort of transformation effort in New England?

There’s no question – our biggest opportunity to reduce emissions is within the transportation sector. In contrast to the electricity and heat sectors, emissions from transportation are effectively unchanged since 1990. For good reason, much of the focus lately has been on electrifying nearly 10 million or nearly half of the passenger cars and light trucks (known as light-duty vehicles or LDV) on the roads by 2030. But sea vessels and mass transit can’t be forgotten. We need regional and federal policymakers to come together with the maritime industry and like-minded innovators, SeaAhead among them, to increase the adoption of cleaner, reliable vessels to be used on our oceans and waterways.

Offshore wind is a big topic in Rhode Island right now and getting bigger. But a lot needs to happen before these large wind farms start generating electricity. What do you see as some key challenges to offshore wind development, and how can a competition like the BlueGreen Challenge try to tackle them?

Large-scale renewable generation is a big part of any cost-effective path to reach our state’s climate goals. I already mentioned the Block Island Wind Farm, and we have already received approval to help bring an additional 400 MW of wind generation to the state from the Revolution Wind project. With that amount of additional renewable generation being added to our electric system, transmission becomes critical in moving that energy to consumers. But as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. These projects take time, creativity, resources, and resilience. And even once they’re built, they can have complex issues arise, like National Grid and Orsted are now addressing with the Block Island project. From technical, electrical and civil engineering to geology to land/ocean use to permitting to policy, these are the kinds of issues the BlueGreen Challenge can help us address.

Things are obviously a lot different than they were when the Challenge was conceived. Can you draw any connections between the challenges we’re facing due to covid and climate and environmental problems addressed through the BlueGreen Challenge?

There’s not one person, business, or industry that hasn’t been impacted by this pandemic. These are challenging times, but with any challenge comes opportunity. As I wrote recently, Rhode Island is overcoming this pandemic with a shared commitment to one another and with local, responsible actions. I believe we can address the consequences of climate change with that same urgency and conviction. That’s what this BlueGreen Challenge is all about. How can we harness the enormous opportunity we have here in Rhode Island when it comes to the blue economy and help combat the very real impacts of climate change? We initiated this partnership to see what sort of creative, innovative, and inspiring solutions can be ignited from some of the smartest minds we have in the Ocean State and our world class academic institutions.