The Energy Insider Podcast Featuring Catalyst Power CEO Gabe Phillips

Catalyst Power CEO Gabe Phillips recently joined Jack Doueck on The Energy Insider podcast to discuss the current state of energy markets and what commercial businesses can do today to better manage costs. In the episode, Phillips shares actionable strategies for navigating today’s energy landscape and explains how Catalyst Power helps commercial customers integrate onsite generation, financial strategy, and sustainability goals into a single energy solution. The conversation also explores the evolving role of distributed energy resources and the ongoing battery storage dilemma facing the industry.

Below, you’ll find a few highlights from their discussion.

You can listen to the full episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5qN7p2cZYvrITT6mgq7AoZ?si=U8Tt8g6-STW5LVYwHbtplQ 

The interview below has been edited for brevity. 

Thoughts on the economics behind Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Systems: 

We are able to deliver much more economic value per dollar invested with a CHP plant than we are with a standalone solar asset. It's an around-the-clock producer of energy, whether it's power or thermal energy. That alone allows us to deliver significant savings to our customers by undercutting both their power costs when we sell them the electricity produced on-site (right behind-the-meter). It's the same concept as avoiding grid supply, distribution, and transmission with solar, except it's now around-the-clock instead of just during those couple of hours of the day when solar is peaking. On the thermal front, yes, we have to pay for gas, and we may be offsetting an electric use before that was for a chiller, but now we're paying for gas instead, and we're taking advantage of that spark spread, or at least the customer is, which allows us to undercut the power cost for the chiller as well. The gas-to-power conversion is much more efficient.

On the Current Energy Market: 

The customer doesn't see the different markets and their granularity that we live and die by. They see one number that they get charged when they turn on their light switch. So, the dynamics of the capacity market vs. the energy markets, you can't ignore that fact when we're discussing the volatility of the customer's meter. The volatility has really shown up most recently in the capacity markets, which relate a lot more to outages and unit retirements than to significant amounts of demand growth. The supply and demand imbalance really only exists today in that market, not in the energy markets [...], the heat rates that we're seeing expanding over time, wouldn't indicate a significant potential imbalance between resources and needs.

Enjoyed the conversation? Contact our Energy Experts today to learn how you can partner with Catalyst Power on CHP or other energy-efficient solutions for your business.