Until very recently, energy industry silos worked. Today, they dont. Fragmentation remains one of the greatest hurdles to progress and before we can build a smarter, more flexible grid, we need to see the whole system as it truly is.

In this episode of Critical Path, host John Engel speaks with Audrey Zibelman, Chair of the Board at Landis+Gyr, about her unique career spanning utilities, regulation, startups, and system operations. Zibelman shares why silos no longer serve us, how distributed energy resources (DERs) and intelligence at the grid edge will shape the future, and why the industry must begin to treat distributed energy as an asset, not a problem.

Energy’s inflection point: Demand growth, electrification, and DERs

Zibelman began her career at Northern States Power, before markets, when utilities did everything generation, transmission, and distribution. That experience shaped her perspective: the grid is fundamentally one system.

While deregulation and competition introduced new players, silos within utilities (distribution vs. transmission, regulators, solution providers, etc.) persisted. For Zibelman, progress means recognizing that all parts of the system must work together to provide affordable, reliable power.

The industry now faces what Zibelman calls a trifecta problem: rising demand, aging infrastructure, and the urgency of decarbonization. DERs like rooftop solar, batteries, EVs, and fuel cells are no longer edge cases, and when aggregated at scale, they can drive flexibility, improve voltage stability, and strengthen resilience during extreme weather. To achieve this, the industry must integrate intelligence at the grid edge, using tools like advanced meters and platforms that link operations to markets.

For Zibelman, the future grid is both more distributed and more data-driven. Meters will evolve from billing devices into computers at the edge, providing critical intelligence to operate in a highly distributed environment.

This transformation requires partnerships. Landis+Gyrs collaboration with OATIs DERMS platform exemplifies how technology providers can connect hardware, data, and markets.

Its not just the hardware, Zibelman emphasizes, but what links it to operations and markets.

Distributed energy for all

Zibelman draws a parallel between today and the rural electrification programs of the 1930s. Then, universal access to electricity was recognized as a public good. Today, the same principle must apply to distributed energy and flexible electrification.

The critical path forward, she argues, is to stop treating distributed energy as a problem and start treating it as an asset for the greater good.

Key takeaways
  • The grid is one system: silos are an outdated lens. Progress requires integration across markets, operations, and technology.
  • Were at an inflection point: rising demand, aging assets, and decarbonization create both pressure and opportunity.
  • DERs must be orchestrated: aggregated and intelligent at the edge, they can deliver flexibility, resilience, and affordability.
  • Partnerships are essential: connecting meters, DERMS, and markets requires collaboration between global players like Landis+Gyr and OATI.
  • Energy as a public good is evolving: just as universal electrification was the goal in the 1930s, today universal access to distributed energy and flexibility must define equity.

As Zibelman prepares to keynote the Zibelman will join the keynote speaking lineup at the 2025 OATI Energy Conference, Oct. 15-17. Existing OATI customers can register here: https://www.oati.com/energy-conference/

Episode Transcript

John Engel

Until very recently, energy industry silos worked. Today we know they don’t. And that fragmentation still plagues our space. That’s one of the biggest hurdles to progress. Before we can even begin to talk about a smarter, flexible grid, we have to understand the big picture. Step outside our bubbles and experience the varying demands at different points on the grid.

Few leaders have had more cross-cutting impact on energy markets and power systems operations than Audrey Zibelman, chair of the board at Landis+Gyr. From her leadership of the Australian Energy Market Operator to guiding Alphabet’s moonshot energy innovation incubator. Zibelman has spent her career bridging technology regulation and system operations.

I’m John Engel. In this episode of Critical Path, Zibelman shares her vision for Landis+Gyr, a global giant in advanced metering and grid edge intelligence, and how a unique partnership with his DERMS platform is linking meters to operations and markets. This conversation also previews her upcoming keynote at the OATI Energy Conference in October. Here’s Audrey Zibelman.

Audrey Zibelman, thanks so much for joining me. And, really excited to have you at the upcoming OATI Energy Conference. It’s great to see you.

Audrey Zibelman

Great to see you, too.

John Engel

You know, we were talking a little bit before we started recording. I think, I’m excited to talk to you and really hear your comments at the event, because few leaders in our space have worked in each of the pockets that we know, kind of fragment how we plan, how we operate as an energy industry.

And we we all have collectively bemoaned the silos that plague this industry for, I mean, before my time in this space, but I’m assuming decades. You’ve got this really unique experience from the market side and the regulator capacity now as as chair of the board for Landis+Gyr. Can really speak to all of these, these different challenges.

So take me, take me through how that shapes your view on all the different topics that we’re going to unpack here, but that face the energy industry, having worked in the utility capacity, served as regulator. You’ve been in the startup space now with Landis. How do you collectively mold that experience to think about where we’re headed?

Audrey Zibelman

Besides feeling a bit schizophrenic every once in a while? Yeah. So I imagine, interestingly enough I started my career at Xcel, before it was Xcel and it was Northern States Power Company, and it was a vertically integrated utility. So we did everything. It was before markets. We were generator, transmission company, gas and electric distributor. There was no such thing as retail competition. And so you grow up that way and you realize the power system itself is just a system.

And so it resonates with me. And, when people talk about the power system as the world’s largest single machine, if it really it really is. And so if you understand it that way and you also understand it from the consumer perspective, it’s, it’s hard to actually think about it as silos because it all has to work together.

And what’s happened with technology is you’ve seen an emphasis of changes of the types of technologies that can provide value, but the system is fundamentally remains a single system that everyone depends upon. And so consequently, I don’t actually I think it’s impossible for me to think about it in a siloed way that I’m like, I can only think about it in terms of what the product, the main product is, which is obviously developing and delivering energy and doing it at a price that remains affordable because the is simply cannot run an economy without affordable energy.

So that becomes the easy issue. And then the question is, how do you do it? Well. And the definition of well changes as technology changes.

John Engel

Yeah. And so the bureaucracy within the utility environment can be challenging. It can be challenging to innovate. And we know there are a lot of really smart people working at utilities who want to do more.

And we also know that at many of the larger utilities, the distribution side and the transmission side don’t know each other. They’re in separate buildings. They don’t talk to each other. There’s it’s a challenge. And so much good came out of deregulation and retail competition. And bringing in these new players and the startups you’ve supported over the years.

What would be your advice to our audience, to the to the folks who all end up at the OATI Energy Conference to break out of their maybe singular mindset and to think about the bigger picture and to get out of that bubble. How do you do it?

Audrey Zibelman

It’s a great question. So I, I think from, depending on where you are in your career, from a career perspective, it looked it’s it always pays to look for opportunities in different parts of the industry.

But I, I found that whatever job I’m in, I have brought a whole lot of value just simply because of other experiences I’ve had. So I would just said always as career advice as, sometimes you do best simply by breaking away and then coming back. So I think that’s important. And then I think the second issue, it’s sort of beyond getting some experience is, attending conference is and trying to get to understand how different people might see the industry.

But that is always secondary, in my view, as to trying to get experience in different parts of the industry to understand how it works. And, when that can that includes being government being and private industry having different roles within the industry itself, having an entrepreneurial experience, I would I mean, I always recommend that people try to guess you just get better simply because you understand more.

And then the other is just the humility of understanding. This is exceedingly complex and just understanding one part of it, and making assumptions about whatever else that you’re not part of is probably the wrong way to go, because they’re going to have another sense of what truth is. And understanding how that works is, is equally critical.

John Engel

So let’s get into your vision and where you think we sit as an industry, and this ongoing evolution and learning that we see play out.

So we’ve got climate change, extreme weather data centers are the topic du jour in our space for the last, I don’t know, 18 months, two years. Where do you see the greatest opportunities to fill gaps? You know, baking in your knowledge of the startup ecosystem and what regulators are looking for, what big corporations need to be thinking about all that.

I think you’ve got a unique view on this.

Audrey Zibelman

To answer your question, John, I think we’re at a really interesting inflection point at the industry, in the 19. You know, I don’t want to sound long tooth in my days, but we did go from a period of time where the greatest innovation was happening on the generation side, where natural gas plants became much more economically efficient.

And so we saw a change to the fact that you could build you didn’t need to be a really a regulated utility to build supply. And so that’s where we introduced competition at the wholesale level, but still very much focused on an economy of scale around large central station generation. I think the recognition that we had, that we need, we needed to do more around capital productivity, became an important issue as we started to think about the cost of electricity, but also because we had a many, many years of really flat and low demand growth.

And so we need, in order for utilities, had to start thinking about how to make to make money by, not simply growing new capital, but making their capital more productive. That was very important. We’re now at a major inflection point beyond thinking about decarbonizing the grid, which has its own complexities. But where we see demand growth combined with aging infrastructure and the need because we’ve becoming more and more electrified, but even just generally to keep cost at an affordable rate.

So it’s a trifecta problem for the industry. And the opportunity that exists today for the first time is, is that now you could start thinking about using distributed energy resource SES, whether rooftop solar or, fuel cells or, batteries and electrification, as well as EVs as an asset to the edge of the grid that makes the entire grid more productive.

And so since I’ve been involved in the industry in the 1970s and 80s, the Holy Grail has been around energy efficiency. The megawatt and I did make it cheaper. But now sort of you add this dimension that we could, look at. How do you aggregate distributed energy at scale drive flexibility, which we actually need on the grid, and increase both the viability of the grid, but also it’s what I would call system stability, voltage, things like that, by having intelligence at the edge that in a, in a world where storms are bigger and actually more devastating also adds for a greater sense of reliability, which you can do.

And then in a period of time where you’re having to spend an unprecedented amount of capital and, transmission. And in generation, anything we can do to make capital more productive makes sense. So I find it really interesting from that perspective. The other thing that you add to this dimension is, is as we add renewables and we think about how do you manage the grid that’s traditionally based, it’s not based on synchronized generation, but also much faster.

The role of data intelligence becomes really important. So that’s why, certainly at Landis+Gyr, we’re thinking about how we use the meter as both a source of just monitoring what’s happening on the grid and, sharing accurate billing, but also being that computer sitting at the edge of the system that’s providing the intelligence necessary that allows for us to operate in a highly distributed environment.

And so I think the technical, logical innovation that we’re going to be seeing over the next decade is fascinating. I think how we’re running and thinking about power systems is very different. So were before the changes were somewhat incremental. I find these as much more transformative. And really, the role of anyone is to be able to collaborate because it’s just certainly way too complex to think about that any one entity within the ecosystem of the energy industry could solve it.

John Engel

And that gets back to your point about scale. And that’s, I think, a big reason why Landis+Gyr and OATI have partnered up on uniting that grid edge and AMI 2.0 with operational control. And I get questions from time to time from people inside and outside of the industry of what does OATI do? And usually what I tell them is we make the grid work.

And I think like one of the really cool things about grid modernization is that it’s kind of policy agnostic in a way that getting to a cleaner grid and a decarbonized future, I think is, is all of our goals. But it’s like a downstream benefit of grid modernization, like making the grid work better. you get to that goal as well of a cleaner system, but without these tools that unite the edge to operations to markets it’s not as simple as we just need more solar or we just need more batteries out there.

Audrey Zibelman

That’s absolutely. So I mean, it can it’s not just the hardware, but it’s what links it to. And I think you’re totally right. So the way I think about the issue is, is that electricity and energy in general, it just powers the economy. But it no economy can run on electricity that that is an affordable because it becomes a wallet share problem.

The energy industry that was we as we designed it was designed to be necessarily inefficient because demand was it was considered to be highly inelastic. It wasn’t responsive to price or signals. And we enjoy as a society and all you can eat mentality which means we want 24/7 power. Those things are not going to change.

And as we electrify our sensitivity to power quality and power, reliability goes up even more. So what Landis+Gyr, and OATI are to doing together is saying, well, one great value we can have on the system is to actually allow for demand to be, much more elastic, but not in a way that disrupts how people use electricity, but take advantage of the fact that there may be excess capability in the system or even in the home, that from an from a personal standpoint, you may not pay attention anymore at all, that the fact that your battery is now supplying energy, but it helps make the grid more productive.

So I think that but that’s not going to happen. Just because people invest in rooftop solar and batteries, it’s going to happen if we can orchestrate it, which is a type of, big problem. And that’s the way I think of the latter. It’s always solving the biggest problems and doing it really well that we’re looking to solve together.

And, and I find it very exciting and, and to me, very critical, regardless of whether you do it because of decarbonization or you do it because you care that the electricity grid is, is as cheap as it can be and is also reliable.

John Engel

I think there there’s real ethos alignment too, between Landis+Gyr and OATI. And this is an even meant to be an infomercial.

But I think we pride ourselves on being those kind of practical doers that see a problem and go fix it. And then bring it to market and make sure it works. That’s a big message that we’re pushing this year is that our tools work and that that grid operators, utilities, whoever, asset managers, they need these things to work all the time.

And, and I think of Landis+Gyr in a, in a similar way.

Audrey Zibelman

I think it’s true. We sort of joke about it internally, but the fact that Landis+Gyr is a Swiss company’s U.S. engineering, we really, really do value that our technology works and we only like working with partners that share that value.

So, I have known of OATI for a very long time since my Northern States days. And it is that type of view that, look, this is this is a type of industry where you can’t afford to make mistakes and you need technology partners that share your value, that, we don’t deliver anything unless we know it.

And it can deliver on what it’s promised to do because in the end, people’s lives and safety depend on product.

John Engel

Well, we’re really excited to hear your comments at the OATI Energy Conference in Las Vegas in October. You’ll be part of the keynote lineup. And then after that, we will continue our conversation in this kind of one on one environment, in an extended interview that will have some, some audience Q&A.

So that should all be really fun. Last thought here to lean into the name of this show, Critical Path. If you have that magic wand and you could define one big action to take to address some of these challenges that we know we have today. What would that critical path for the grid be, in your view?

Audrey Zibelman

That’s a great question. So, in the 1930s, we developed a policy because what we were saying is that investor owned utilities could not make a business case about investing in rural areas because of the lack of density. And so he created the rural electrification program to ensure there was universal access for electricity. And it was generally recognized from the 20s and 30s on that everybody should have access to electricity. It is that nature of a public good. We think forward to this century where we’re headed, the ability to have access to, flexible electrification, including distributed energy resources, where it makes sense, seems to me, and also a universal issue, we can have a situation that only certain people can access.

So I think if we think about this mindset that needs to shift, where before we start the most economically efficient thing we could do for the power grid is to build central station power plant. Now we have an opportunity to use distributed energy resources to provide that kind of that independence from the grid, but not independence in the sense that you’re not using the grid, but you use it. You can use it in such a way that it becomes highly productive. And once we recognize that the public good can be served by a highly distributed energy system, then I think we can start shifting our policies and practices to recognize that our job, for those of us in the industry, is how to deliver that good in a way that’s equitable and affordable for everybody.

And to me, the critical path is to not think about distributed energy as a problem anymore, but as an asset that we should we should, use to the advantage of basically the greater good.

John Engel

Well said. Audrey Zibelmanwe’ll see you in October. And thanks so much for joining me.

Audrey Zibelman

Thank you. See you then.