Factor This has published a Q&A with OATI President & CEO Dr. Sasan Mokhtari on why the power sector needs to bring the reality of the grid to the public, and what changes when it does. Jeremiah Karpowicz’s interview starts from OATI’s Powering Independence feature on National Geographic and the Threads of Connectivity documentary series.
For most of its thirty years, OATI was comfortable being what the National Geographic feature called a “hidden giant”: a company of power systems engineers building for the industry rather than for public recognition. Mokhtari argues that kind of quiet is getting harder for the whole sector to defend. Demand is rising, bills are rising in a number of regions, and debates over data centers and rate cases are playing out among people who were never told how the grid works.
From the interview
“Electricity is the only product people buy that has to be manufactured and delivered in the instant they use it,” Mokhtari told Factor This. “Most people have never been told that.” Customers who understand that supply and demand balance every second, he argues, start to see flexibility as an opportunity rather than a cost. An informed customer base lets a utility plan around demand-side resources. Without one, it has to plan for every customer using everything at once, and build to match.
On affordability, he is careful: “affordability is not a perception problem.” What awareness can change is the question customers ask, from why a bill went up to what it pays for and whether there was a cheaper way. His answer is to get more out of the infrastructure utilities already own, through flexibility, dynamic ratings and non-wires alternatives.
It is the same argument behind OATI’s plan to unlock transmission capacity. The interview also covers the microgrid at OATI’s headquarters, which Factor This toured last year, flexible interconnection for data centers, and why dense urban and suburban systems call for different conversations with customers. For utility project teams, his advice is short: “Advocate before you need approval. If the first time your customers hear about grid modernization is when it shows up on their bill, you’ve already lost the argument.”
We keep pushing the message that the grid isn’t out of capacity; it’s out of coordination.
Dr. Sasan Mokhtari, President & CEO, OATI, in Factor This