In Act 1, Tyler explains his love for spring, which includes the fact that it's university commencement speech season. He shares an excerpt from one of his favorites - "This Is Water" from the late David Foster Wallace - to illustrate that sometimes we we might not notice our surroundings, and because of that don't do enough to challenge them or make them better. In this episode, we discuss how we can make our lives better with a more decentralized, resilient, and cleaner energy infrastructure.

In Act 2, we are joined by Trish Starkey, Business Development Manager in New Energy Landscape Strategic Alliances at Schneider Electric US. Trish starts with some valuable definitions for the building audience and answers questions like "What are microgrids?" and "What is energy as a service?". She explains that the benefit of having a resilient energy infrastructure no longer needs to be at odds with having a sustainable and renewable one, and that true value is realized when greater interconnectivity is pursued. We learn that microgrids just may be the "posterchild" for digitization, and that fundamentally you can't have an occupant-centric building if power isn't reliable and constant. For some facility types, outages are simply unacceptable. For others, a resilient grid provides an opportunity for community in a time of distress.

In what felt at first like it may be an exciting detour, we learn just how intertwined (and necessary) resilient, sustainable electricity is with our smart building infrastructure, services, and experiences.

Outro Music: "Who I Thought You Were" by Santigold