Episode Summary
Executive Summary: Astrid Atkinson explains why she co-founded Camus Energy: to help utilities transform the grid from one-way power delivery to a two-way, flexible system that can integrate renewables, DERs, and demand response. Drawing on her Google systems background, she argues software can improve reliability, visibility, and market participation while preserving equity and utility economics.
Main Topics: Why Astrid Founded Camus Energy (Priority: 5/5): Atkinson links her climate motivation to personal stakes, systems-engineering strengths, and the need for practical climate impact. She frames grid transformation as the best fit for her expertise after years at Google. Grid Transformation and the Need for a Two-Way Grid (Priority: 5/5): The conversation explains how the legacy grid was built for one-way delivery from large generators to customers, but decarbonization requires bi-directional management of supply, demand, and local assets. Camus’s Product: Monitoring, Forecasting/Control, and Market Services (Priority: 5/5): Camus’s platform has three parts: situational awareness, forecasting and control, and market integration. The company is moving from monitoring into control and market-based compensation for flexible assets. Utility Business Model and Equity Challenges (Priority: 4/5): Atkinson discusses how rooftop solar and local assets can shift costs and complexity onto utilities and non-participants. She emphasizes that grid transformation must preserve universal access and avoid increasing inequity. Team, Investor, and Operating Philosophy (Priority: 4/5): Camus intentionally blends software and energy expertise on both the team and investor sides to avoid Silicon Valley-style overreach and to ensure the product fits real utility needs. Traction, Customers, and Growth Strategy (Priority: 4/5): The company describes early deployments with utilities and co-ops, including co-development with anchor customers, and outlines a path toward repeatable enterprise SaaS growth and a Series A. Measuring Climate Impact (Priority: 3/5): Atkinson acknowledges that the company currently tracks impact qualitatively but wants more quantitative carbon accounting as it scales, both for internal measurement and utility reporting.
Key Arguments: Decarbonization is fundamentally about electrifying everything and then decarbonizing the grid; grid software is a high-leverage place to intervene. The existing grid works well for one-way delivery, but it must evolve to manage variable supply, flexible demand, and distributed assets. Utilities need tools that improve reliability first; decarbonization adoption is easier when renewables and DERs also make operations simpler and cheaper. A distribution system operator model can help local utilities coordinate resources, balance supply and demand, and participate in markets. Market mechanisms are necessary so customers with batteries, EVs, and other flexible loads can be compensated for grid services. A purely command-and-control model will not scale to millions of edge devices; software-enabled incentives and pricing are needed. Camus’s differentiator is integrating telemetry, forecasting, control, and market participation rather than just providing analytics. A mixed team of software and energy experts is essential because each side can easily misunderstand the other’s domain. The company wants to make distributed assets monetizable so utilities can enlist them as grid resources instead of treating them as burdens. Climate impact should be measured both by direct emissions reductions and by changing utility planning models to include distributed renewables.
Data Points: Company age: About 1.5 years old - Atkinson describes Camus as a young startup in early commercialization. Funding stage: Seed stage - She says the company had recently closed its seed round. Seed round timing: December of last year - The seed financing was closed shortly before COVID complications. Personal Google tenure: About 15 years - Atkinson says she spent roughly 15 years at Google before founding Camus. Son’s birth year: 2013 - She uses her son’s birth as the moment climate change became personal. Projected future age: About 37 in 2050 - She references her son’s age in 2050 to illustrate long-term climate stakes. Grid reliability engineering benchmark: 5.9s reliability - She cites Google’s approach to extreme reliability in distributed systems. Customer deployment maturity: First two customers in production for situational awareness - Camus’s monitoring product is already deployed with its first two customers. Product readiness: Forecasting and control moving from prototype to deployment - This module is not yet broadly productionized but is nearing field use. Customer count described: Three utility-scale customers plus other partnerships - She mentions Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, a Bay Area CCA, and a Colorado co-op, plus VMware and ISO conversations. Solar share increase: 35% to 75% solar during the day - She cites Kit Carson’s progress over the last six months as an example of impact. Local solar target: 100% local solar during the day by 2022 - Kit Carson’s goal is used to illustrate early utility decarbonization ambition. Potential grid procurement shift: 20% to 40% - She references estimates for how much energy procurement may shift from centralized to local resources. Utility software deployment cost: $5 million to $100 million - She contrasts Camus’s SaaS model with traditional ADMS deployments. Traditional ADMS deployment timeline: Up to 10 years - Used to illustrate why utilities need lighter-weight software alternatives.
Pivotal Quotes: "In the past, we forecast demand and we turn supply up and down to match. In the future, that almost needs to reverse." — Astrid Atkinson: Explaining why grid management must adapt to variable renewables and flexible demand. "The existing grid actually works really well. This is one of humanity's kind of great achievements of civilization." — Astrid Atkinson: Framing grid transformation as an upgrade of a successful system, not a replacement. "If you want to motivate people to actively participate in the grid and provide assets to potentially provide valuable services? Best way is probably to pay them." — Astrid Atkinson: Making the case for market-based incentives for distributed energy resources.
Implications: The episode suggests grid software will be a key enabler of decarbonization by turning DERs into reliable, compensated grid assets. For utilities, the winners will combine operational reliability, market design, and local flexibility.