ThinkEnergy Podcast Por Hydro Ottawa arte de portada

ThinkEnergy

ThinkEnergy

De: Hydro Ottawa
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Every two weeks we'll speak with game-changing experts to bring you the latest on the fast-changing energy landscape, innovative technologies, eco-conscious efforts, and more. Join Hydro Ottawa's Trevor Freeman as he demystifies and dives deep into some of the most prominent topics in the energy industry. Have feedback? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to thinkenergy@hydroottawa.comHydro Ottawa Ciencia
Episodios
  • Grounding energy: how to scale cloud computing and data centres with Cerio

    Grounding energy: how to scale cloud computing and data centres with Cerio
    Mar 23 2026
    When we say 'the cloud' what we mean is 'the data centre'. Globally, data centres are projected to consume over 1000 terawatt hours in 2026. What does that mean for energy production, distribution, and consumption? Guest Phil Harris, Cerio President and CEO, joins thinkenergy to shed light on something we all rely on but may not fully understand. From efficiency to sustainability, environmental concerns to Cerio's role improving how data centres manage energy. Listen in for the future of cloud computing. - Related links ● Cerio: https://www.cerio.ai/ ● Phil Harris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paharris/ ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114 ● Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405 To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod --- Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at thinkenergy@hydroottawa.com. Hi everyone, and welcome back. Data centres have come up a number of times on this show, and for very good reason, they have become a key underpinning technology for so much of our lives, every time we pull out that phone from our pockets to pull up directions or buy something online or doom, scroll on your social media or new site of choice, every time you use your phone stream a movie, leverage an AI model, whatever you end up using it for, it's funny as I read this list, I'm sure there's like some university student out there who's thinking, man, what is this old man talking about? We don't use our phones for that, whatever the kids are doing these days, whatever we're doing these days with our phones, with our computers, our tablets, et cetera. All of that leverages infrastructure that most of us have never seen and, quite frankly, probably don't really understand we talk about the cloud like it's this amorphous, nebulous thing, but in reality, we're talking about real hardware in a real building that uses real energy, mainly electricity, a lot of water. And this isn't really new, like we've been leveraging centralized data centres for many years now, but what is changing is the scale of the data centres that we're seeing now, and the pace of growth in computing power that we need to do, the things that we want to do, and that our data centres are able to deliver. So just to throw a few numbers at it, the traditional data centre servers that maybe power the early days of on demand online streaming services, for example, they used anywhere from five to 15 kilowatts per rack. But modern server racks that are used to power AI searches, for example, can hit anywhere from 60 to 100 kilowatts per rack. This is great from a power output per rack perspective, but it means massive energy needs, and that is showing up in the size of load requests that we're seeing from new data centres. New data centres today are asking for service connections that are orders of magnitude higher than those built even just five years ago, globally, data centres are projected to consume over 1000 terawatts in 2026 or terawatt hours, sorry, in 2026 and just a quick kind of refresher from high school or wherever you would have learned this, a terawatt is 1000 gigawatts, which is 1000 megawatts. So 1000 terawatt hours, which is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity demand from the country of Japan, an entire country. So given all of this, there are a lot of incentives to find ways to maximize efficiency and reduce some of that energy demand, and that's where my next guest, Phil Harris and his company Cerio come into play. I'll let Phil get into the details of exactly what Cerio does, but essentially, their goal is to reimagine the data centre to maximize sustainability and reduce energy needs. Phil is Cerio's President and CEO, and has been in the networking and data centre industry for over 35 years, including at well known companies like Intel and Cisco. And I'm really excited about this conversation. One to understand, how do we make data centres a little bit more efficient, or maybe a lot more efficient, but also just ...
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    55 m
  • The future of energy from the view of a next-gen energy professional

    The future of energy from the view of a next-gen energy professional
    Feb 23 2026
    How are we preparing the next generation of energy professionals? Kieran Graham, student of the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering program at Carleton University, is set to embark on his career in the energy sector. Kieran joins thinkenergy to chat about his studies, from thermodynamics to power generation, regulatory to economic aspects, and what's on the horizon for the industry and his future. Listen in for a fresh perspective on the future of energy with a next-gen energy professional. Related links: Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering program, Carleton University: https://admissions.carleton.ca/programs/sustainable-and-renewable-energy-engineering/ APEX Lab, Carleton University: https://carleton.ca/apex/ Kieran Graham on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kierangraham1/ Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114 Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405 To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ - Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to thinkenergy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at think energy at hydro ottawa.com, hi everyone and welcome back. We know that we are already in this period of change that we call the energy transition, but this is not a short term thing. We will be in this period of change for years and likely decades to come. And that means that the next generation of energy professionals, so engineers, policy experts, customer focused, people, finance and so on and so on, they might spend their entire careers working on this. So I thought it would be interesting to check in with someone who's just about to enter the workforce to find out how we're preparing that next generation to dive head first into this challenge and hopefully bring innovative and exciting solutions to the table. This is a career and society defining challenge. This is something that we'll be focusing on for many, many years to come. So I really wanted to understand what is that next generation learning. Now I'm sure you'd all agree that what you learn in your formal schooling is only one small part of the knowledge base and skill set that is important for contributing in a meaningful way. I know that the things I became really excited about and passionate about as I was getting through my engineering degree really helped set my course and have led me to where I am today, and definitely was not the course I thought I was on when I started engineering school. And for the record, these things that I became really passionate exciting about weren't, you know, the fluid dynamics and soil mechanics and thermodynamics and all these courses I was taking. It was the concepts and the way of thinking and the things I became passionate about. So all that being said, I'm pretty excited today to talk to my guests about what he has been learning and how he thinks that's setting him up for a career focused on energy. Kieran Graham is in his final year of his degree at Carleton University here in Ottawa, and he's in the sustainable and renewable energy engineering program. I love the fact that we have a whole focus program on clean and renewable energy, that's fantastic. Kieran is the president of the Sustainable and Renewable Engineering Society, and he helps organize academic social and networking events for students in that program and others that are interested in sustainable and renewable energy. He has worked with the apex lab at Carleton, doing research on various carbon capture technologies, and he was also the organizer, or one of the organizers, for the 2026 Ontario Engineering Competition. Kieran Graham, welcome to the show. Kieran Graham 02:48 Thanks a lot for having me. I'm excited. Trevor Freeman 02:50 So Kieran, let's start with a little bit of background on your program at University. So you're in the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering program at Carleton University. Tell us a little bit about what that program is and what you focus on. Kieran Graham 03:03 Yeah, so I will admit it's a little confusing at first, like Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering, the long name, and then we have two streams. So one's called Smart Technologies for Power Generation Distribution, the other one's about efficient energy conversion. So the easiest way to actually differentiate these two is electrical and mechanical. So smart technologies is electrical efficient ...
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    41 m
  • Talking trees with Overstory: helping utilities trim with power

    Talking trees with Overstory: helping utilities trim with power
    Jan 26 2026
    Trees are a major cause of power outages. They're also a wildfire risk—when branches hit a conductor, a small spark can become a big blaze. Lynn Petesch of Overstory joins thinkenergy to talk trees, exploring how AI, satellite imagery, and vegetation intelligence help utilities prevent outages and reduce wildfire threats. Including Hydro Ottawa, who saw a 44% drop in tree-related outages since partnering with Overstory. Listen in for how we work together to keep the grid safe in an era of extreme weather. Related links Overstory: https://www.overstory.com/ Lynn Petesch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnpetesch/ Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114 Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405 To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod ----- Transcript: Welcome to thinkenergy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at thinkenergy@hydroottawa.com, Hi everyone. Welcome back. Today on thinkenergy, we're going to be talking about trees. Yes, you heard that correctly. Trees. I know this is a show about energy, but there's actually a very real connection between our electricity grid and those slow growing, majestic givers of shade, lumber, fruit and so many more benefits. Honestly, who doesn't love trees? But I'm not just kicking this episode off in my capacity as a tree hugger. Let's take a look at this through a utility lens, and I will use Hydro Ottawa as an example. Hydro Ottawa service territory includes some very rural and very forested areas. Even our urban territory has a fairly extensive tree canopy. As a result, Hydro Ottawa trims about 60,000 trees each year. Why? Because trees contracting power infrastructure is a big problem. Tree interference remains a leading cause of power outages for us. Strong winds force them onto our wires. Heavy snow or freezing rain builds up and weighs down branches, breaks limbs, and increases the risk that part of a tree may touch a line, and in some extreme cases, heavy storms can even send trees or branches crashing into our poles, damaging the poles. The struggle between power lines and trees, which, again, don't get me wrong, we all love trees, has been going on for years. There is a constant struggle between trimming enough and getting the right trees trimmed and maintaining as much tree coverage as we can. In 2022 we identified a disruptor in this dance, the solution came through a partnership with Overstory, a company that uses satellite imagery, infrared technology and artificial intelligence to help utilities manage vegetation and trim trees more efficiently. And the timing could not have been better. Just days after we started working with Overstory in the spring of 2022 the derecho hit Ottawa. Our Ottawa based listeners will remember this storm well. It was monumental in the history of our city, and indeed for us as utility, winds reached 190 kilometers an hour. For our non-metric listeners, that's nearly 120 miles per hour. The storm ripped through poles houses and cause considerable damage to our city's urban forests. Overstory played a crucial role during the cleanup and in helping us level up our vegetation management strategies moving forward, we realized that the insights we got from Overstory would help improve our proactive approach to tree encroachment and hazard identification, and this is essential in this era of extreme weather events. We know that climate change is causing more frequent and more extreme weather events. According to Climate Central, the number of weather related power outages in the United States increased by 78% between 2011 and 2021 and severe weather accounted for over 1000 outages across Nova Scotia just in the year of 2024 we want to keep you connected during these heavy storms, and that's why we're looking to organizations like Overstory. So what does Overstory do to help us keep the lights on? Well, without giving away too much, because we're going to get into the details shortly, Overstory through a detailed analysis of the scans they do of our entire grid, identifies high risk areas, which we can then prioritize and better ...
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    40 m
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