Best of August 2026

Volts published eight conversations in August — with two Idaho state legislators, a grid cybersecurity expert, the architect of Uruguay's energy transition, an EV charging exec, and more — which is a lot for anyone to listen to. We've rounded up the highlights into a single hour. Enjoy!

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction and how the best-of series works

01:59 – Saleem Chapman on why every market design fails ratepayers the same way

07:51 – Patrick Miller on Chinese inverters and commodity boards

12:22 – Ben Toews and Megan Egbert on how Idaho's housing bills happened

18:34 – Seth Cutler on why an IONNA site is technically a bakery

22:52 – Ramón Méndez Galain on getting every Uruguayan party to sign one plan

28:00 – Quinn Nakayama on why a utility would adopt something that saves money

34:16 – Varun Sivaram on workload tiers and who pays when flexing goes wrong

38:44 – Todd Tucker on the Defense Production Act precedent

44:20 – Closing note and what to send in