Original Comment by Kyle Pesek:
Research is progressing well as my ‘working’ draft version of the Report has been completed as of tonight (following several unexpected veterinary visits over the weekend for a recent foster pup under my care). While I have found an immense amount of success in finding information that pertains to a national roll-out of renewable energy, there was substantially more difficulty on finding information relevant to our specific Midwestern areas of operation. I am still awaiting colleague feedback from this week’s online Workshop, but I have also just sent the Draft Report to several interested parties also working for my current utility employer, Alliant Energy. I am hoping all of these forms of feedback will return within the current or next week so that I have ample time to process all of the varying comments to enhance the overall effectiveness of the final Report.
List of action items to complete prior to submitting project:
Beginning working on the Presentation and finish the Draft Presentation this week.
Synthesize information and transfer graphics from the Report research into a digestible Presentation format.
Check between Presentation and Report to ensure agreement of general points and ideas.
Finalize proofreading Report and incorporate feedback from this week’s Report Draft workshop.
Follow-up with those inside my organization who are already developing our renewable energy portfolio in order to incorporate any feedback based on the most recent corporate positions.
My Comment:
Hi Kyle,
Great insight in terms of content of sources. Would any of the information pertaining to a national roll-out of renewable energy be useful to support any of the sub-arguments of the report even if the topic does not directly relate? Perhaps, the sources pertaining to a national roll-out of renewable energy could help clarify concepts or terms that are too complicated for the audience to understand without expanding upon them. Or maybe, the a component of the content pertaining to a national roll-out would serve as a useful model to exemplify actions that should be taken on the regional level.
Also, just as you’re having interested parties who are also working for your current utility employer read the report, they may be good sources of information or know what direction to point you in to find additional perspectives. Would it be helpful to write out specific questions for the colleagues to help them provide specific feedback? Have you considered passing on the report to colleagues in various departments to get input based upon a diverse set of experience?
Comment by Kyle Pesek:
Hi Mary,
Considering that the Board of Directors of a Midwestern utility are the target audience, they should already be familiar with complicated vocabulary relevant to these issues. So I should be able to rely upon sophisticated electrical grid modernization terminology without having to dwell too long on definitions–though I should still establish baseline definitions if there are any terms liable to cause misunderstanding if left unclarified.
I should draw upon additional case studies that show the difficulties and efficiencies experienced by utility-scale solar/wind/biomass rollouts across the nation (with preference given to studies in geographical areas experiencing a similar climate to the upper-Midwest).
I have reached out to colleagues with questions for where to look into internal company resources and disseminated a few pieces of documentation that have been released publicly. There is a fine line as to what counts as a company/trade secret versus useful research data. Luckily, the company seems more than welcome to the idea of spreading information on the sustainability upgrades to our operations so long as nothing jeapordizes the security of our electrical grid distribution/transmission infrastructure. This has been extremely prevalent on the minds of company leadership from even before the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack only last year (Kelly and Jessica Resnick-ault 2021).
References:
Kelly, Stephanie, and Jessica Resnick-ault. 2021. “One password allowed hackers to disrupt Colonial Pipeline, CEO tells senators.” Reuters, June 8. https://www.reuters.com/business/colonial-pipeline-ceo-tells-senate-cyber-defenses-were-compromised-ahead-hack-2021-06-08