Green Tech: James McPhail of Enersponse On How Their Technology Will Make An Important Positive Impact On The Environment

An Interview With Jilea Hemmings

Enersponse customers are able to use cleaner, greener, cheaper energy all while removing strain from the grid, reducing their use of fossil fuels and ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Our programs connect thousands of buildings and smart devices to trigger small daily adjustments that can reduce massive amounts of energy consumption in the long run.

In recent years, many companies are doing important work and making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these companies, we started an interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of companies who are creating or have created innovative technology that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Enersponse CEO James McPhail.

James McPhail is the founder and CEO of Enersponse. McPhail brings more than 20 years of experience working in the energy sector, having held previous positions at Encycle Energy, EnerNOC, EnergyLogic and Zen Ecosystems.

His passion for automated demand response and partnering with other industry leaders to drive the automation of distributed energy resources led him to found Enersponse in 2015.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I was your typical Southern California kid that grew up enjoying the beach and mountains on the weekends, spoiled with the convenience of being so close to both. That said, I felt constantly surrounded by smog or the smell of smoke from the seasonal wildfires. Those sensory touchpoints became all too normal in this beautiful place I was able to call home. I remember so many days asking my mother why it was cloudy over Los Angeles when we’d be driving down from Lake Arrowhead and her recurring response was, “Those aren’t clouds, son, that’s smog.”

While the visual impact was surreal, there was also the physical impact in those grade school years. I remember competing with friends in 3rd and 4th grade to see who could take the deepest breath without coughing on heavy smog days. Looking back, I realize how uninformed we were and how much worse the issue has become over time. The fact that your smartphone includes air quality measures is great for our health but we need to move well beyond awareness and take action.

Can you share an interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

About 20 years ago, I was just getting into the energy sector and began working with a very innovative company that took waste motor oil and used it as a heating source. The technology was impressive and the notion of taking a waste product and recycling it as an energy source was incredibly appealing to me. I was living in Nashville, Tenn. at the time but spent most weeks on a plane setting up a distribution network and was very familiar with certifications like UL and CE. Initially, most of our distributors were in cooler climates but eventually we began expanding into the warmer southern-most parts of the United States.

It wasn’t until I started working with a potential distributor in my home state that I realized the product I was selling was not legal in California. I guess it was the time away from larger metropolitan areas; becoming accustomed to the refreshing, clean air of Tennessee; and the rural areas of the country I frequented that caused me to not appreciate the environmental impact of oil-fired heat. Now I know there are arguments to be made on both sides and while our product burned cleaner than competing products, it was a realization that sparked a desire to pursue a path in renewable energy. Desire quickly morphed into passion and drove me to create my company, Enersponse, to help make energy conservation and decarbonization accessible to all.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’ve learned many invaluable lessons from some incredibly smart individuals over the years, ranging from current founders and CEOs of large publicly traded energy companies, to frequent advice from former FERC Commissioner John Wellinghoff, to brilliant engineers in scrappy startups. While I’ve gained so much knowledge from these relationships, there’s always those one or two people that truly put you on a path towards success. Now to be clear, my wife has always been my biggest supporter and talked me down more times than there are stars in our galaxy, but there are two other mentors that come to mind that I regularly seek advice from to this day.

Rob Stevens, founder of EnergyLogic, was a huge influence on my initial professional development and entrusted me with so much of his business at an early age. Additionally, Tim Angus, CEO of Encycle Energy, exposed me to the world of building a business in cleantech. I remember the excitement of my first board meeting; the feeling of being included in the first investor pitch; and educating countless people on how we were making a positive impact on the environment with our green technology…I was hooked.

Can you please give us your favorite life lesson quote and share why or how it’s impacted the way you live?

“Sometimes we live no particular way but our own” is a quote I often lean on from my favorite Grateful Dead song, “Eyes of the World.”

I didn’t take a typical path in my personal or professional life. I had my first child at 18, decided to get married and then had two more children by the time I was 23. It was tough but through sheer determination I landed jobs that were well beyond my level of experience at the time and had the grit to figure out how to succeed in them. I’ve learned from the stories of others, both good and bad, but keep this song line in mind when I think of comparing the way I’ve lived my life to those around me.

I’ve started nearly a dozen businesses over the years — a few winners, and several that failed. Some of my companies were created for money and some were made purely for my soul. Everyone has a story and it’s our stories that shape us. I stopped trying to change people a long time ago and now try my hardest to understand them. Be it politics, religion, business or any other topic, I find it better to listen more than we talk and learn to respect other’s walks of life.

What three personality/character traits do you think have been the most instrumental to your success? Please share a brief example of each, if possible.

a. Commitment and Passion. I am fully committed and passionate about my goal to help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions, which is one of the many reasons I started Enersponse. I always put my all into what I do and try to be infectious about the causes I care about. I could show up and simply put in my eight hours Monday through Friday but instead choose to pour myself into every project we take on at my company. My team also provides me with the feeling that what I do isn’t just a job or a project, it’s much bigger than that. We get to positively impact the environment and help work towards a sustainable future.

b. Delegation and Empowerment. What we are doing is not a small feat — it is a huge project and requires dedication from everyone at Enersponse. Each team member’s skillset is necessary for the success of the business. Investing in our employees and making those genuine connections provides the ability for each person to develop and grow with the company. That said, you should always still remain vulnerable, which is best explained by Brene Brown in Daring Greatly.

c. Resilience. In the energy industry, there are many moving parts so the feeling of being overwhelmed becomes rather normal. There are some days and weeks where it seems like there is no end to the madness that comes with our job but I push through knowing that my team and our customers are doing our part to decarbonize the energy sector.

The main point of our discussion is to focus on the tech your company employs and how it is making a positive impact on the planet and the environment. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

When the demand for energy is greater than the supply, the current solution is often turning to using brown energy created from fossil fuels, oil or coal. Orit may lead to blackouts or brownouts because the grid cannot keep up with the energy demands. Neither of these situations are ideal and I started Enersponse to find a better solution.

How do you think your technology can address this?

We created a unique intelligent automation platform that simplifies the process of actively participating in distributed energy programs across many industries in the U.S. Enersponse customers are able to use cleaner, greener, cheaper energy all while removing strain from the grid, reducing their use of fossil fuels and ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Our programs connect thousands of buildings and smart devices to trigger small daily adjustments that can reduce massive amounts of energy consumption in the long run. What’s more is that these energy-saving adjustments can be customized to the client’s preference and are available to businesses of all sizes in the commercial and industrial sector across the country.

Can you provide background on what inspired you to feel passionate about this?

When people hear that you live in Southern California, they think of the beaches, mountains, city life, Hollywood, etc. They also think about the negatives like the extreme smog, air pollution and devastating fires. It is important that we, in California and elsewhere, focus on reducing our GHG emissions and opt for cleaner and greener energy alternatives. We need to make it easy to act when the grid needs help stabilizing.

How do you think you can incite change with this tech?

By providing a simple and convenient means to participating in energy programs, Enersponse has created an easy way for businesses to get involved. Companies with multiple locations can access energy reporting on a site, regional or national level with our automated solutions. They can even see how the company as a whole is positively impacting the environment. They can use this data to support the ESG reports showing information on how much GHG and Co2 emissions they have avoided for the year. The high-level reporting can even reveal areas to reduce energy consumption even further. The solution has to be simple and it has to work with existing controls — which is exactly what we’ve worked so hard to create at Enersponse.

Do you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about (i.e., the Law of Unintended Consequences)?

Historically, demand response programs have been difficult for some energy consumers to participate in. However, our goal is to make the entire process simple and convenient. At the end of the day, we’re chasing a moving target. With every new electrical vehicle, and I fully support moving away from fossil fuels, we increase our need for more energy. More solar panels don’t solve for the peak loads that we’re putting on the grid in the evening hours after sunset. Our highest energy prices are moving later into the day and they’re going to keep getting later.

We need to continue to innovate and bring new solutions to our electrical grids. Not for the sake of selling new things but for the sustainability of life. We need to use less fossil fuels, no question, but before we throw billions of dollars at lithium batteries and other costly equipment, we should pick off the low hanging fruit. Using software to intelligently manage smart devices in homes or building management systems in our favorite stores is like grandma telling us to turn off the light when you leave the room. Let’s do a better job of being mindful of how we use energy –adjust your thermostat by degree or two; swap out the rest of those fluorescent bulbs for LEDs; and participate in an energy management programs –which we can help with. Enersponse is here to connect companies with energy programs and make things seamless for companies trying to reduce their carbon footprint.

Can you please share the five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can create a positive social impact? (Please provide a brief example of each, if possible.)

a. Identify the gaps. There are so many but resist temptation and pick one to focus on first.

b. Know what you’re addressing and who is it good for. Who and what will this benefit?

c. Know how to sell your solution. There are some amazing technologies out there now that won’t make it to market for years because the founders haven’t done a great job of selling it.

d. Build the right team. Hire people that know more than you do. Be a leader and inspire creativity.

e. Deliver! If you’re having to crunch numbers eight different ways in order to see results, you’re not delivering. Don’t drink your own Kool-Aid — get back to the whiteboard and figure it out. “Fake it till you make it” is a much longer road and usually a recipe for disaster.

If you could share one sentiment with others about making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you’re doing, what would you tell them?

Be tenacious but remain humble. Find balance in your professional life and still make time for loved ones. The price we pay for all things we do is life.

If you could choose anyone in the world, who would you like to have a 1:1 breakfast or lunch, and why?

The poet Nina Browning because who wouldn’t want to get a second chance to say goodbye. Unfortunately, she passed early but was larger than life. So often, it’s not until they’re gone that you realize how much wisdom some people had to share.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

We’re always posting our latest milestones on our website, at enersponse.com or you can also check out our social media channels:

· LinkedIn: Enersponse Inc.

· Instagram: @enersponse

· Facebook: @Enersponse

· Twitter: @enersponse

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.