When the Industry Starts to Jam: A Day 3 DistribuTECH Recap
Energy Central’s ‘Day 3’ at DistribuTECH looked very different from the first two — and that was entirely by design.
If you’ve been following along on LinkedIn, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been… prolific this week. Guilty as charged. When there’s this much good stuff happening, it feels almost irresponsible not to share it with the folks who couldn’t make it to San Diego (and even with those who are here but inevitably seeing a different slice of the conference). If I clogged your feed, sorry not sorry — I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
But you may also have noticed something else: Wednesday was quieter from me. That wasn’t because the energy dipped. It’s because I finally stopped being an observer and fully stepped into the role of participant.
Day 3 was about creating, not just consuming.
Energy Central was fortunate to spend the day linking up with three of our partners — IFS, Southwire, and Locusview — for a series of really special interviews. We didn’t half-step it either. We brought out the big guns: a full videographer crew on the show floor, a makeshift private podcast studio literally overlooking the entire DistribuTECH exhibition hall, and most importantly, thoughtful industry voices with real-world experience and something meaningful to say. Huge thanks to everyone who gave us their time and candor (Drew Pearson, Emily Witcher, Danny Petrecca, Lance Olmsted, Timothy Swanson, Tom Rahder, Kelsey Cook, and Marc Lamoureux) — these were conversations worth slowing down for.
Our team is already deep in the editing trenches turning those interviews around, so I won’t spoil the punchlines just yet. But a few themes have been echoing in my head ever since we packed up the microphones.
First: AI and DERs are finally being reframed — not as existential threats or runaway problems to “solve,” but as tools we already have in hand. The smartest voices aren’t panicking about the sky falling; they’re flipping the script and asking how to deploy these tools intelligently to make the hardest grid challenges more manageable. That mindset shift felt real this week.