EAC Spotlight #9: Daniel Brooks and Jay Morrison

This summer, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the new and returning members of the Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC), which advises DOE on electricity resilience, reliability, security, interdependency, and policy issues. In a new series of posts, we hear from the members of the EAC to learn more about their backgrounds, their predictions for the future of the electric grid, and their advice for young professionals in the energy space. 

This week we are highlighting EAC members Daniel Brooks and Jay Morrison.

Q: Why did you join the EAC? What made you want to become a committee member? 
We are facing unprecedented challenges and rates of change to meet those challenges in the energy sector at a time when the reliable supply of electricity is more critical than ever. Solving these challenges requires that we collaborate broadly across various stakeholders. The individuals assembled to participate on the EAC to advise DOE are some of the brightest in their fields. Who wouldn’t want to partner with such a capable group to help our country navigate the challenging questions that face us?

Q: What have you worked on during your time in the EAC?
I’ve enjoyed Identifying pathways to meet decarbonization goals and developing guidelines for evaluating and investing in resiliency alternatives. I’ve also enjoyed working on the integration of high-penetration renewables, distributed energy resources, energy storage, and other emerging resources to ensure operational reliability through the energy transition.

Q: Can you tell us about your professional journey that led you to the EAC?
I started my career working for a consulting company doing power system modeling and simulation studies to primarily support utility distribution planning and power quality functions particularly related to integrating distributed generation. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was fortunate to get involved in large-scale wind integration studies and worked on several of the first North American integration studies when we were trying to determine how a few hundred megawatts of wind capacity might impact a large interconnected system. After participating in many bulk system wind integration studies, I joined EPRI to lead research to develop solutions to renewables integration challenges. At EPRI, my responsibilities expanded to include transmission and distribution system planning, operations, and protection research including DER and energy storage integration, system resiliency, and high-penetration renewables integration. I recently was asked to lead a research sector that integrates our system modeling and simulation capabilities across supply, delivery, and customer resources in the context of emerging climate and energy system integration needs.

Q: Why did you join the EAC? What made you want to become a committee member?
The industry is at a critical stage in its evolution. The direction it takes from here could have a dramatic impact on the daily lives of Americans. DOE plays a critical role in the industry’s future. The research it conducts and the reports it issues has – and will continue to have – a real impact on the industry.  Participating in the EAC is an exciting opportunity to engage in a real conversations about DOE’s activities and the support it provides to the industry and to policymakers.

Q: What advice do you have for a young person considering a career in the electricity industry?
First, this is a great industry. Welcome. Energy is an essential service. It is essential to the economy and it is essential to the health and wellbeing of individual people: you, your family, the people in your community, and the folks you may never meet who grow the food on your table and produce the consumer goods that make your life comfortable. Your career will be more meaningful if you can find purpose in serving those people.

Second, this is an exciting industry because it is evolving rapidly. Find somewhere to work where you have the freedom to evolve with the industry, to learn and grow as the industry changes, to ride the wave. But be sure to recognize the importance of a historical perspective. Talk to people who know where the industry came from and what drove the earlier stages of evolution so you can make better judgments about prospective changes that make sense or not. That perspective will help you shape the direction in which the industry grows, hopefully for the benefit of the people who rely on energy in their daily lives.    

Q: What new developments excite you about the future of energy?
I am excited by the development of new tools on the customer and utility side of the retail meter that will make it possible for utilities and their customers to enhance their partnership for the benefit of all.  For more than 30 years, electric cooperatives have used demand response to reduce power supply costs and enhance system operations for the benefits of their member-owners. The tools they used tended to be simple and fairly inexpensive. The range of response and benefits available from those tools, though valuable, was similarly modest. The potential benefits, however, will likely grow dramatically with digitization, the deployment of increasingly smart meters, the construction of more high-speed communications, the development of better tools such as DERMS, and increasing penetration of DER including electric vehicles.   

Watch this space for more profiles of the members of the Electricity Advisory Committee

Each profile above represents the member’s own thoughts and does not reflect the position of DOE.