Just Power · 2026-06-04 · 18 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
28 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Parrs uses this finale to synthesize her season-long investigation into energy affordability solutions, moving beyond policy recommendations to examine *where* solutions actually originate. Rather than finding answers in Washington or federal programs, she discovered them in people like Duanne at the Solar Energy Loan Fund (SELF) in Florida, who built inclusive lending models that conventional banks rejected; Jennifer Gremmert at Energy Outreach Colorado, who centered real community voices; Eric Blank at the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, who repurposed securitization tools for grid resilience; Meena at NICOR Gas, testing net-zero affordability through a Habitat for Humanity pilot; and Utibe at Dominion Energy, embedding "love" as a operational KPI for customer care. Parrs argues that when leaders hand their authority to external systems - federal budgets, policy cycles, utility mandates - they become volatile with those systems. But the durable change she witnessed this season came from ground-up action: people who understood their leverage and used it without waiting. She frames the current retreat of federal funding not as defeat but as a revelation of where real power lies - with frontline leaders willing to build exactly what their communities need right now. The episode concludes by teasing her new "Leading Through Energy Affordability Training," designed to equip leaders across utilities, advocacy, research, and community work with strategic frameworks and communication tools to drive local action.
Rather than finding solutions in federal programs or policy windows, Parrs discovered that real credible responses were coming from specific people in specific places who decided not to wait - including lenders, community advocates, regulators, utilities, and researchers taking action locally without federal mandates.
SELF created a four-lane lending model serving homeowners with no credit, low credit, or credit damaged by life events (divorce, health diagnosis, emergency), maintaining a default rate under 2% over 13 years - proving the system mislabeled and excluded a large group of people rather than those applicants being too risky.
Securitization is a financial tool that had primarily been used for closing coal plants; Eric Blank, chair of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, applied it in a new way to protect ratepayers from the cost of upgrading aging grid infrastructure.
Utibe described love as an actual operational standard - not a values poster - for how her customer service team shows up for struggling customers, even putting call center agents on live television during a cold snap to answer real customer calls in real time.
Parrs is launching a training program for leaders and emerging leaders - utility professionals, researchers, advocates, communicators, and community leaders - to develop strategic literacy and communication tools to lead through energy affordability from wherever they stand with whatever leverage they have.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode is primarily a motivational season recap and training-program pitch rather than a substantive analysis. The few genuinely informative data points (SELF's default rate, six million people losing assistance) are brief callouts to prior episodes, not developed insights, and the three 'observations' reduce to platitudes about grassroots action.
the most durable change has never come from the top down. It has always been built from the ground up
The work does not stop when the federal pendulum swings. It moves. It gets more local. It gets more specific.
The central thesis - local and grassroots action outlasts federal policy swings - is a well-worn frame in energy, climate, and community-organizing circles; nothing here challenges conventional thinking or offers a counterintuitive mechanism. The most interesting idea (love as a KPI inside a utility) is borrowed from a prior guest and not developed.
When you hand over your power, you become as volatile as the system you handed it to
the retreat of federal support, as painful as it is, has revealed something important. It has shown us where the real power was all along
This is a solo episode with no guest; the host is a sustainability communications consultant reflecting on her season and pitching a training program. Referenced practitioners from prior episodes (utility VPs, regulators, nonprofit directors) appear to be legitimate operators, but they are not present in this episode and their substance cannot be evaluated here.
I have been building something. It started with the same question that drove this entire season, and it became a framework. And that framework is becoming a training
from the 25 years I've been working in environmental and sustainability communications and strategy
The episode contains a handful of genuine specifics - named organizations, a verifiable default-rate figure, a customer-count figure - that lift it above pure abstraction, though these are brief callouts to prior interviews rather than evidence built and examined within this episode.
in 13 years, their default rate has stayed under 2%. Two percent. On loans the system said were too risky to make
Six million people lost access to just one assistance program
As a solo monologue there is no interviewing, no follow-up, and no pushback; the episode's structure is a three-point motivational speech that closes with a training-program call to action, which limits any meaningful evaluation of host craft as a questioner or challenger.
This is not a summary of the season. You know, go back, listen - there were fantastic interviews and you've heard the data. This is my response to it
So if you're interested in being among the first to know about it when it launches, there's a link in the show notes
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
This episode is different. No guests. No data. Just Carolyn Parrs revealing what she has been sitting with since finishing eleven conversations about energy affordability this season - and what she believes every leader in this space needs to hear right now. This is not a political statement. It is a leadership reckoning. Because the truth this season made impossible to ignore is this: the most credible responses to the energy affordability crisis are not coming from Washington. They never were. They are coming from a lender in Florida who built what the banks refused to build. A utility VP who made love a business strategy. A regulator who got creative with a financial tool and protected ratepayers in a way no one had tried before. A community advocate who put real people front and center as witnesses, not statistics. Different sectors. Different seats. Different cities. Same instinct: I'm not waiting. If you lead in this space - or want to - this episode is calling you forward. Be on the waiting list for early access to our "Leading Through Energy Affordability" training.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Just Power Podcast - Season 5 Season Finale: I’m Not Waiting (S5:E12) Host: Carolyn Parrs | Solo Episode Carolyn Parrs : Well, here we are. Here we are. Season five of Just Power is officially complete. And I’ve been sitting with it, really sitting with it for a few weeks now, because this season did something to me that I didn’t fully anticipate.
I came to it with a question, and if you’ve been listening, I’ve asked every single guest this question: What does a credible response to energy affordability actually look like right now? Carolyn Parrs : And I thought I would find answers like smart policies or innovative financing, good programs. And I did. I heard lots of them.
I’m sure you did too. But what I didn’t expect - what became impossible to ignore by the time I finished my last conversation - was where those credible responses were coming from and where they weren’t. Well, they weren’t coming from Washington. Carolyn Parrs : They were not waiting on federal programs or policy windows or a budget line in a bill or a utility program.
They were coming from people - specific people in specific places who looked at the problem in front of them and decided: I am not waiting. Carolyn Parrs : That is what this episode today is all about. It’s not a summary of the season. You know, go back, listen - there were fantastic interviews and you’ve heard the data.
This is my response to it. What I actually think about it, what changed for me in doing it, and what I believe it means for every single person listening to this right now. Observation 1: When You Hand Over Your Power Carolyn Parrs : My first observation was this. When you hand over your power, you become as volatile as the system you handed it to.
I want to say that carefully because I’m not making a political statement here. I am making a leadership observation. Carolyn Parrs : For decades, a lot of the progress we have made in energy, in climate, in equity - a lot of it has been tied to federal funding, no doubt. Federal programs, mandates.
And when that support is there, it is real and it matters, and people’s lives are better for it. So I am definitely not dismissing that. Carolyn Parrs : But here is what this season made very clear to me. When we build our work on the foundation of any external authority - government, a funding cycle, a policy window, an executive inside of a utility - we become as volatile as that authority.
Because when it shifts, you shift. When it retreats, you have to retreat. When it disappears, you’re left scrambling. That personally happened to me.
Carolyn Parrs : And right now, as we all know, it has shifted. Significantly. Federal funding for energy and climate programs has been pulled back. And you might be experiencing this personally yourself.
Programs that communities have depended on for years have been cut. Six million people lost access to just one assistance program. That’s not a statistic. That’s six million people.
Carolyn Parrs : And we’ve heard from a few of them in this series with Jennifer Gremmert in Episode 2. Please go back to that. Those are the real voices, the real deal. But here’s what I also know from the 25 years I’ve been working in environmental and sustainability communications and strategy: this has happened before.
This has happened before. The energy crisis of the 70s, the rollbacks after the Recovery Act. Carolyn Parrs : Every time the federal pendulum swings away from this work, people panic. I did at the beginning.
I really had that, even though I’ve been through it before. But then slowly, quietly, without waiting for permission, we get back to work. Because here’s the truth: the most durable change has never come from the top down. It has always been built from the ground up by people who understood their leverage point and used it.
By leaders who did not need a federal mandate to know what the right thing was to do. Over and over again, this season proved that. Observation 2: The People Who Didn’t Wait Carolyn Parrs : My second observation is: the people who didn’t wait. I want to tell you about some of the people I sat with this season because I think the range of who they are is the whole point.
It doesn’t come from just one sector that we think it might come from. It’s happening inside places that you just didn’t think it could happen. Carolyn Parrs : Duanne, who runs the Solar Energy Loan Fund in Florida - otherwise known as SELF. Before energy affordability was the headline, they’ve been making loans to homeowners that conventional banks have turned away for years.
People with no credit or low credit or credit damaged by a life occurrence - a divorce, a health diagnosis, an emergency. They built a four-lane lending model so that everyone has a pathway. And in 13 years, their default rate has stayed under 2%. Two percent.
On loans the system said were too risky to make. And Duanne put it this way: what do those numbers prove? That the system is wrong. It has mislabeled a large group of people and just left them out.
And Duanne didn’t wait for the system to fix itself. She and the folks at SELF built around it - very successfully. Carolyn Parrs : And then there was Jennifer Gremmert at Energy Outreach Colorado. She did something that sounds simple but is actually radical - we put the voices of real people in her community front and center.
Not as a statistic. As witnesses. And she’s using those videos to build more momentum and to make the case. The people closest to the problem turned out to be the most powerful argument for solving it.
Carolyn Parrs : And then we had Eric Blank, who chairs the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. He was instrumental in taking a financial tool called securitization - which has mostly only been used for closing coal plants - and applied it in a completely new way to protect ratepayers from the cost of upgrading our aging grid. It’s creative. It’s specific.
It’s local. He’s using the authority he has in a way that no one had thought of before. Carolyn Parrs : And then we have Meena - she’s the VP at NICOR Gas, a utility serving 2.3 million customers in Northern Illinois.
And she’s running a neighborhood pilot with Habitat for Humanity to test what it actually costs for a family on a fixed income to own and operate a net zero home over 30 years. Breakthrough. Net zero isn’t an aspiration here. Net zero is something a real family can actually afford to live in.
And this is happening inside a utility. Carolyn Parrs : And then one of my favorites - I must say - was Utibe. She is the VP of Customer Experience at Dominion Energy, one of the largest utilities in the country. And she said something in our conversation that I am still pondering and it still opens my heart.
She talked about love. Love as a business strategy. Inside of a utility. Love as a KPI.
This wasn’t a metaphor - not some values poster on a wall next to an elevator. It was an actual operational standard inside a utility for how her team shows up for customers who are struggling. Carolyn Parrs : She put her call center agents on live television during a brutal cold snap, taking real customer calls in real time. And when I asked her how she did that, what gave her the courage, she said: what you need on game day, you’ve been building all season long.
A VP inside a major utility, talking about love as a KPI. It was one of the most powerful moments of the entire season. Because that is not a federal program. It is not a policy mandate.
That is a leader deciding what standard she was going to hold herself and her team to - and then building it, day in, day out, conversation by conversation, before anybody was watching. Carolyn Parrs : A lender in Florida. A community advocate. A regulator getting creative with financial tools.
A utility running a neighborhood pilot. A VP leading with love. Different sectors. Different seats.
Different cities. But the same instinct: they were not waiting. They just did it. They did what was right.
Observation 3: It’s Up to Us - And That’s the Good News Carolyn Parrs : My observation number three: it’s up to us. And that is actually the good news. And I know with that, I have to say this. I know that right now, a lot of people in this field, it feels like a hard time.
I personally have had two contracts disintegrate before my eyes when the political environment changed - like overnight. I’ve talked to people who have lost their jobs, their funding, a beloved program they counted on. And when that happens, it feels like the ground has gone out from under you. I bet you’ve had that feeling before.
Carolyn Parrs : But here’s what I want to offer. A different frame. Because I think the retreat of federal support, as painful as it is, has revealed something important. It has shown us where the real power was all along.
It was with the people. The people doing the work. The Duannes, the Meenas, the Jennifers, the Utibes, the Bens. The commissioners who take their road show to the communities instead of waiting for communities to come to them.
The researchers who go inside the homes and give us the language for what energy insecurity actually feels like - which is what Dr. Diana Hernandez did. And the advocates who sit in rate case after rate case, year after year, making sure that the people most affected by the decisions have a seat at the table - like Jolette Westbrook and John Wilson. Carolyn Parrs : The work does not stop when the federal pendulum swings.
It moves. It gets more local. It gets more specific. It gets more creative.
And honestly, based on what I heard this season, it gets more powerful. Because when you are not waiting for permission, you’re free to build exactly what that moment requires - what the community in front of you actually needs right now. That is the leadership opportunity of this moment. And I believe - I genuinely believe - that the people listening to this podcast are the people who will rise to it.
Maybe that’s you. I hope it’s you. What’s Next: Leading Through Energy Affordability Training Carolyn Parrs : So what’s next? Here’s what I’ve been doing with all of this.
For the last year, I have been building something. It started with the same question that drove this entire season, and it became a framework. And that framework is becoming a training. The Leading Through Energy Affordability Training is a program for leaders and emerging leaders in this space - utility professionals, researchers, advocates, communicators, community leaders - who want to go deeper.
Not just understand the crisis, but develop the skills, the strategic literacy, and the communication tools to lead through it. From wherever they stand, with whatever leverage they have. Carolyn Parrs : Everything I heard this season - the five patterns that kept showing up across all of the conversations - that is the foundation being built right here in this training. Because this is not abstract.
This is the work. And there are real tools for doing it better. So if you’re interested in being among the first to know about it when it launches, there’s a link in the show notes. Go there, it takes 30 seconds, and you’ll be on the list.
Early access, early pricing, and a chance to interact with me directly and give your input. Carolyn Parrs : To every guest who has been on my show this season - thank you. From the bottom of my heart. You are the ones on the front line making the change.
And to you, my dear listeners, thank you for being part of this conversation. It matters more than you know. Please subscribe to Just Power - it means the world to us. Carolyn Parrs : I’m Carolyn Parrs.
This is Just Power. And as always - we are all in this together.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
Everybody Wants AI. Who's Paying for It?AI Proving Ground Podcast · on Dominion Energy85 / 100
Leadership Alignment, the Right Seat, and Customer Trust with Bryant RichardsonYour Customer, Your Success · on Customer experience strategy78 / 100
108 Years In: What It Takes to Lead in the Third Generation with Jaclyn Leibl-CoteBuilding Unbreakable Brands · on Customer experience strategy77 / 100
Zero Waste at 73,000 Seats: How Mercedes-Benz Stadium Built a Closed-Loop SystemSustainable Design Lab · on Habitat for Humanity74 / 100
Why Great Leaders Communicate Like CreatorsExperts of Experience · on Customer experience strategy72 / 100
CX Superheroes podcast - Series 14 Episode 3 - Optimising not Commercialising AI - Umberto and Vittorio PadovanoCustomer Experience Superheroes · on Customer experience strategy70 / 100Leading Through Energy Affordability: The Episode That Predicted This Season (S5:E11)86 / 100Leading Through Energy Affordability: An Open Door Isn't a Seat at the Table (S5:E10)81 / 100Leading Through Energy Affordability: Rewriting the Rules of Lending (S5:E9)86 / 100Leading Through Energy Affordability: The Watchdogs Inside the Room (S5:E8)88 / 100Leading Through Energy Affordability: From Pilot to Practice With NICOR Gas (S5:E7)84 / 100