He Built an AI That Lets Anyone Design Their Own Microgrid Power System (with Joe Glass)

Speaker A: Today on Lead with AI, we're talking about the future of energy and why the traditional power grid may no longer be enough for an AI driven world. I'm joined by Joe Glass, founder of Micro Grid Me, to explore how intelligent micro grids are reshaping energy resilience, local power generation, and the way communities prepare for a more connected and energy demanding future. Let's get into it.

Speaker B: Welcome to lead with AI. I'm Dr. Tamara Nall. In each episode, we will take you behind the scenes with visionary leaders shaping the future of AI across public and private sectors. Join us as we explore groundbreaking projects and innovations that are transforming industries and making a real impact on people's lives. Let's dive in.

Speaker A: So hello everyone and welcome m back to another episode of lead with AI. I'm your host, Dr. T. And I want to thank you every single week. Because of you and your listening to each and every episode, we were able to hit number one in technology we on Apple Podcasts last year we were a Webby honoree and we won the W3 gold award. And that would not be possible with your tuning in every week to learn about exciting AI tools. And we have an exciting guest today, Joe Glass from Micro Grid Me. How are you, Joe?

Speaker C: I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker A: Absolutely. You know, this energy crisis or whatever we have going on is a big deal. So I'm really excited that, uh, you're here today. Talk about how you're helping to solve this incredible complex problem. But before we get into Micro Grid Me, tell us about you as the founder. Who are you at your core? What is your passion and how did you even come up with the idea of Micro Grid Me and knowing there was a gap that you could solve?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we live in uncertain times, right? Uh, it's, it's hard to, uh, sometimes relate to one another. It's hard to, uh, survive. It's hard to make ends meet. Um, and I think that energy is a key part of that, whether it's driving emissions, um, that then drive our climate crisis and general instability, um, or just prices to your pocketbook. And so, uh, I, I'm, I've been a climate organizer, uh, in the past, um, and I believe in empowering people. Um, and so I looked at the general landscape, the rise of demand from, uh, AI hyperscalers in general, what that would do to our aging infrastructure. Um, and microgrids presented themselves as this pretty clear, obvious, uh, solution that's both creating energy where it's actually being used and Creating emissions, uh, free energy.

Speaker A: Got it. Awesome. M. Awesome. So you've been in this industry for a while and it is your passion. That's amazing. Um, so tell us, what is micro grid Me?

Speaker C: Yeah. Microgrid me is a uh, platform to enable anyone to design their power system. So solar and battery systems, they're complicated, our power use is dynamic and it's generally just evolves some engineering that most the vast majority of us don't know. Right. And that's a barrier for people for something that should be distributed and accessible to everyone. So when I built out my van about five years ago and I spent maybe 20 plus hours on YouTube, on different forums trying to figure out how to actually build the right power system for myself, um, and I ended up still doing it kind of wrong. And I have a background in some technical uh, engineering stuff.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: And so with the emergence of AI, um, and the ability to have these customized tool calls, um, I thought maybe we could, maybe I could build something that that solves that problem. And it turns out, it turns out I have and it reduces that design time from maybe 20 hours to 20 minutes.

Speaker A: Wow. And you said it can be different like I guess energy sources. I can have a little bit of electrical, a little bit of solar, like whatever I want. Wind, water. Can I have all those things or is it kind of limited?

Speaker C: You know, if you, if you have the wherewithal to set up a ah, mini hydro station in the creek behind your house, like sure, go for it. Um, I, I'm, I'm primarily focusing on solar. Um.

Speaker A: Got it.

Speaker C: But, but yeah, it's, it's a, ah, the system, the design um, is modular so you can, you can plug in whatever generation uh, you have access to.

Speaker A: That's amazing. And it also takes into consideration like oh, okay, I have shade on this side of my house or um, and you kind of can figure out how to set it up to get the greatest sun exposure if you will. I guess that's the right way to ask.

Speaker C: Yeah. Physical constraints are an important part of, of designing. Um, we abstract a little bit away from that, but it definitely is capable of considering those kind of things.

Speaker A: Got it, got it. And who are your typical customers?

Speaker C: Yeah. Where we've seen early market traction is, is really in the DIY marketplace. Right. Um, there's a, there's a number of more established micro grid design tools um, that are out there that you know, your residential solar providers use regularly. Right. Um, where what this is enabling, which didn't exist at all before, is for your average Joe, you know, to, to go and, and build their um, energy system for you know, their off grid cabin or their, their van or rv, you know. Um, yeah, so. Or their boat. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: That was really amazing. So um, in my for profit company leading niche I have my number two and he actually, he and his wife were in an RV and traveled around. She was a traveling nurse so they traveled around. This probably would have been very helpful for them. And he actually has a boat too so I'm going to have to tell him to check y' all out so he can get some energy on that boat.

Speaker C: Great, great.

Speaker A: He's always talking about the cost to maintain it. So I'm sure he would love to

Speaker C: be able to leverage more, more expensive things to maintain. That's perfect.

Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk about the holy smokes moment. Tell us about a time when one of your testers, users, customers actually use micro grid me and it changed everything for, for that customer.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I think it was, it was an early um, kind of just moving out of the testing phase and into the actual product deployment phase. Um, where I got a call from a friend of mine, um, and he was raving uh, about it and he had an rv, um, that he was trying to set up uh, for camping and he realized he kept doing these designs on mhm. Napkins, on spreadsheets, uh, getting it wrong over and over again. Um, I said maybe you should use this. Um, and he gave me a call and he was just so relieved because he was able to actually get it all down in one place, have his design saved, have all these power calculations happen for him and be able to make his purchase of components knowing that who's getting the right thing.

Speaker A: Got it. Wow. This sounds like, like, I don't know, I want to say chemical engineering but I know it's really electrical because a lot of it's electrical like et cetera. But I'm like that sounds like the back in the days my engineering classes. So that's cool. And it would be really cool to be like to now have a tool that does all of it for you versus back then when I use rulers and pencils and stuff like that. Dates me if you will. But um, so break it down for us. We're very curious nosy people. If we were to open up the hood of Michael Gridmy and really look at the brain in terms of how does it work. Talk to us about that.

Speaker C: Yeah, so, so it's pairing agentic tool calling with a, ah, robust knowledge base.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: And the Combination you get there is a intelligent expert, right. In this specific field. Um, so you're limiting the scope of what these extremely flexible tools are able to do, uh, down to a specific function. Um, and so I, you know, I've pulled a bunch of public sources of data on micro grids, on electrical engineering, um, on different use cases, uh, and then extract from that information to provide people with flexible answers. Um, so it's like talking to an expert, uh, but that expert can also see what you've designed, recommend improvements, um, run calculations on it, or just directly add things for you.

Speaker A: Right. Sounds absolutely amazing. That sounds amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Now let's talk about real world magic. So you yourself, um, are the founder. You saw a need, you gave us an example of, um, a customer who actually used it and reached out to you was like, wow, this is amazing. Tell us about a time where you were like blown away by the results of what micro grid me can do, where you were like, whoa, like, I was responsible for this. This is pretty cool.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, I mean, I mean every time it makes a design that I, you know, would consider, um, it's, it's always a bit of, it's always a bit of a wow. Um, I think, I think that the general scope and flexibility that it can handle, um, has, has really wowed me. Sometimes I was, I was on a call with somebody and um, watching them use it and they were planning a one, ah, hundred thirty one unit apartment complex. And this is pretty far outside of the scope of what I had, uh, initially. Right. At least, at least in terms of the initial deployment. Right. But that was what this person was interested in. Uh, and so they're asking it all these questions and I'm just watching it pull from the knowledge base and provide really good answers to it that you know, exceeded my understanding of, of pieces and had more things to consider than I would have pulled. And so, yeah, it's it. That was, that was a really impressive moment.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's good. Kudos to you, Joe. Happy about that. That's great. You know, when you really think about it, you know, you said it was a lot larger or different than what you had envisioned, um, initially. But when you think about, you know, 130, 131 unit apartment complex and the fact that we go back to what you talked in the beginning in terms of affordability issue like Michael Grid me allow, way I see it is that you can bring down, you know, your energy costs and therefore you have more money to, you know, go on a vacation Pay another bill, you know, just live life. And to me, that's like, brings me goosebumps, um, to know that your AI tool is helping just like the everyday person, you know what I'm saying? Which is really, really important when you think about it.

Speaker C: Yeah, we're, I mean, I'm, I'm definitely trying to improve people's lives on, on both ends of the spectrum. Right. Like, let's, let's make living cheaper so that you have more money to do the things that you love to do. And let's also make sure that if something bad happens, if there's some climate disaster, if a tree falls in your neighborhood. Right. Your vegetables aren't spoiling your fridge because you have backup power. Yeah, it, it does. It has that, that dual benefits.

Speaker A: Right? Yeah. And I'm gonna be honest. With everything that's going on in the world right now, I'm constantly thinking, like I even had, was thinking about putting a little garden out there. I'm always thinking, well, what would happen if. So this is definitely in line with where I'm thinking with everything that's going on. I want to be prepared for whatever.

Speaker C: You should definitely get. Make a garden for so many reasons.

Speaker A: Yes. I'm really excited about it. I grew up. My mother's passed away now 12 years, but we had a. I grew up with vegetables from her garden. And she would go out there and sing and have her little basket and pick them and then every season she would plant them. My sister has incorporated that in her house. I just need to do it too. But just talking about it just brings so much joy to my face with the memories, et cetera. So that's good. Now let's go into the ethics of this. I mean, obviously, you know, it has a huge knowledge base. There are people that are depending on the results for their energy supply. What are the ethical considerations that you've kept in mind as you've built out this AI tool in this company?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I think that there's some inherent challenges with AI from an ethical perspective from the get go. Right. I mentioned earlier the, uh, vast quantities of energy, uh, required for these, for these models to run, um, and the strains that's putting on our environment and our grid. There's the general concerns of these tail risks of what happens if these super intelligences develop. Um, and yeah, I, and you know, what kind of concentrations of wealth and power can happen, what kind of jobs could be lost if we're, if we're automating. I think it's really important that we're creatively imagining what good can come from this tool.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: Um, and I think that helping distributed energy and helping people have access and reliability and resilience, um, from their own power systems. Being able to build community power systems, um, is, is one of the ways that we can build a better world more broadly.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Um, and so yeah, that's, that's, that's really how I'm thinking about it is, is that this is a really powerful tool and let's use it to improve the world as best we can and put power into people's hands.

Speaker A: Awesome. Yeah, I love that, I love that so much. So let's talk about the big future for micro grid me 2030, I mean is changing so much, you know, every hour. But if we had to think like futuristic. Talk to us about where you envision micro gridme and what kind of impact it'll make to um, for the world.

Speaker C: Yeah. So where we're at right now is this platform that's primarily for DIY enthusiasts who want to power their own, um, you know, small projects or homes. Um, once you have a group of people who, who have built that, um, built systems like that and um, you can start to knit them together, right. If, if everybody on your block or half the people on your block have solar plus battery systems, you can start thinking about, okay, what does a community micro grid look like? Um, and so starting to actually help people develop those community micro grids, bid into the overall grid system so that we can stop building fossil fuel consuming plants and instead use these distributed energy resources. Um, that's kind of the track where we're moving, um, is you know, let's get, let's have lots of people design these things, build these things and then you know, you can offer services to actually manage them, to coordinate them with neighbors, um, and actually start playing into the broader energy needs of you know, a community, a city, the grid at large.

Speaker A: Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. Now for those people who are curious and want to get to roll up their sleeves and get a sense for what Micro Grid me can do, what can they do this week to um, familiarize themselves with the company and the tool?

Speaker C: Yeah, they can, they can go to www.microgridmem.xyz um, and they can go try it out. Ah, that dream project you've been thinking of and haven't had all the answers to or it was going to take time and you didn't want to pay anybody to plan it. You can do it yourself. Um, you can design a bunch of different projects and, and pick one. Um, it's, it's really fun to, to build them and think through. Okay, here, what, here's, here's what I'm actually going to use energy on. And these, these are my loads. And, and then actually design your, your system from there. Um, you can also go and upload your electricity bill and, and try and, and step through what you can save potentially, um, by getting solar in a battery system.

Speaker A: Awesome. That's amazing. All right, you heard it here. Go to the website and play around with it, particularly for your DIY folks. So now we're going to move to a section of the episode where it's called From One Genius to Another. And that is where a previous guest has a question for you. And that question, Joe, is how can today's digital workforce stay ahead of the AI curve three to five years from now?

Speaker C: I see AI as an enablement, not a replacement. Um, and so, I mean, I think that people need to think creatively now more than ever, but really, always.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And so, you know, you gotta, you gotta think for yourself and you gotta be imagining, um, constantly and reinventing yourself constantly. So I think that if you're, if you're someone who likes doing things, that AI is a force multiplier and, um, not a replacement.

Speaker A: Yes. Love that. Force multiplier. I love that phrase. I'm gonna borrow that from. You. Were the first guest that, I mean, people have said, um, you know, it augments it, it doesn't replace it, but force multiplier. In response to that question or a similar type question. You are the first to say it, but, yes, you did not invent the phrase for sure. But AI can be a force multiplier. Absolutely. So we're going to go into our bonus rapid fire. I'm going to quickly give you four questions, and you're going to give me the first word that our phrase or thoughts that come to your mind. Um, so starting with what is the most overrated AI or tech trend. Hmm.

Speaker C: Comes to mind is maybe MCPs.

Speaker A: Okay. And for those of us who don't know what MCPs are, tell us.

Speaker C: Model, context, protocols. It's, it's a way of, of communicating with external services.

Speaker A: Uh. Uh-huh.

Speaker B: Huh. Yeah.

Speaker A: Just too much of that right now, huh? Uh,

Speaker C: I think it had a huge amount of hype, and, um, I think that it's, it's. It kind of relied on an inability of models to, um, like, handle, handle it, at least when it was first Emerging. So I think it got a bit overrated. I think we're kind of seeing that transform into like, what's a plug in? You know what? Uh, these, these like more flexible things. But yeah, I don't know.

Speaker A: Got it. All right, now what's the most underrated tech or AI trend? Um, more of this. We need more of it.

Speaker C: Yeah. I think that these agentic harnesses are under explored. Um, when you're, when you're looking at these like memory systems, um, where you're able to consistently work and um, improve what like the bot that you're using, um, and like the agentic deployments, um, having these workflows that are consistently dialing in. Um, we're all creatures of habit and how we use tools matters. Um, and so having the harnesses that make your tool use more consistent, um, I think is, is really, it's a super hyped. But I think it's, I think it's a really important trend.

Speaker A: All right, awesome. What's a book we should read? A podcast we should listen to in addition to Lead with AI? Um, articles. Something help us, you know, what references should we use to go to?

Speaker C: Uh, I think everyone should read Emergent Strategy.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, got it.

Speaker A: And why?

Speaker C: Uh, you know, it's a really wonderful book that describes how we can think about the world and each other and, and how we grow. Um, that, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't written super recently, but it is incredibly valuable as a framework for thinking about change. I think that, I think that the world is constantly changing and we're in a period of extremely rapid change. Uh, so thinking, thinking about how change happens right now is really important.

Speaker A: Great. Okay. And then scare us. Wow us. What's your biggest prediction for the future? It can be AI related, personally related, culture, society, whatever.

Speaker C: I think, uh, yeah, I think, I think we're going to figure it out. Um, we have a lot of crises. They're overlapping.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: And I think that there is a through line where uh, we have to have minimal shifts in our perspective and how we operate to really recover a lot of, of ground. Um, so yeah, I think, I think, I think we're going to, we're going to see framing shifts that kind of go through, permeate through our society in unpredictable ways.

Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I like that. I like that perspective. So Joe, it has been such a pleasure to have you on Lead with AI. I thoroughly, um, enjoyed the conversation. You are definitely tackling an issue that concerns, if not all most of us anyway, or impacts all of us definitely. So how can we get in contact with you? Give us the website again. We all the social media.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I have a pretty minimal social media footprint for my own uh, mental health. But you can, you can reach me by email, joe@microgridme.xyz. and, and that's the, that's the website too for this tool that's live microgrid. Um, Me xyz. Um and yeah, go go check out what you can do and the benefits that, that you can have from getting a ah, solar and battery system and building resilience and saving money on your electricity bill. So yeah, we, this is, this is um, one key step to empowering yourself and having distributed power.

Speaker A: Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. Love you again. Thank you so much Joe for being on the show. We really appreciate it and just continue doing the great work that you're doing and we look forward to, to following Micro Grid me and seeing all the wonderful ways you're going to impact the world.

Speaker C: Thanks so much. It's been lovely speaking with you absolutely all.

Speaker A: Ah right everyone, until next time, remember to lead with AI.

Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in to lead with AI. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring the cutting edge innovations shaping AI across the public and private sectors. Until then, keep leading with AI.