“RI Tech and Innovation Report” - Utilidata’s Hummon Talks Grid Voltage Control App & More

“RI Tech and Innovation Report” - Utilidata’s Hummon Talks Grid Voltage Control App & More

Six months ago, Utilidata—the Providence-based software company that last spring partnered with “smart metering giant” Itron to introduce a grid voltage control app—appointed energy tech veteran Marissa Hummon as its new chief technology officer.

The move was reported to be the first time two major industry companies have merged technology to create an app.

(For those of us who don’t quite speak the language, grid modernization is the effort to bring an energy grid aligned with 21st-century technology, including digitalization, real-time response, data collection and analysis, and machine learning.)

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Hummon was hired, as Utilidata announced, because she is one of the field’s “most insightful innovators,” with expertise in energy systems and grid optimization and vast experience in a passion for finding ways to make pioneering energy technology adaptable for today’s eco-conscious sector.

With a Ph.D in applied physics from Harvard University and an impressive resume, Hummon aims to bring her invaluable skills and outlook to Utilidata’s continual reinvention of the electric grid, which the company said is “poised for dramatic evolution in the coming years.”

In turn, Hummon is poised to become one of Rhode Island’s most successful and influential women in tech.

So, how is it going? What have the last six months looked like?

“A whirlwind!,” Hummon told GoLocalProv. “I joined Utilidata because I think small, agile, innovative companies are the most effective forces modernizing the electric grid. For a decade, the company has helped utilities become more efficient…leading to cost savings and sustainability both here in Rhode Island and across the country.”

Hummon left her post as director of product at Boulder’s Tendril—an energy management solutions company—because, she said, she saw an opportunity to build upon Utilidata’s established reputation as energy tech experts to help the company navigate “other challenges the industry faces.”

“It is generally harder for the grid to adapt to rapidly-changing technologies,” Hummon said. “It’s a huge network, and parts of it are generations old. That said, modernizing the grid is essential, particularly as we electrify more technologies to reduce carbon emissions—electric carts a perfect example of this trend.”

In a recent blog post for Utilidata, Hummon described her 15-year-career as time spent preparing for the grid of the future. Elaborating on this to GoLocalProv, Hummon admits the vision of that future hasn’t changed so much since she started out, pointing to the fact that the “grid is notoriously slow to adapt and exists under certain immutable constraints.”

“What has changed, however, are perceptions and attitudes,” she said. “For example, ideas about what is achievable and possible are expanding. This is rooted partially in consumer expectations, but also in the sophisticated application of technologies that comes with growing expertise.”

Getting those technologies to market is the real challenge, and, Hummon said, Utilidata is committed to better aligning stakeholders, including regulators, in those efforts.

“Our entire team takes our values of integrity, teamwork, excellence, innovation and environmental responsibility very seriously,” she said. “These values inform our priorities, strategies, and our decisions.”