Over 50 attendees packed into the Cleantech meetup at Uptown Studios.  The venue was amazing and we had a great discussion. There were several attendees from Sac EV, IT-S Davis, SMUD, CSUS Engineering, and our regulars.  We kicked it off by introducing every single person there followed by calling everyone to join Global Startup Weekend: Sustainable Revolutions June 21st.

Director Rose of SMUD talked about all the internal things SMUD is doing to reduce their carbon footprint. Including electrification of their fleet.  He also shared information about SMUDs recent investment in a Mobility Center in Sacramento.  Following him was Professor Tracy Toups giving us a detailed rundown about problems a Electrical Grid will have as Electric Vehicles (EV) and their infrastructure grow.  The increase will generate Harmonic Distortion and unbalance the grid load. Professor Toups highlighted ways to mitigate these issues but constantly reminded attendees that it is difficult to predict as EVs and people move across the grid. Similar to problems highlighted in CleantStart’s Utilities of the Future talk.

Keeping with the theme of electrification of transportation and Startups, Kevin Farvo introduced us to EVLife and shared his experience from a past startup weekend. EVLife wants to give consumers confidence when shopping for EVs by using people personal driving characteristic gathered from user cell data.

The exciting thing to me is always the conversation that gets pushed. During Professor Toups presentation SMUD board members and other came to me wanting his slides. The discussion went way to late that the automatic  lights (environmentally friendly) of uptown studios went off. I look forward to seeing every one at the next one.

Make sure you check out Startup Weekend, Green Drinks, and our Next Meetup!