EQL Energy plans, designs and implements customer programs that achieve customer and utility objectives. As DERs (distributed generation, efficiency, demand response, storage) become increasingly commonplace, we need to make sure we optimize the value of these resources and ensure that customer and utility investments are both prudent and necessary.

About EQL Energy

EQL believes that the time has come for the distribution and customer side of the grid to play a larger role in providing flexibility, reliability, resiliency, renewable energy and lowering the cost to customers. EQL believes that the technologies and services for managing energy and distributed resources are only getting faster, more efficient, and less expensive, and that these technologies will contribute to least cost utility planning, rate design, and operation. We've helped our clients to plan for and deploy hundreds of millions of dollars of technology and programs that are assisting run our electrical grid safer, more reliable, and less costly.

Our clients benefit from a deep understanding of the utility business perspective, regulatory process, and system operations. We have worked in most facets of the electricity and natural gas value chain: supply, wholesale trading and contracting, transportation, and demand side management. This perspective helps us plan and evaluate end-use and demand solutions that make economic and operational sense.

Team

Ken Nichols
Principal

Mr. Nichols began EQL Energy to assist clean energy providers develop programs that benefit both energy customers and the local utility. Through EQL partners, he is building a business to finance, install, own, operate, and maintain EV Charging stations in the Pacific Northwest. Landlords and utilities are looking for companies that will manage the development, use, and maintenance of this important new infrastructure. In the past 15 years he has developed large scale solar and wind projects, developed and ran commercial and pilot demand response and energy efficiency programs, traded wholesale power and natural gas, consulted on the commercialization of energy storage and energy controls technology, and has worked for both electric and gas utilities He began his energy career at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and continues to speak at industry events about the opportunities and barriers to creating a clean energy economy. Innovative builder of sustainable infrastructure.

Ken is an avid bike commuter and member of the Timbers Army.

Education

B.A. degrees in Physics and Computer Science from Willamette University in Salem, Or.

M.S. degree in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

Documents
Interconnection barriers to distributed PV in the West VIEW
2017 Emerging Technology Summit: Grid benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy VIEW
2016 NEEA Communicating Thermostat Technology and Market Research VIEW
2015, PNWER Summit – Energy and Environment VIEW
April 2015 – WIEB: Distribution Planning and Distributed Energy Resources Report VIEW
2015, National Conference State Legislatures, Seattle WA VIEW
2015 ICF DER Report VIEW
2014 Nichols – CA Water/Ag AutoDR program summary VIEW
2013 – Energy Storage: When and Where? Presentation at Future Energy Conference VIEW
2012 – PLMA Presentation: End-Use Energy Storage & Renewable Integration VIEW

Partners