Thomas McAndrew, Founder and CEO of Enchanted Rock joins us on episode 215 of The Green Insider. Learn about electrical resiliency-as-a-service..
The Enchanted Rock way is to be able to provide service during weather driven events so the lights and power stay on during events that knock out service to their customers. They can prevent outages by installing natural gas microgrids at each client’s location. Underground deliverability of natural gas provides energy security. Hear the differences on how Walmart and HEB each use this service.
Learn all about their microgrid network operations center and how they monitor and monetize the electricity vs natural gas markets when the opportunity arises. Currently they manage about 300 microgrid that make up around 600 MWs and they have another 400 MWs under construction.
Thomas sees the next big challenge as just getting the electricity. The availability of electricity surplus is no longer as accessible with the growth of data centers and EV charging stations using more and more electricity.
Currently Enchanted Rock is in 11 states and has plans to grow to 45 states in the next five years.
Please stick around and listen to the end of the podcast when Thomas spends a few minutes taking a quick deep dive into the Renewable Natural Gas market, including where he sees current prices.
More about Thoms McAndrew
Thomas McAndrew founded Enchanted Rock in 2006, focusing on distributed energy resources that increase reliability, decrease cost, and decrease carbon footprint for commercial, industrial, and institutional customers. In 2009, Enchanted Rock pioneered the launch of electrical reliability as a service and since then, has commissioned over 530 MW of distributed generation at over 250 sites, starting initially with emergency diesel and transitioning over to the cleanest resiliency microgrid in the market.
McAndrew brings over 36 years of experience in the electricity business, ranging from large, complex nuclear plants to small, distributed electric generation.
McAndrew’s introduction to energy was in engineering and operations on two US Navy nuclear power surface ships, the USS Eisenhower and USS South Carolina. He spent six years operating and maintaining nuclear propulsion plants and qualified as a Naval Nuclear Chief Engineer for the Nimitz Class aircraft carrier. After his time in the US Navy, McAndrew worked as a maintenance support engineer for the Southern Company at their Plant Farley nuclear business, where the cost of loss of electricity to critical loads is extremely high.
He then shifted to the financial side of energy, helping several energy merchants build profitable energy trading and risk management operations. At his last merchant energy company, Calpine, McAndrew also supervised the commercial startup of many new natural gas combined cycle power plants.
McAndrew received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M, Masters Equivalent in Nuclear Power Operations from the US Navy, and a master’s in business administration from Harvard Business School.
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