Developing Business Models for Underground at National Grid

Nick Rancis
Senior Manager | Innovation and Venture Acceleration
National Grid Partners

Nick Rancis is a Manager in Innovation at National Grid Partners. Nick focuses on early-stage disruptive and transformative initiatives to address National Grid’s decarbonization ambition and drive value to National Grid’s bottom line.

Nick has over a decade of experience in corporate innovation and venture creation, bringing new and often difficult energy-related technologies into the marketplace. Before joining National Grid Partners, Nick served as Director of Commercial Operations at Ginkgo Bioworks, managing Ginkgo’s spin-off companies in the energy and sustainability sectors. Before his time at Ginkgo Bioworks, Nick served as Director and Lead of Fraunhofer USA’s open innovation, startup validation, and scouting platform. While there he focused on incubating and evaluating dozens of early-stage energy technologies in partnership with Fortune 500 corporate clients including Shell, Exxon, PG&E, NYSERDA, and Toyota. Nick began his career as a co-founder of two venture funded cleantech companies focused in the water, mining and energy sectors.

Over his career, Nick has mentored teams and startups from accelerators, NGOs, and national labs such as the National Science Foundation (I-CORPS); U.S. Department of Energy; Cleantech Open; and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Nick holds a BS in Microbiology from Colorado State University, an MBA from Babson College, and seven patents. He lives in Marblehead, MA, with his wife and daughter.

Mike Beehler
National Spokesperson
Power Delivery Intelligence Initiative

Power Delivery Intelligence Initiative and the chief opportunity officer for Mike Beehler & Associates LLC. He started his career designing and building transmission lines and substations for Tucson Electric Power and the Hawaiian Electric Co. and then spent more than 20 years designing T&D infrastructure and consulting on emerging trends at Burns & McDonnell. He has written, presented, and consulted on reliability-centered maintenance, critical infrastructure protection, and program management.

In addition, he is a well-known industry writer and speaker on the early definition of the smart grid, 3-D and building information modeling applications in T&D, and development plans for smart cities. Most recently, he is sought for his strategic leadership and vision on the application of emerging technologies in changing business models to include the integration of distributed energy resources, augmented/virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. He authored the book, The Science of the Sale.

Beehler is a registered professional engineer in Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Texas, Colorado, Kansas, Georgia, and Alabama. He also is a Fellow in the American Society of Civil Engineers and a member of IEEE and CIGRE.