From the White House to USC: Dr. Kelly Sanders on the Energy Transition
In this VX News interview, Dr. Kelly Sanders—former Assistant Director of Energy Systems Innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and current Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC)—reflects on U.S. climate and energy policy.
Drawing on her federal experience, Sanders discusses strategies for tackling emerging load growth, advancing clean technologies such as advanced nuclear and geothermal, and modernizing the grid. She cautions that shifting political priorities are slowing the nation’s energy transition and undermining climate change mitigation, and reflects on how these policy shifts affect her students and young professionals preparing to enter the energy and environmental fields.
“[On data center infrastructure] Utilities are caught in a bind: move fast and risk overbuilding, or move cautiously and risk falling behind.” —Dr. Kelly Sanders
Kelly, for those who may not be familiar, introduce yourself and highlight some of your key accomplishments. Also, share the focus of your current academic work in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at USC.
I have served as an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) since 2014. My research portfolio addresses three interrelated themes at the nexus of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and extreme heat vulnerability.
Much of my work focuses on the energy-water nexus—the idea that energy is a key input for water pumping, treatment, and end use, and that water is essential to the energy system. My team at USC develops strategies to reduce the environmental impacts of both sectors through integrated management approaches. This issue is especially relevant to California, where much of the state’s water is transported hundreds of miles from north to south and east to west.
A second stream of my research focuses on demand-side management, which includes leveraging technologies and strategies that modify energy consumer behavior to accelerate decarbonization. For example, my group has explored how various energy-intensive end uses such as water treatment, water heating, and HVAC systems can be “dialed up” when the grid is clean and abundant, and “dialed down” when energy is scarce or carbon-intensive. These are demand-side strategies that can not only improve grid reliability but also advance decarbonization and electrification goals.
Lastly, a third area of focus is quantifying heat-related adaptation. My research group uses novel methods—such as analyzing hourly smart meter data for hundreds of thousands of utility customers—to understand how different populations use electricity across time and space. One application we are exploring is using smart meter data to detect whether households have access to air conditioning, and, if so, how they use it. Our goal here is to better understand which communities across Southern California are most vulnerable to extreme heat and how adaptation strategies can be targeted.
What were your research priorities while serving as Assistant Director of Energy Systems Innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology?
At the White House, I was focused on a handful of major priorities. The priority was addressing emerging load growth. Electricity demand across the United States has been relatively flat for the past two decades, but as new demands from electrification and data centers place significant pressure on regional grids, I worked on devising strategies to meet demand. In addition to building new generation and transmission assets, we evaluated a whole suite of grid modernization opportunities to address this load growth, including grid-enhancing technologies, advanced reconductoring, and virtual power plants, just to name a few.
We were also looking at how to leverage new artificial intelligence technologies to help solve some of our climate and energy problems, and how to accelerate the commercialization and deployment of emerging clean technologies—for example, advanced nuclear and geothermal. We also spent time on driving innovation across hard-to-decarbonize industrial sectors, such as strategies to lower the emissions consequences of cement production and steel production.
Across these areas, the throughline was: how do we make sure that innovation isn’t just happening in labs or in concept papers? Our focus was on rapid, scalable deployment to meet the urgent climate and energy system challenges ahead.
How, if at all, do the current federal administration’s energy priorities align with those of the previous administration and with your work?
The stated priorities of both administrations actually have some overlap. Both emphasize addressing load growth as a major concern—especially data center–related load growth—and both underscore the importance of protecting ratepayers from rising electricity costs despite this load growth.
Where things diverge has been in execution. Right now, there are a few ways I think we’re missing the mark in federal energy policy.
One, we’re choosing to double down on dirtier energy sources that are both expensive and polluting. And because of permitting and equipment availability backlogs, these sources are not going to come online quickly enough to address near-term load growth.
Second, we’re taking away a lot of the incentives that previously gave markets the certainty to build clean energy projects quickly. Without that certainty, there’s a real risk that grid reliability could suffer if we don’t move fast enough, and that new loads like data centers will be offshored to places that have the grid capacity to support them.
Third, we’re suppressing much of the new manufacturing capacity, like battery production and EV manufacturing, that was starting to come online. That hurts our workforce, and it makes us less competitive globally. Other countries are investing heavily in these future industries, and I worry the U.S. risks being left behind in the energy transition.
Explain the divergence of current energy priorities from your work at the White House OSTP, and how your students are reacting and adapting.
The energy industry is heavily politicized. Too many policies are being made because that’s the party line, not because they make sense for the economy or address critical challenges, like climate change. A lot of what’s being administered into policy doesn’t actually align with the two stated priorities of the administration: addressing load growth and keeping energy bills low. Instead, they often serve incumbent interests that are politically aligned.
Energy has always been politicized, and it probably always will be. But right now, I think we’re doing a lot of things that are, frankly, undermining our short-term and long-term interests.
Pivoting to what California’s Energy Commission (CEC) and Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) are prioritizing, how might regulatory officials better ensure grid reliability as we continue, as a state, to favor and incentivize electrification?
California has been leading the charge on grid decarbonization. Much of what’s happening in California was really our guiding light as we worked on policies to promote decarbonization across the United States. I tend to get most excited about the strategies we can utilize to do more with the grid that we already have.
One category here is leveraging more flexibility from the demand side of the power system by asking: How can we use emerging technologies to schedule our energy-consuming activities to align with renewable availability? Scheduling electric vehicle loads is a common example, but there’s a ton of potential in trying to get the demand side to help with renewable energy integration.
Another category that excites me—and that I worked on a lot at the White House—is grid modernization. Grid-enhancing technologies, for example, are hardware and software solutions that can be applied to the transmission and distribution system to open up capacity across those systems without having to build new power lines.
Third, good old energy efficiency. There’s still a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of making our buildings and our homes more efficient, and that remains a huge opportunity.
The CEC’s Vice Chair, Siva Gunda, recently commented on grid modernization and energy affordability: “We’re really maintaining two systems—the old system and the new—and that transition is going to take time. In the interim, we have to pay for both.” Is that also your view?
Yes, I think that the grid is overdue for a lot of investment and innovation. Some of this investment will be necessary to protect the system that we already have, while a lot of this investment will help us move towards a modernized electricity system that is cleaner and more resilient to risk.
Unfortunately, renewable energy often gets caught in the crosshairs of these investment decisions because it’s blamed for driving up system costs when, in reality, we are operating aging systems that require upgrades. We also need to protect the grid from threats like wildfires and flooding, and that costs money. It’s easy to blame solar, but in truth, it’s the other priorities—upgrades we would have had to make anyway—that are really to blame.
Turning to another fuel source—nuclear. USC sits at the intersection of technology and civil engineering. What place should nuclear energy have in California’s energy mix?
California currently has one operating nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, which has been granted a five-year extension to operate into 2030. We don’t yet know what will happen after that, but right now it’s an important source of electricity. Even though nuclear makes up only about 8% of California’s electricity overall, and about 17% of our clean electricity, it provides 24/7 baseload energy, and that becomes particularly important during peak times when we can’t rely on large amounts of solar generation.
Looking forward, the future of nuclear in California is uncertain, but interestingly, it’s becoming a much more bipartisan energy source over time. Nuclear has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement across the Biden and Trump administrations after decades of being among the most controversial energy resources.
Right now, a lot of new technologies—like small modular reactors—are moving toward commercialization. Time will tell how those markets develop, how they’re adopted, and how society receives them.
Is nuclear controversial on your campus?
I’d say students generally support it. This younger generation really sees climate change as a top priority, regardless of political persuasion. They view nuclear as a clean energy source, without the baggage of older generations who lived through past nuclear accidents.
Given everything we’ve discussed today, from your ongoing research to reflection on your time in Washington, opine on AI’s role within the challenges you’ve articulated.
In terms of resource planning, the growth of AI presents a lot of challenges. It’s a complex issue. With perfect information regarding where data centers are sited and how big they are, there’s a good argument that these facilities could actually reduce utility bills in some regions by increasing revenues to utilities.
The problem is there’s a ton of uncertainty about how the industry will grow. Ask five people and you’ll get five very different projections of how much capacity we’ll need two years from now, let alone ten years out, which is more on par with the utility planning horizon. That uncertainty makes decisions about whether, when, and where to build supporting infrastructure very tricky.
If you invest in a lot of new infrastructure to support massive data centers that never materialize, those costs will get spread across the rate base, and bills could rise. On the other hand, if you move too slowly, you risk hurting grid reliability if big loads do show up. Utilities are caught in a bind: move fast and risk overbuilding, or move cautiously and risk falling behind. It’s a very difficult moment for executives in regions seeing intensive data center growth.
Before concluding, Kelly, as a significant academic figure in California and nationally, you’ve noted a goal to “infiltrate real-world practicalities into the ivory tower.” Elaborate on what you meant, and how that academic aspiration is best accomplished.
USC, as a leading academic institution, has a responsibility to practice what we preach. That means serving as a model in terms of what a sustainable campus can look like. We’ve made real progress on that mission over the last few years—USC has really strengthened its sustainability programs and campus initiatives in meaningful ways.
More broadly, as a research institution, our mission is also to push knowledge into the world. Students are most engaged when they get to participate in research projects that make the world around them better. My most meaningful contribution as a faculty member is showing students that their research can have a real-world impact and that they can influence critical decisions.
To conclude, the policy headwinds are seemingly unsupportive of both your research and your students’ ambitions. Looking state-to-state and sub-nationally, are your students finding opportunities as they seek employment after graduation?
It’s definitely a tough time right now, especially in 2025, for students going into fields related to climate change and environmental protection. There’s a lot of business uncertainty that many institutions and non-profits are facing. Similarly, many of our students want to continue in academia, but many universities are under real stress.
I hope some of that uncertainty will be resolved over time. I believe that the pendulum will eventually swing back, and I’m optimistic it will swing back hard in favor of sustainability and climate action. We have some incredibly smart students entering the job market, and I’m excited to see the impact they’ll make.