Top Innovators
Gilbert Archuleta represents the Clean Buildings Accelerator team at Puget Sound Energy.
PUF’s Lori Burkhart: Describe the innovation that led to winning the William Hammer Award for Electrification, how it works, and its benefits to Puget Sound Energy?
Gilbert Archuleta: PSE has been involved with the Clean Buildings Law since the rulemaking process started in 2019. We quickly realized how much of an impact it was going to have on thousands of our customers, and that the requirements of the law weren’t something that could be understood and implemented after hearing about it once. Our experience with Strategic Energy Management programs allowed us to blend those SEM principles with the requirements of the law in order to create a program to help our customers get on their path to compliance.
PUF: What was your role in the innovation’s development?
Gilbert Archuleta: In 2021, we launched our first Accelerator cohort, and have since built out a team to help spread awareness about the program and support our customers going through the program. We continue to innovate with the program, to speed up the time to get our customers benchmarking, experimenting with sector-based cohorts, and finding ways to bring equity into our recruiting strategies.
PUF: What was most rewarding for you during this project?