00;00;09;11 – 00;00;36;21
Steve Eaves
Welcome to the Future of Power podcast, where we explore how fault managed power is revolutionizing energy distribution and driving a smarter, safer and more sustainable future. As the inventors of Fault managed power, Fault Server is at the forefront of this transformation. With FMP now part of the national electric code, this breakthrough technology is entering the mainstream, unlocking new possibilities and power delivery.

00;00;36;25 – 00;00;59;07
Steve Eaves
In this podcast, we bring together industry experts, innovators and thought leaders to discuss the challenges, opportunities, and game changing potential of FMP. Join us as we have meaningful conversations, share insights, and explore what’s next in the future of power.

00;00;59;10 – 00;01;25;22
Dave Johnson
Hello, I’m Dave Johnson, I’m the CEO of Volt Server. I’m joined here today by our founder, Steve Eaves. Hi, Steve. Hey, Dave. Welcome to the Future of Power. So for over a century, electrical infrastructure hasn’t fundamentally changed. But that’s starting to shift. And today we’re going to explore that change and what it means for the future of how the world delivers and uses power.

00;01;25;23 – 00;01;51;15
Dave Johnson
Sound okay, Steve? Sounds great. So a little background on Steve. I’ve known Steve for about a dozen years. So Steve’s the founder of Volt Server, and he is the inventor of a technology called Fault Managed Power. He is an electrical engineer. He got excited and interested in electronics and his military days that we spent some time before college in college.

00;01;51;22 – 00;02;19;29
Dave Johnson
He further developed that interest, ended up working at some smaller companies, but early on also a couple of bigger companies, including Kimberly-Clark and Electric Boat. He developed an interest in energy control, storage and power conversion. And then he started specifically looking at ways he might charge electric vehicles, do some charging over the roads. And if you were going to do that, it had to be safe.

00;02;19;29 – 00;02;31;17
Dave Johnson
This was in the mid 90s or so. And and this was sort of the beginnings of, of digital or FMP fault managed power and volt server. So, Dave.

00;02;31;18 – 00;02;57;03
Steve Eaves
As you mentioned, we’ve known each other for a while, and I think it’s kind of fun that, you know, over the last years you’ve been with Schneider and you started out as in the early days with the American power conversion that was acquired by Schneider, but you actually got exposed to some early days at APC when the company was really a similar size to where we are now.

00;02;57;04 – 00;03;23;02
Steve Eaves
I think that was great, a great background as a setup as our CEO. But it’s also fun that, you know, some of the growing pains that we have and some of the scaling issues that you got to see at the early days of American power conversion. And then you also got to be there as APC scaled, which neither to be a billion plus dollar operation.

00;03;23;03 – 00;03;24;14
Steve Eaves
Could you talk about that a little bit?

00;03;24;15 – 00;03;51;15
Dave Johnson
Sure. So right. I wish Steve and I are sitting in an old mill building in Rhode Island, and the company is about the same size as as American power conversion was, which was also in an old mill building in Rhode Island. Around the same around the same size, I think. And I got to I got to watch, as you mentioned, the company grew into a multi-billion dollar business.

00;03;51;18 – 00;04;15;13
Dave Johnson
It got acquired by Schneider, and it’s now even bigger than that. So I’ve got to see the things that work and don’t work. I think the opportunity for our technology and how it might change the world is bigger than that. When I went through at American Power conversion. So excited to jump in and see if I can help with the journey.

00;04;15;15 – 00;04;17;07
Steve Eaves
That’s awesome. So.

00;04;17;07 – 00;04;36;22
Dave Johnson
Steve, tell us, let’s go back and listen to a little bit the story on fault managed Power. Tell us what that is. But tell us about Volt Server and how this all started and how it came from some of that early work that you were doing with trying to charge electric vehicles safely.

00;04;36;24 – 00;05;01;12
Steve Eaves
Yeah, as you mentioned, the early days, and this goes all the way back to the 1990s. My one of my first companies was working on lithium ion battery management systems. And back then, as many of you know, like lithium ion batteries are the primary energy storage device for electric vehicles now. But back then they were very early on.

00;05;01;14 – 00;05;31;26
Steve Eaves
They were they were exotically expensive and volatile devices. So you couldn’t use a lot of them because you either couldn’t afford them or got too dangerous to put too many of them in the same spot. So we were trying to figure out a way to make the batteries smaller in electric vehicles, and one of the ideas was to allow the vehicle to charge as it drove down a highway or a road off the surface of the road.

00;05;31;26 – 00;06;00;17
Steve Eaves
And to do that, you would need to expose electricity to the surface, where somebody could walk on the road or touch it or whatever, or you might start a fire. So digital electricity was a way to try to make electricity inherently safe. And we we accomplish that over the years that eventually came to be known as fault managed power, because the industry took note of what we were doing and started developing specialized standards.

00;06;00;17 – 00;06;24;11
Steve Eaves
So there was a couple UL standards that were developed. And then the National Electric had adopted the technology in 2023 as a separate section. And since then we’ve been scaling a lot faster. So the generic industry name for the technology is fault managed power. But Volt Server, as the inventor branded it very early and we call it digital electricity.

00;06;24;12 – 00;06;50;10
Steve Eaves
One of the most important aspects of digital electricity is that it’s safe, so you can touch it with your hands or expose it to a building, and it won’t hurt anybody or start anything on fire, as opposed to AC electricity, which really doesn’t know the difference between burning a village down or powering a factory 50 miles away. And I should say that it’s it’s really kind of a simple concept.

00;06;50;10 – 00;07;19;02
Steve Eaves
Rather than sending electricity continuously, like water coming out of a hose, we break that up into what we call a packet. So we send a very small burst of electrical energy, and then we track it from a device called a transmitter to a receiver. And if between that space, if it goes into your body or if it’s about to start a fire, we can very accurately detect that very small amounts of energy were lost in that transfer.

00;07;19;02 – 00;07;50;07
Steve Eaves
And we can stop sending electrical energy on that channel. So we send those packets very quickly so we can achieve very high amounts of power, industrial power levels. But it really acts like very safe, low voltage electricity that would be on your USB cable. It’s just very fast and easy and safe to work with. Okay, so Dave, the company is scaling now and you’re you’re a new CEO and your mission is to take us to the next level.

00;07;50;07 – 00;07;59;00
Steve Eaves
So you know what surprised you about volt server and digital electricity when you first heard about it?

00;07;59;03 – 00;08;22;17
Dave Johnson
Well, when you the short answer is I was surprised it wasn’t everywhere. Yet when you and I met all those years, I thought it had so much potential, was so interesting. So that would be my short answer is I thought it would thought it would be in a more applications and more places, in more types, of more types of applications.

00;08;22;20 – 00;08;35;22
Steve Eaves
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. And it has taken a while for reasons that we’ve talked about. When you see us going into the future, where some of the application areas you think will be focused on.

00;08;35;22 – 00;09;05;24
Dave Johnson
So right now, the from what I see, the technology is mainly used in telecommunications applications, specifically antenna and radios. That powering antennas and radios is part of cellular and communication networks. And interesting when I came in I one observation is we hired some people in that space and guess where they guess where they focused and the telecommunication telecommunication space.

00;09;05;24 – 00;09;28;20
Dave Johnson
So they’ve been very successful there. But what I, what I can see as the company has tried to do other things is I’m looking for signals coming back to where else is it sort of naturally getting picked up. And I see a lot of interest in very similar types of parallel applications in it. So think it networking instead of telco networking.

00;09;28;24 – 00;09;57;02
Dave Johnson
If you look at the way networks are deployed there, in there in difficult to reach places, they’re in spread out over long distances, applications like a big distribution center where there are big network switches, big network or network closets over long distances. Certainly any place where there’s a need to run power outdoors somewhere. This is where we’ve been successful in telecommunications.

00;09;57;03 – 00;10;17;07
Dave Johnson
I can see a clear path to do the same thing in it. Now, going a little farther into it, of course, we have to talk about data centers. There’s a lot of attention on data centers right now. After spending some time with you, just before I joined and just after, we see a lot of opportunity in data centers, I’m going to come back and ask you about that in a minute.

00;10;17;07 – 00;10;44;10
Dave Johnson
But I come most recently from the data center world, from my my work background, and I see a big potential there. There are big challenges there. The traditional ways of distributing power with AI and the servers and the power requirements that are, that are showing up for those applications. They don’t have all the answers. I think we can help.

00;10;44;10 – 00;11;21;27
Dave Johnson
And what a win for the data center industry and for digital electricity if we can be successful there. Finally, an area you’re working on is electrification of buildings that we all spend time in. In particular, you’re looking at things like the electric heat and electric cookware or electric cooking and powering those types of heating, heating, cooling in cooking devices now in old buildings is turning out to be a challenge.

00;11;22;03 – 00;11;34;12
Dave Johnson
So. So those are things I know you’re looking at. Those are the things that I would see over the short term. But why isn’t if it’s such a compelling approach? Why isn’t vault managed power everywhere?

00;11;34;13 – 00;12;07;06
Steve Eaves
I think the main reason is that electrical infrastructure takes a long time to change. The world has evolved around AC infrastructure and devices have adopted it. Whether it’s your television set or a computer, the inputs to those devices are using AC power. The surprising thing, though, is that inside the devices, after the AC power gets through the sheet metal or plastic, they’ve quietly adopted DC power inside.

00;12;07;07 – 00;12;32;13
Steve Eaves
And so if you look at a refrigerator or your heat pump at home, that device is converting AC power to DC and operating on DC, because that’s the most efficient way to operate the appliance. I think that is the reason why things will move a little bit quicker than might people might expect of converting over to fault managed power.

00;12;32;16 – 00;12;54;28
Dave Johnson
So if you’ve talked about digitization and maybe that’s the catalyst to to to drive some real change, now combine that with with what you just covered. You’re starting to see DC in in devices and smart connected devices. Where could power distribution be in 20 years?

00;12;55;01 – 00;13;20;04
Steve Eaves
I think in 20 years buildings will, in an ordinary way being be specified with DC power as a primary driver. And more specifically, I think that DC power format will be fault managed power because of the safety, controllability and compatibility with data that fault managed power has.

00;13;20;07 – 00;13;33;08
Dave Johnson
So paint this a picture. What? Give us some examples of where we might see really specific use cases, and where we might see power distribution done with digital electricity.

00;13;33;10 – 00;14;07;20
Steve Eaves
I believe that things will start inside of buildings and kind of work their way out, that things like the transmission lines, overhead and grid distribution will take a little a bit while longer. But inside of buildings in devices themselves I think will convert a lot quicker. So as I mentioned, like when architects specify a building distribution system 20 years from now, it will often be specified with fault managed power by that time.

00;14;07;28 – 00;14;22;25
Dave Johnson
And if I’m a so so I’m 20 years out. Am I going to still see the the normal AC 15 amp outlets? I’m used to to to plug in my hair dryer. I don’t really use a hair dryer, but something like that.

00;14;22;25 – 00;14;44;00
Steve Eaves
I think. Yeah, it’s going to take a while for those outlets that you see in your home to convert, because there will be a lot of legacy devices that are hanging on. But if you think about it, the inside of a hotel room or even your own home, there’s very little things that are actually using AC power for real inside.

00;14;44;00 – 00;15;11;13
Steve Eaves
As I mentioned, you’re in induction range. LED lights are DC based. Inside the induction range, it’s DC. Your refrigerator is DC inside now because they’re high efficiency devices. All those things are changing very quickly. And but there will always be a few devices that are hanging on. The difference will be that the primary distribution for the building will be DC power.

00;15;11;13 – 00;15;29;20
Steve Eaves
And then for the little bit of AC power that remains, converters will convert that over, kind of like with your computer. Now you have converters that convert USB to some other format and vice versa as a separate box. I think that’s the way the AC outlets will be handled by that time.

00;15;29;27 – 00;15;52;29
Dave Johnson
Okay, so that’s how what I’m used to today, how I’ll manage that. I can get a picture of that. Is there any other change I would see in a building or a home or a data center? We’ll park data centers again for a minute, but what would a would the experience be any different as a user in this, in a hotel, in a in a office building?

00;15;52;29 – 00;15;55;18
Dave Johnson
In a house?

00;15;55;20 – 00;16;31;19
Steve Eaves
Yeah, I think we you know, we talked about digitization and you know, by that time I can’t even imagine what a home will be like if you see what’s going on now with home management, like smart home management and the convergence of AI and digitization, with all of all of that, I things will be highly, highly digitized. So in a home when you walk in, the home will know a lot of things about your life and operate automatically and interact with the users that are in that home.

00;16;31;19 – 00;16;37;01
Steve Eaves
And those devices will be connected digital devices.

00;16;37;02 – 00;16;44;05
Dave Johnson
So digital electricity then makes a ton of sense in that in those environments, absolutely.

00;16;44;07 – 00;16;56;18
Steve Eaves
Digital electricity because of its natural compatibility with data and its safety characteristics, is the right thing to use for those future homes and venues.

00;16;56;21 – 00;17;10;09
Dave Johnson
So if I turn this back to you for a minute, Steve, so let’s talk about let’s talk about data centers for a minute. What do you see in data centers from a power architecture standpoint? And how can Volt Server help?

00;17;10;11 – 00;17;52;13
Steve Eaves
Well, that’s a really good example of how the world is changing. So you could see when we talk about the convergence of DC power devices and digitization, for example, AI data centers are one of the primary examples of that. People thought that that industry was a bit slow moving ten years ago. But with the advent of AI, they’re looking at all sorts of different ways to try to manage the power demands of these processors that are processing AI models so that already in data centers, they’re converting over to a DC infrastructure within the data center.

00;17;52;13 – 00;18;19;01
Steve Eaves
And that DC infrastructure is brand new to a lot of folks that are operating data centers and also to the trades that need to put them together. And so their digital electricity has a great advantage in terms of being something that people can work with safely and quickly. And it’s even denser than the DC infrastructure approaches that people are proposing out there right now.

00;18;19;03 – 00;18;36;19
Dave Johnson
Right. So even even the architectures that that the industry is proposing, they don’t have all the pieces yet. They’re trying to get all the players to do their piece. But the one answer, the one way they’re trying to do it with traditional approach is they don’t they don’t have all the answers yet, do they?

00;18;36;22 – 00;19;03;01
Steve Eaves
No they don’t. And if you think about what’s really trying to be accomplished in the data center, is that there’s a bunch of processing units that need to be placed very close together because they’re all communicating with each other in operating in parallel. And there’s a big drive to get those communication links as short as possible, so you could reduce the delay in that communication.

00;19;03;02 – 00;19;30;22
Steve Eaves
And so that means that folks don’t want a lot of other stuff inside that computer room. Then the computers themselves and the electrical infrastructure today, because it isn’t inherently safe, like digital electricity, requires a lot of stuff around it to keep people and building safe from it. And using digital electricity, you can really reduce the space that takes up because you don’t have all that external equipment.

00;19;30;22 – 00;19;49;21
Steve Eaves
Protecting people and building components because it’s inherently safe from the start. So I think that’s going to be a big advantage in terms of the thing that people are really trying to accomplish, which is to reduce the size and space that’s taken up by electrical infrastructure.

00;19;49;29 – 00;20;17;03
Dave Johnson
So as I’ve started here over the last couple of months with Volt Server, I’ve spent some time exploring the data center opportunity in between some of the big power vendors, power equipment vendors, the customers, and the third parties that sit in between them. There’s a lot of interest in what we’re doing, so I’m really hopeful and excited about working on the on the data center market.

00;20;17;03 – 00;20;42;22
Dave Johnson
If we look back at this, when we both feel pretty strongly that now is the time for fault managed power and digital electricity, there are there are some signals. You talked about digitization being a catalyst for making this our time. Now, there was a recent survey done by electric, a Blue Ocean survey on the technologies that really are poised to to make a difference in the electrical world.

00;20;42;23 – 00;20;44;13
Dave Johnson
Tell us about that.

00;20;44;15 – 00;21;23;12
Steve Eaves
Yes. So a blue ocean study is, let’s call it an opportunity base for folks in the future so that electric is the research organization that is attached to the National Electrical Contractors Association. So the unionized electricians in the United States. And so they looked at 34 different technology areas that included things like microgrids and small modular reactors and DC power itself, or conventional DC power and data centers.

00;21;23;12 – 00;21;56;12
Steve Eaves
And out of those 34 different technology areas, fault managed power selected as the top blue ocean category for electrical contractors in the future. Why is that? It’s not, as we said, it’s still emerging as a technology, but they identified the technology as something that’s ready or mature for use, but also something that is quickly moving in. More importantly, something that the electrical contractors are trained up and that they can execute on quickly.

00;21;56;12 – 00;22;13;01
Steve Eaves
So they saw that as the top emerging blue ocean category. So, Dave, beyond the applications that we talked about, where do you see Volt Server going, father, in the future, what’s your vision for the company?

00;22;13;03 – 00;22;30;21
Dave Johnson
So I think revolt server for fault managed power for digital electricity. Again, we’re on the cusp of a big change in the industry. So for us, I think it’s our mission to fundamentally change the way the world delivers and uses power. I think it’s that big.

00;22;30;23 – 00;22;32;28
Steve Eaves
Yeah, I see that too.

00;22;33;00 – 00;22;40;02
Dave Johnson
So how about you, Steve? Do you have a final closing thought on the future of power? Yeah.

00;22;40;02 – 00;23;14;19
Steve Eaves
I usually like to baseline things when we talk about this technology. If you think about what what is digital electricity? Digital electricity is a format of electricity that is safe to touch, that doesn’t start buildings on fire and coexist seamlessly with data. So we really see digital electricity as a third format of electricity that over time will replace conventional forms like AC power that we see today.

00;23;14;21 – 00;23;19;28
Dave Johnson
So we’ve had AC, we’ve had traditional DC, and now we have digital electricity.

00;23;20;00 – 00;23;23;23
Steve Eaves
Yeah that’s right. That’s that’s how I see it.

00;23;23;26 – 00;23;33;05
Dave Johnson
Well, Steve, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you today and talking about digital electricity. I hope you’ve had a good, good time to.

00;23;33;08 – 00;23;38;07
Steve Eaves
Yeah. Same here. David, I’m looking forward to working with you and seeing where you’re going to take the company.

00;23;38;10 – 00;23;42;00
Dave Johnson
And this has been the future of power.

00;23;42;02 – 00;23;43;06
Steve Eaves
Thanks, everybody.