"My job is to get data out of places you can't get data out of." That's how Nate Gray described himself the first time we talked. We knew we'd found the right guy.

Seven or eight years ago, we had a grant to test some of the first electric tractors on the market, and a problem: nothing off the shelf could tell us how much energy they used per task — let alone send it from a farm with zero cell service. A manufacturer handed us Nate's number. That call turned into one of MeshComm Engineering's first customer relationships, and a data platform that now runs on electric tractors, side-by-sides, ATVs, F-150 Lightnings, remote solar-battery units, mines, and construction robots.

In this episode of the Rural E Podcast, Nate Gray of MeshComm Engineering walks us through what it actually takes to collect trustworthy data in rural dead zones — and what changes now that Starlink, direct-to-device satellite, and edge AI are showing up on the farm.

In this episode:

▸ Why connectivity only matters because the data matters
▸ The refrigerated-cargo tracker we tried to bolt onto an electric tractor
▸ Store-and-forward: how data survives going in and out of coverage
▸ The hard question — how do you know the data is actually valid?
▸ Why generic dashboards failed, and the platform that got built instead
▸ Low-battery text alerts: the most useful feature we didn't know we needed
▸ Handing field data back to the manufacturer to troubleshoot their own tractor
▸ Cellular, Wi-Fi, Starlink, Amazon Leo, and direct-to-device satellite
▸ Why AI is flipping networks from download-heavy to upload-heavy
▸ Edge computing and irrigation systems that decide when it's too windy to run
▸ Drought, the water-energy nexus, and farm systems that don't talk to each other
▸ The electric-vs-diesel total cost of ownership studies with Oregon State and Washington State

One thing to take away: collecting data isn't the win. Acting on it is. As Nate puts it — why find out you overwatered a field two months later, when you could know right now?

A diesel pickup that gets 13 miles per gallon costs about 40 cents a mile to drive. An electric pickup, charged at home, costs about 6 cents. A used electric car costs about 2.

That's the whole pitch. No polar bears, no politics — just the math.

In this episode of the Rural E Podcast, host Robert Wallace sits down with Steve Gutmann, program designer, grant writer, and co-founder of EV Math — a nonprofit built on one simple idea: the people with the most to gain from driving electric aren't in the city. They're the ones putting 4,000 miles a month on a 13 MPG truck to get to the grocery store, the doctor, and their kid's track meet.

Robert was Exhibit A. Steve talked him into a ride to Astoria in a Tesla. Forty-eight hours later Robert bought a used 2018 Model 3 for about $20,000 and started saving roughly $850 a month on fuel. His neighbors gave him grief for years. Several of them now drive EVs.

In this episode:

▸ How eFarms started as "eTractor" — two electric tractors and a hunch ▸ Why an urban messenger kills a rural program, and what fixed it
▸ The Seattle research that flipped EV subsidies on their head: stop subsidizing efficient city cars, start subsidizing the people burning the most fuel
▸ The real numbers: 40 cents a mile in a diesel truck vs. 6 cents in an electric one vs. 2 cents in a used EV
▸ Buying used — Bolts and Leafs under $10,000, and the one spec people forget to check
▸ Why Steve still steers rural buyers toward an older Tesla, even though it's unfashionable to say so
▸ 80–90% of EV charging happens at home, overnight — and why nobody believes it
▸ Towing 1,000 miles in two weeks with an electric pickup, and what route planning really looks like
▸ Broken chargers, credit card readers that won't read, and the one-in-five problem
▸ Destination chargers as rural economic development — why a Level 2 plug pulls people into your restaurant
▸ The Wasco County resiliency project: four rural charging sites and what actually happened
▸ Why the money saved on fuel stays in the local economy — and Steve's $2 billion estimate for Oregon and Washington
▸ Three farmers in their seventies, a Rivian in launch mode, and the end of the heckling

One thing to take away: the barrier isn't the vehicle anymore, it's the information. Most people picturing a rural EV imagine hunting for a public charger. In reality they'd plug in at home overnight, pay about six cents a kilowatt-hour, and almost never use a public charger at all.

ABOUT THE RURAL E PODCAST

Real stories from real people working in rural energy. We talk to the farmers, ranchers, engineers, and program folks doing the actual work — no politics, just what works and what doesn't.

IN THIS EPISODE Host: Robert Wallace Guest: Steve Gutmann, EV Math

RESOURCES MENTIONED
EV Math (including the savings calculator): https://evmath.org
Contact Steve directly: steve@evmath.org

"Michael, I have no clue what a virtual power plant is."

That's how this one started. Eighteen months later it's in every energy conversation we're having — and utilities across the West are already running programs that pay their own customers for it.

In this episode of the Rural E Podcast, co-host Michael Kluz walks us through the research behind his master's thesis on virtual power plants (VPPs) and what they could actually mean for rural communities. Not theory — real programs, real payments, real numbers.

The short version: a VPP is software that ties thousands of small energy resources together — home batteries, rooftop solar, smart thermostats, EVs — so they act like one power plant. Think of the software as the conductor of an orchestra. Utilities get capacity when the grid is stressed. You get a rebate, a per-event payment, and a battery in your garage that keeps the lights on when the line goes down.

In this episode:

▸ What a virtual power plant actually is — and why "distributed power plant" is the better name
▸ The Department of Energy's definition, and why every utility uses a different one
▸ How VPPs flip the grid from one-way to bi-directional — and pay ratepayers for it
▸ The three VPP models: turnkey third-party, utility-managed, and utility-orchestrated
▸ VPPs vs. microgrids — the difference nobody explains clearly ▸ Real programs in the West: Portland General Electric, Pacific Power, Puget Sound Energy
▸ Why small co-ops probably can't do this alone — and the regional approach that fixes it
▸ Vehicle-to-grid and V2X: using your EV as a house battery ▸ The cost comparison that changes the math: $99/kW-year for a gas peaker vs. $68 for utility-scale storage vs. $42 for a VPP
▸ Google's deal with Voltus for 100 MW in PJM — data centers are now funding VPPs
▸ The trust question: who controls your thermostat, and the 20% battery floor that protects you
▸ Why resiliency — not savings — is the #1 benefit ratepayers actually care about

One thing to take away: this isn't a silver bullet, and it isn't one-size-fits-all. Every rural-serving utility is different. The programs that are working are the ones designed around the community they serve — with opt-outs, advance notice, and customer-set limits built in from day one.


ABOUT THE RURAL-E PODCAST

Real stories from real people working in rural energy. We talk to the farmers, ranchers, engineers, and program folks doing the actual work — no politics, just what works and what doesn't.

IN THIS EPISODE Host: Robert Wallace Co-host: Michael Kluz

RESOURCES MENTIONED 2023 U.S. Department of Energy Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Virtual Power Plants Report
https://climateprogramportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LIFTOFF_DOE_VPP_2023.pdf

2025 U.S. Department of Energy Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Virtual Power Plants 2025 Update
https://www.smartenergydecisions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/liftoff_doe_virtualpowerplants2025update.pdf

2024 RMI Virtual Power Plant Flipbook
https://rmi.org/app/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/06/VP3_flipbook_v1.1.pdf

2023 Brattle Real Reliability: The Value of Virtual Power
https://www.brattle.com/real-reliability/

2025 Rockcress Consulting and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Virtual Power Plants: Insights, Profiles and Inventory
https://energyanalysis.lbl.gov/publications/virtual-power-plants-insights

QUESTION FOR YOU: Would you let your utility use your battery or thermostat if they paid you for it — and where's your line? Drop it in the comments.