So Vermont has been a leader in clean energy for a long time. People have been adopting wind and solar electricity quite a  bit.

The interesting this is that that's beginning to cause some challenges and so electricity, instead of always flowing down to the consumer, now electricity is flowing up from the consumer, up into the grid which is causing some interesting challenges.

In part, because of the challenges of incorporating lots of renewable energy into the electric power grid, Vermont has been a lead investor in smart technology to make the grid work better with renewable power.

Things like smart meters that help the utility understand what's happening in real-time in the grid and a lot of automation technology. And so that automation technology is, you know, helping the utilities to do their job better, but it's also really putting Vermont on the map as a lead innovator around the world.

And so being a researcher here is a really great opportunity because we can figure out how to fit our research into the real-world problems that the renewable energy industry is seeing.