One of the best parts about working for Uplight is getting to know our amazing employees. As one team working together to create a sustainable future, we are all part of different squads. I sit down with Anna Gerngross, part of our Analytics squad about why she works for Uplight and some highlights of her role. 

What do you do for Uplight? 

I am a Data Scientist on the Non-Residential (non-res) Analytics pod. As part of this team, I get to work on many different components of the non-res platforms including our building analytics, client and internal reporting, and rate analysis. For example, I work closely with the non-res Next Best Action recommendation and savings models, which identify and quantify building-specific opportunities for energy and cost savings.

What do you find most exciting or rewarding about working for Uplight?

Working at Uplight is an incredibly rewarding experience because we are helping to create a more sustainable planet.

How does the work you do contribute towards towards creating a more sustainable future and better customer energy experiences? 

As part of the non-res analytics pod, I support models that provide customers with insight into their energy usage – for example, identifying what portion of their usage is weather related or what portion is from lighting – and how to reduce it. Our non-res Next Best Action model has identified approximately 26 TWh of potential savings across our client base. This is equivalent to the electricity used by about 2.5 million U.S. homes in a year, based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s average home consumption.

How did you get into this work?

I have always been passionate about the environment and climate change mitigation efforts, with a specific interest in energy impact. I went to UC Berkeley for a master’s degree to pursue this field of work. Through my master’s final project, which modeled the energy use of buildings on campus to identify inefficiencies, and other energy modeling coursework, I developed a strong interest in the intersection of analytics and energy and its application to optimize energy use. It was also through my master’s project that I learned about FirstFuel, a legacy Uplight company. 

What has been your favorite project so far at Uplight (this can include projects done at Uplight’s component companies)? 

One of my favorite projects was creating our beneficial electrification (BE) and distributed energy resources (DER) offering for the non-res recommendations and savings models. An incredibly team driven project, we developed methods to identify which non-res buildings would be good candidates for these recommendation types and how they could impact their bills and their carbon footprint. The cross-pod collaboration and extensive research that went into developing new and exciting content made this project extremely rewarding.

What is one thing that has most surprised you about working here? 

I have found Uplight’s unwavering dedication to our mission incredibly inspiring, especially quantifying and publishing company goals to reduce 100 million metric tons of CO2 in 5 years.