How to Build a Smarter Grid: 5 Takeaways from Terabase’s Mahesh Morjaria

In February 2021, a brutal winter storm crippled Texas’s electric grid, leaving millions without power and causing over 200 deaths. The catastrophe wasn’t just about frozen pipes—it was about a brittle energy system that couldn’t respond quickly enough when generation dropped and demand surged. That crisis raised a glaring question: How do we make the grid not just cleaner, but more resilient?

That’s exactly the challenge Mahesh Morjaria, Ph.D. a is tackling. With two decades in renewable energy, including leadership roles at GE and First Solar, Mahesh serves as Executive Vice President of Operational Technology at Terabase Energy. The company develops digital tools and automation technologies to speed up and scale the physical deployment of utility-scale solar and storage. In this episode13 of Beyond Lithium, Mahesh pulled back the curtain on the realities of connecting renewables to the grid—and why that’s more complicated (and more exciting) than most people realize.

Here are 5 takeaways from the episode that developers, engineers, and grid operators can use to build smarter, faster, and more reliable clean energy systems.

1. Grid Integration Isn’t Plug-and-Play—It’s an Orchestra

Behind every solar panel or Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) lies a web of coordination. Mahesh compares the plant-level controller his team develops to a conductor managing an orchestra: “The plant controller sends signals every hundred milliseconds to inverters and storage units, adjusting output to ensure the entire system behaves like a single, responsive instrument.”

This real-time coordination is what makes utility-scale solar and hybrid systems grid-compliant—able to deliver not just energy, but essential grid services like frequency regulation and spinning reserve.

2. Solar and Storage Are Now Outperforming Fossil Generators in Grid Services

According to Mahesh, solar-plus-storage plants can already outperform conventional power plants in key areas of grid reliability. Why? Power electronics. “We showed in a project with the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) that these inverters can provide faster and more precise grid services than traditional spinning generators,” he said.

This isn’t theoretical. Terabase’s technology helps renewables step in when demand spikes or fluctuates, acting like a virtual peaker plant—but with zero emissions and faster response times.

3. The Real Bottleneck? Construction, Not Technology

The bottleneck isn’t in making panels—it’s in putting them in the ground. “PV panel factories are fully automated,” Mahesh explained, “but installation in the field still looks like the 19th century—panels are lifted by hand, one at a time.”

Terabase’s vision is to automate field construction using robotics, dramatically accelerating deployment. That’s not just about saving labor; it’s essential to meet the multi-tens-of-terawatt deployment targets needed for global decarbonization.

4. Battery Tech Matters – And Interoperability is Critical Too

While headlines often focus on differences or innovations in battery chemistry, Mahesh emphasizes something more pragmatic: interface compatibility. Terabase is battery-agnostic—as long as the storage system can respond quickly and work with grid-following inverters. “As long as storage has the right response characteristics,” he said, “we can work with it.”

This opens the door to integrating new technologies (including non-lithium long-duration storage and green hydrogen) as they mature—without rewriting the whole control architecture.

5. The Economics Still Rule Everything

As grid needs evolve toward daily, weekly, and seasonal balancing, storage must keep pace. But Mahesh is blunt: “Electricity is still a commodity. Most people won’t pay a premium for how it’s made.” That’s why cost—not just capability—still determines which technologies are adopted.

The good news? We’ve already seen 90% cost declines in wind and solar over the past decade. “If storage follows that trend,” Mahesh said, “we can deliver energy solutions that are both economical and clean.”

Catch the full episode at the link below:

Beyond Lithium: Mahesh Morjaria on Grid Integration, Storage, and Speeding Up Solar