Solar panels and home battery systems get talked about as the future of energy. Actually building one is another story. A working setup involves load calculations, component matching, wiring decisions, and a layer of electrical engineering that most homeowners, van builders, and small developers were never trained to do. The hardware is widely available. The knowledge to assemble it correctly is not evenly distributed. That gap is the reason a technology meant to reach everyone still mostly reaches the people who can afford to hire an installer.

Joe Glass is the founder of Microgrid Me, a free AI design tool that lets people build their own solar and battery systems for off-grid cabins, vans, RVs, boats, homesteads, and increasingly, far larger projects. A former climate organizer, Joe treats energy as a question of access and empowerment rather than hardware alone. He built the platform after living the problem himself.

In this episode of Lead with AI, Dr. Tamara Nall speaks with Joe Glass about why distributed energy is becoming essential infrastructure, how Microgrid Me works like an expert that can see a design and run the numbers on it, and why he believes putting power systems in ordinary hands can lower bills and build resilience at the same time. Joe also lays out his vision for community microgrids and explains why he treats AI as a force multiplier rather than a replacement for human creativity.

 The Van That Started a Power Company 

About five years ago, Joe set out to wire a power system into his own van. He had a background in technical engineering, which should have helped. It did not help much. He spent more than 20 hours on YouTube videos and forum threads trying to size the right combination of solar and battery, and he still ended up doing it wrong.

That experience stuck with him. When agentic AI and customized tool calls matured enough to handle real engineering logic, Joe saw a way to close the gap. Microgrid Me cuts that same design process down to about 20 minutes, and the point was never speed alone. It was removing a barrier that kept distributed energy out of reach for people who should have had it all along.

If someone with engineering training could lose a weekend to the problem and still get it wrong, the average person had almost no chance.

 What Does It Mean to Talk to an Expert? 

Under the hood, Microgrid Me pairs agentic tool calling with a knowledge base assembled from public data on microgrids, electrical engineering, and real-world use cases. Narrowing what flexible AI tools are allowed to do down to one specific domain produces something closer to a specialist than a chatbot.

Joe describes the experience as talking to an expert who can also see your work. The tool reads a design a user has started, recommends improvements, runs the power calculations, or adds components directly. A person can describe the project they want, and the system handles the math that used to require a spreadsheet, a stack of forum tabs, and a lot of guesswork. For someone who does not know the difference between the terms involved, the tool explains in plain language before moving forward.

 Beyond Vans, Boats, and Off-Grid Cabins 

Early traction came from the DIY market. The established microgrid design tools were built for residential solar providers, not for the average person trying to power an off-grid cabin, a van, an RV, or a boat. Microgrid Me opened that door to people who had been locked out of it.

Then the scope started stretching on its own. Joe recalls watching someone use the platform to plan a 131-unit apartment complex, a project well beyond what he built the initial version to handle. He watched the tool pull from its knowledge base and surface considerations he would not have thought of himself.

He described it as one of the most impressive moments he has had with his own product.

 Cheaper Bills and a Fridge That Stays Cold 

The mission underneath the software is affordability and resilience. Joe frames lower energy costs as freeing up money for the things people actually want, a vacation, another bill paid, some breathing room. He sees the same system doing double duty when something goes wrong. If a storm knocks out the grid or a tree takes down a line, a home with solar and battery storage keeps the lights on and the food in the fridge from spoiling.

Dr. Nall connects it to a feeling a lot of people share right now, a quiet sense that being prepared matters more than it used to. Joe agrees, and points to the same dual benefit: cheaper day-to-day living, plus a buffer against disruptions that are becoming more common.

 When a Whole Block Plugs In 

Joe's longer vision starts where the DIY market leaves off. Once half the people on a single street have built their own solar-and-battery systems, those systems can be linked into a community microgrid. Neighborhoods can then coordinate their energy, manage it together, and even bid into the larger grid.

The payoff he describes is structural. If communities can supply their own clean energy and feed the surplus back, the case for building new fossil-fuel plants weakens. The DIY tool becomes the first step toward neighborhood-scale infrastructure, with services layered on top to help people manage and coordinate what they have built.

 The Case for AI as a Force Multiplier 

Joe is clear-eyed about the ethical weight of building with AI. He names the real concerns directly: the enormous energy these models consume, the strain that puts on an already aging grid, the tail risks of advanced systems, and the potential for concentrated wealth and lost jobs. His answer is not to look away from those risks but to aim the technology at problems worth solving. Putting reliable, affordable, community-owned energy into people's hands is, to him, one of those problems.

That philosophy carried into his advice for the workforce. He sees AI as enablement rather than replacement, a force multiplier for people who keep thinking creatively and reinventing what they do. The people who thrive, in his view, are the ones who keep imagining.

For DIY builders, off-grid dreamers, and anyone tired of guessing at their own power setup, Microgrid Me is live and free at microgridme.xyz. You can design a project from scratch, upload an electricity bill to see what solar and storage might save, and finally build the system you have been putting off.

For more conversations with the founders building the future of AI, subscribe to Lead with AI on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.

Quick Answers  

 What is Microgrid Me?  Microgrid Me is a free AI-powered design tool that helps people build their own solar and battery power systems. It pairs agentic AI with a knowledge base of microgrid and electrical engineering data, acting like an expert that can review a design, run calculations, and recommend components.

 How long does it take to design a system?  Joe Glass built the tool to cut a process that once took him more than 20 hours of research down to roughly 20 minutes.

 Who could use Microgrid Me for?  Early users come mostly from the DIY market, people building power systems for off-grid cabins, vans, RVs, boats, and homesteads. The platform has also been used to plan projects as large as a 131-unit apartment complex.

 Can it help lower energy bills?  Yes. Users can upload an electricity bill to estimate potential savings from a solar and battery system, and the platform is built around making distributed energy more affordable and resilient.

 Who is Joe Glass?  Joe Glass is the founder of Microgrid Me and a former climate organizer. He built the platform after spending more than 20 hours trying to design a power system for his own van and still getting it wrong.

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