voices of energy

How this Houston business leader is promoting diversity, nimbleness amid energy transition

Ana Amicarella, CEO of EthosEnergy, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the company's growth amid the energy transition. Photo courtesy of EthosEnergy

For most of her career, Ana Amicarella has been the only person in the room who looks like her. But as CEO of Houston-based EthosEnergy, she's changing that.

"The energy sector for sure is highly dominated by men, but I think it's such an exciting environment," Amicarella says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "What I try to do at every job that I go to is I try to increase representation — diverse representation and females in the company. And I measure that when I started and when I end. I want to be able to make a difference."

Amicarella joined EthosEnergy — which provides rotating equipment services and solutions to the power, oil and gas, and industrial markets — as CEO in 2019 a few years after it was in 2014 as a joint venture between John Wood Group PLC and Siemens Energy AG. Prior to her current role, she served in leadership roles at Aggreko an GE Oil and Gas.

Recently, EthosEnergy announced it's being acquired by New York private equity firm, One Equity Partners, which Amicarella says is very interested in investing into EthosEnergy and its ability to contribute to the energy transition.

"What One Equity Partners will bring is tremendous decisiveness. They won't delay in deciding what is good for the company — I've already seen examples," Amicarella says, adding that the deal hasn't get been finalized. "They are going to make decisions and trust the management team, I think our pace of change will be enormous compared to what it used to be."

While EthosEnergy has customers from traditional oil and gas, she says she leads the company with the energy transition at the top of her mind, and that means being able to grow and evolve.

"One of the behaviors we look to have at EthosEnergy is an ability to be nimble," Amicarella says, "because we know market conditions change. Think of all the things we've had to go through in the last five years."

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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A View From HETI

Researchers have secured $3.3 million in funding to develop an AI-powered subsurface sensing system aimed at improving the safety and efficiency of underground power line installation. Photo via Getty Images

Researchers from the University of Houston — along with a Hawaiian company — have received $3.3 million in funding to explore artificial intelligence-backed subsurface sensing system for safe and efficient underground power line installation.

Houston's power lines are above ground, but studies show underground power is more reliable. Installing underground power lines is costly and disruptive, but the U.S. Department of Energy, in an effort to find a solution, has put $34 million into its new GOPHURRS program, which stands for Grid Overhaul with Proactive, High-speed Undergrounding for Reliability, Resilience, and Security. The funding has been distributed across 12 projects in 11 states.

“Modernizing our nation’s power grid is essential to building a clean energy future that lowers energy costs for working Americans and strengthens our national security,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm says in a DOE press release.

UH and Hawaii-based Oceanit are behind one of the funded projects, entitled “Artificial Intelligence and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Real-Time Advanced Look-Ahead Subsurface Sensor.”

The researchers are looking a developing a subsurface sensing system for underground power line installation, potentially using machine learning, electromagnetic resistivity well logging, and drone technology to predict and sense obstacles to installation.

Jiefu Chen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH, is a key collaborator on the project, focused on electromagnetic antennas installed on UAV and HDD drilling string. He's working with Yueqin Huang, assistant professor of information science technology, who leads the geophysical signal processing and Xuqing Wu, associate professor of computer information systems, responsible for integrating machine learning.

“Advanced subsurface sensing and characterization technologies are essential for the undergrounding of power lines,” says Chen in the release. “This initiative can enhance the grid's resilience against natural hazards such as wildfires and hurricanes.”

“If proven successful, our proposed look-ahead subsurface sensing system could significantly reduce the costs of horizontal directional drilling for installing underground utilities,” Chen continues. “Promoting HDD offers environmental advantages over traditional trenching methods and enhances the power grid’s resilience.”

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