Why utilities should go big on VPPs
How DERs can deliver the flexibility that the grid needs
Facing acute load growth challenges, aging infrastructure, extreme weather, and a surge of electrification, utilities urgently need to unlock new solutions to deliver grid flexibility.
According to a recent report from RMI, virtual power plants could reduce peak demand in the U.S. by 60 GW by 2030 — and by 200 GW by 2050.
Still, across the industry, misconceptions about VPPs persist.
Cross-DER Edge DERMS provider EnergyHub, which helps utilities grow and manage grid-aware VPPs at scale, is proving that VPPs can meet load growth and be as reliable as traditional power plants.
In this Frontier Forum, we’ll explore common misconceptions about VPPs, including that the resource can only be used for bulk grid demand response. The conversation will help frame the wide range of use cases for VPPs, and the value they can provide to utilities and customers during this critical moment of change.
Kerri Carnes of Arizona Public Service will highlight the utility’s use of 90,000 DERs for managing the grid in extreme heat. Carnes and EnergyHub co-founder Seth Frader-Thompson will also look at other types of VPPs in operation around the country, and examine what the VPP landscape could look like in five to ten years.
We’ll answer questions like: how reliable are VPPs? What are the most successful deployments? And what will it take for more teams across the utility to trust and integrate them into their planning and operations?
Who should watch:
- Utilities
- Demand side management teams
- DER providers
- Auto OEMs
- Investors
- Policymakers / regulators
Catch up on VPPs:
The latest insights from EnergyHub, published on Latitude Media
Who should watch:
- Utilities
- Demand side management teams
- DER providers
- Auto OEMs
- Investors
- Policymakers / regulators
Facing acute load growth challenges, aging infrastructure, extreme weather, and a surge of electrification, utilities urgently need to unlock new solutions to deliver grid flexibility.
According to a recent report from RMI, virtual power plants could reduce peak demand in the U.S. by 60 GW by 2030 — and by 200 GW by 2050.
Still, across the industry, misconceptions about VPPs persist.
Cross-DER Edge DERMS provider EnergyHub, which helps utilities grow and manage grid-aware VPPs at scale, is proving that VPPs can meet load growth and be as reliable as traditional power plants.
In this Frontier Forum, we’ll explore common misconceptions about VPPs, including that the resource can only be used for bulk grid demand response. The conversation will help frame the wide range of use cases for VPPs, and the value they can provide to utilities and customers during this critical moment of change.
Kerri Carnes of Arizona Public Service will highlight the utility’s use of 90,000 DERs for managing the grid in extreme heat. Carnes and EnergyHub co-founder Seth Frader-Thompson will also look at other types of VPPs in operation around the country, and examine what the VPP landscape could look like in five to ten years.
We’ll answer questions like: how reliable are VPPs? What are the most successful deployments? And what will it take for more teams across the utility to trust and integrate them into their planning and operations?
Who should watch:
- Utilities
- Demand side management teams
- DER providers
- Auto OEMs
- Investors
- Policymakers / regulators
Catch up on VPPs:
The latest insights from EnergyHub, published on Latitude Media
Who should watch:
- Utilities
- Demand side management teams
- DER providers
- Auto OEMs
- Investors
- Policymakers / regulators
Catch up on VPPs:
The latest insights from EnergyHub, published on Latitude Media
Stephen Lacey is the co-founder and executive editor of Latitude Media. He helps shape editorial coverage, live events, and creative partnerships. He’s a veteran journalist, editor, and producer who’s been running news teams and making audio programming about the clean energy transition for nearly two decades.
Seth co-founded EnergyHub in 2007 and continues to serve as its President. Under his leadership, EnergyHub has become a leading Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) provider used by more than 70 utilities. As the creator and forerunner of the Bring Your Own Thermostat® (BYOT) model, EnergyHub offers utilities end-to-end virtual power plant management, including program design, marketing, and customer support services.
EnergyHub's Edge DERMS platform for distributed energy resource (DER) management enables utilities and consumers to benefit from participation in flexibility programs. Seth is a frequent speaker on DERs, demand response, and connected home issues, and he serves on the Executive Committee as a member of the Board of Directors of the Smart Electric Power Alliance.
Prior to founding EnergyHub, Seth served in several managerial and technical roles at Honeybee Robotics. During his tenure at Honeybee Robotics, he worked on robotics projects for NASA and developed bomb-disposal robots for the military. He was the principal investigator for a DARPA research effort to build a miniature laser vision system for search and rescue robots.
Seth has an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado, where his research focused on Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) for Ultracold Atom Optics.
Kerri Carnes has worked at Arizona Public Service since 2003 in various roles, including
nuclear, transmission and distribution construction, supply chain, regulatory and
customer technology. Her current role is Director, Customer to Grid Solutions. Serving
as the bridge between what customers want and the grid needs, her team creates
innovative customer-focused solutions to better manage the grid while helping
customers achieve their own clean energy goals. Kerri and her team deliver important
offerings and solutions to APS’s Customers including DERs, Renewables, Demand Side
Management, Electric Vehicles, microgrids and other sustainability products.
Tuesday, October 22
1:00PM - 2:00PM ET
Latitude Media Frontier Forums are live, interactive conversations and presentations that showcase frontier trends in clean energy and climate technology. These virtual events feature timely, in-depth conversations between leading voices in the industry and Latitude Media’s Stephen Lacey, as well as interactive Q&A sessions with attendees.
Tuesday, October 22
1:00PM - 2:00PM ET
Latitude Media Frontier Forums are live, interactive conversations and presentations that showcase frontier trends in clean energy and climate technology. These virtual events feature timely, in-depth conversations between leading voices in the industry and Latitude Media’s Stephen Lacey, as well as interactive Q&A sessions with attendees.
Transition -AI:
New York
Transition-AI is the leading B2B event for energy practitioners and artificial intelligence experts. The conference series brings together business leaders across the energy sector who are building AI teams, integrating AI into new products, and using AI to streamline operations.
Building off its inaugural Transition-AI: Boston event, Latitude Media is joining New York Tech Week, and reconvening experts from the energy, climatetech, and artificial intelligence sectors to discuss AI’s role in the energy transition. The New York event will explore current use-cases and deployments within electric utilities, the role AI can play in streamlining project development, its impact on DER integration, and emerging applications that will continue to shape and optimize our electricity system.
Speakers
Schedule
How can we optimize grids using neural networks and machine learning? Dr. Kyri Baker, an expert who focuses on integrating large amounts of distributed generation and demand-side resources into power systems, will walk us through a few modeling scenarios. Then we will break out into small groups to brainstorm possible uses for different kinds of artificial intelligence.
A discussion of Avangrid's data science journey, with a presentation and demo of Avangrid's geospatial data science platform for reliability and resiliency modeling.
Daniel Hynum, GE Digital
Puneeth Kalavase, Fluence
As project owners looking to maximize the value of batteries and renewables in retail and wholesale power markets, we’ll explore the different AI platforms being developed to make trading more precise.
Carlos Nouel, National Grid
Sponsored session: We’re entering a new era for smart meters, powered by AI. If the benefits of an interconnected, customer-centric grid can be fully realized, utilities need to marry intelligent, AI-enabled software with utility-grade hardware to better support real-time energy analytics and provide the required protections to securely and reliably enable real-time grid control. In this session, we’ll hear from Sense and National Grid about the recent Revelo® meter rollout in New York, digging into the challenges they collectively faced in meeting the state’s reliability and security standards, and the opportunities their intelligent meters unlock for the region. They’ll also talk about the value of embedding AI and distributed computing software into meters to improve efficiency, enhance reliability and security, and support demand response.
Katie McClain, Energize Capital
Chris Streeter, Convergent Energy and Power
From rooftop solar to utility-scale renewables, companies are leveraging AI and digital tools to design, finance, and build projects in increasingly sophisticated ways.
A multimedia exploration of how AI is shifting the world of business – and how lessons in other industries can be applied to energy. The presentation will feature expert voices who will set the big-picture context for AI.
An in-depth discussion with Hanna Grene on how Microsoft is thinking about the intersection of AI and power markets.
An exclusive look at findings from the ongoing research program between Latitude Media and Indigo Advisory Group on the opportunities and markets for AI solutions in the power sector.
Sonam Kala, Urbint
Astrid Atkinson, Camus Energy
There are already dozens of use cases for AI on the grid. This discussion will map out many of the real-world applications for utility operations, maintenance, safety, resilience, and grid modernization.
Paul McDonald, Oracle Energy and Water
Apoorv Bhargava, WeaveGrid
Carlos Nouel, National Grid
From demand response to electric vehicle charging to virtual power plants, AI can be a powerful tool for empowering the customer to save money, monetize distributed energy resources, and contribute to the health of the grid. This panel will dig into the customer-side impacts of automation.
About
Who Should Attend?
Transition-AI: New York is designed for the community of leaders and practitioners responsible for innovation, strategy, technology, security, and product development within the energy and utilities sectors. Titles will include:
- C-Level Executives
- Heads of Innovation
- VC/Investors
- VPs of Strategy
- VPs of Product Planning
- Energy and Utility R&D Specialists
- IT decision makers
Transition-AI is the leading B2B event for energy practitioners and artificial intelligence experts. The conference series brings together business leaders across the energy sector who are building AI teams, integrating AI into new products, and using AI to streamline operations.
Building off its inaugural Transition-AI: Boston event, Latitude Media is joining New York Tech Week and reconvening experts from the energy, climatetech, and artificial intelligence sectors to discuss AI’s role in the energy transition. The New York event will explore current use-cases and deployments within electric utilities, the role AI can play in streamlining project development, its impact on DER integration, and emerging applications that will continue to shape and optimize our electricity system.
One of the central pillars of our transition to a net-zero economy is "electrifying everything," from energy generation, to transportation, heating and cooling, heavy industry, even the cooktops in our homes. As this electrification is underway, it's becoming increasingly clear an advanced digital layer to climatetech is essential to add the necessary intelligence to these systems and the electric grid. This intelligence will more and more be the province of AI and the rapid innovations underway in machine learning and distributed intelligence systems.
Conference themes
- Deep-dive conversations with leading AI thinkers
- Real-world uses of AI for renewables development, resource forecasting, price forecasting, financial transactions, and grid optimization
- Workshops and interactive technical discussions
- Explorations on how organizations can integrate AI and build AI teams
Our Speakers
- Raiford Smith: Chief Utility Innovation Officer, AES
- Carlos Nouel: VP of Transformation Programs, National Grid
- Hanna Grene: Global Operations and GTM Leader for Energy at Microsoft
- Mark Waclawiak: Senior Manager, Operational Performance, Avangrid
- Astrid Atkinson: CEO and Co-Founder, Camus Energy
- Daniel Hynum: Senior Product Manager, GE Digital
- Mike Phillips: CEO, Sense
- Puneeth Kalavase: VP of Data Science and Engineering, Fluence
- Paul MacDonald: Senior Director, Opower Product and Strategy, Oracle Energy & Water
- Chris Streeter: Chief Information and Risk Officer, Convergent Energy and Power
- Katie McClain: Partner and COO, Energize Capital
- Dr. Lauren Kuntz: CEO and Co-Founder, Gaiascope, Inc.
- Dr. Kyri Baker: Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
- Sherry Huang: Group Product Marketing Manager, Aurora Solar
- Apoorv Bhargava: CEO and Co-Founder, WeaveGrid
- Jae Beom Bae: Director of Platform Operations, Leap
- David Groarke: Managing Director, Indigo Advisory Group
- Sonam Kala: Senior Director, Product - Risk Operations, Urbint
Who’s attended past events
- Top utilities
- Developers
- Consultants
- VCs/investors
- Technology providers
- Educational institutions
- Professional service providers
- Non-profits
Join us in shaping the AI-driven, net-zero energy future.
This event is a part of #TechWeek - a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to celebrate the growing NY ecosystem. Learn more here: https://www.tech-week.com/
Space is limited for this conference, so register now.
For inquiries about media passes, government discounts, or sponsorship opportunities, contact us at events@transition-ai.com
Sense is making the energy transition accessible to everyone. Sense’s embedded intelligence redefines how utilities and consumers interact with homes and the grid. By partnering with meter manufacturers, Sense delivers software driven by high-resolution data that’s vital for utilities to better engage with customers, detect devices, balance load, forecast demand and identify anomalies. Our consumer-facing app makes homes smarter, empowering home dwellers to make better use of their energy, lower electricity bills, and reduce their carbon footprint. Learn more at https://sense.com.
Utilidata is bringing distributed artificial intelligence (AI) to the edge of the grid to accelerate decarbonization and better serve people. Utilidata's smart grid chip, powered by NVIDIA, is an AI-driven, software-defined platform aimed to transform the way utilities operate at the edge of the grid.
The Venue
Thursday, October 19
8:00am - 6:00pm EDT
Convene events center, at 117 West 46th Street is located off of 46th Street, between 6th & 7th Avenue
Transition AI:
Boston
Schedule
ChatGPT is a transformative product for a wide variety of creative business use cases. In this hands-on session, we'll look at some practical ways of using ChatGPT for energy companies, and brainstorm new applications and possibilities with the group. Could large language models help your company? Let’s explore how. Session leader: Paul Baier
The surge of interest in artificial intelligence is spawning new companies and use cases across the energy sector, from grid management to resilience to cybersecurity. But it’s also raising questions for startups and large energy companies about the speed of adoption, ethics, equity, and control. In this fireside chat, we’ll hear from Pamela Isom, former director of the office of AI and technology at the Department of Energy, about the possible outcomes for autonomous technologies to shape decarbonization. Guest: Pamela Isom, CEO of IsAdvice & Consulting, and former director of the Artificial Intelligence and Technology office at DOE Moderator: Stephen Lacey
Technological progress is accelerating at the grid edge – can artificial intelligence supercharge it? Panelists from across the grid edge landscape will discuss the roles AI will play in optimizing distributed resources, tying together virtual power plants, and creating new capabilities that will result in operational efficiencies for utilities and DER providers.
How is the rise of AI influencing emerging companies? And how do we sort through the hype from real value creation? In this panel, we’ll hear from investors and startups about how they're approaching the market today, and where the openings for innovation and disruption exist. Will the market be dominated by a new crop of AI-first startups, or by climate-first startups that are figuring out how best to use AI?
There are numerous compelling applications for AI in the energy system, from resource optimization to resilience. Some of these applications are being deployed today, while others require continued research and development. In this opening session, we’ll hear from Climate Change AI’s Priya Donti on how investors, startups, corporates, and governments can evaluate the usefulness of AI. We will identify specific use cases, constraints, and tools for action in implementing various forms of automation.
Discover how AI is unlocking a series of transformative use cases across the electricity sector, from balancing grids and managing demand to optimizing operations. This session will explore the emerging solution landscape, market dynamics, and real-world applications that are driving the adoption of AI in the power sector.
AI is already having an impact on the operation of the grid, from forecasting to optimization to resilience. But there are more technological leaps to come. This panel features a deep discussion with utility executives and grid edge solutions providers on how artificial intelligence will speed up decarbonization, make the electricity system more resilient, transform utility business models, and shift the role of the customer. We will look at things happening today, and applications in the near future.
For years, Google has been using machine learning to optimize data center energy use, and to better match renewable energy supply with demand. As Google raises the stakes and sources 100% of its electricity from carbon-free resources on an hourly basis, it is building more sophisticated ML tools for the job. In this fireside chat, Stephen Lacey will chat with Savannah Goodman, data and software climate solutions lead at Google, about the digital layer that is making Google’s ambitions possible. Guest: Savannah Goodman, Data and Software Climate Solutions Lead at Google.