Start your day with a hearty breakfast and an opportunity to hear from members of TREIA Board of Directors. This introduction to the day will allow you to hear first-hand the vision, values, and strategic direction of the organization in a comfortable and informal setting. Get to know the newest members of the TREIA Board, and those that have served to build the Alliance into the network it is today. It’s a great way to get to know the team, ask questions about the direction of TREIA, and learn how to get involved with TREIA Committees.

Following on last year’s successful and standing-room only workshop, we offer a reprise and an upgrade of “The Evolution of Texas Electricity Markets and the Impact of Emerging Technologies.” A lot has happened in the last year, both globally and in Texas. You’ll find out what happened and why it matters in this discussion on the Texas Power Market, led by Peter Kelly-Detwiler. Learn more

Charles Dickerson, Deputy General Manager and Chief Operations Officer, Austin Energy

Read Article: A Conversation With Charles Dickerson, COO At Austin Energy And GridNEXT Keynote Speaker

When it comes to adoption of renewable energy in Texas, municipal utilities have long led the way. For this session, executives from several municipal utilities will share what drives their decisions, how their investment in renewable energy has paid off for their business and their customers, and the challenges they face in continuing to lead the way to our renewable energy future.

Panel discussion led by Peter Kelly-Detwiler

Panelists:
Jim Briggs, General Manager, Georgetown Utility Systems
Khalil Shalabi, Vice President, Austin Energy
Kevin Brehm, Senior Associate, Rocky Mountain Institute
John Bonnin, Vice President of Energy Supply and Market Operations, CPS Energy

Texas leads the nation with over 18% of electricity supplied from renewable sources. While the trend looks to continue with further expansion of wind and solar through 2020, what will it take to achieve 50% by 2030? Will the steady expansion of renewables continue despite the ever-changing energy landscape? What does 50% renewable energy look like for Texas in terms of rates, economic development, jobs, infrastructure, and reliability? How can the renewable energy industry capture additional value for Texas along the way? What new innovations and business opportunities will arise from this expansion? This panel will discuss the goal of achieving 50% renewable energy by 2030 and the opportunities and challenges that will be realized along the journey to achieve this goal.

Panel discussion led by Peter Kelly-Detwiler

Panelists:
Dean Tuel, Younicos
Tom "Smitty" Smith, Executive Director, TxETRA
Patrick Woodson, Founder, ATG Clean Energy

The City of San Antonio, in coordination with CPS Energy (San Antonio's municipal utility), is currently in the process of writing a Climate Action and Adaptation plan. This plan will outline pathways for the City of San Antonio to meet the Paris Climate Agreement through mitigation strategies and prepare the community, municipal government operations, and other key sectors for the anticipated impacts of climate change through an adaptation plan.

Panel discussion led by Kathy Garcia, Board Member, CPS Energy

Panelists:
Angela Rodriguez, Interim Director of Climate & Sustainability, CPS Energy
Doug Melnick, Chief Sustainability Officer, City of San Antonio Office of Sustainability
Dr. Femi Osidele, Senior Consultant, Cimbria Consulting

After a day of learning and thought-provoking conversation, join your colleagues and peers for a networking opportunity to socialize with other professionals in a relaxed and informal setting with refreshments. And, display your competitive spirit with the newly created, “Around the Grid” Challenge that promises to be a fun ending to a great day.

Enjoy breakfast as we prepare for the final day of GridNEXT 2018 conference where winners of the “Around the Grid” Challenge will be awarded.

The electric industry is at a major crossroad and traditional approaches to problem solving are being replaced by new technologies. Decisions affecting the T&D networks made today will affect how power is supplied for decades to follow. Tomorrow’s modern power system will be a mix of generation sources including microgrids, working together, and delivering energy in multiple directions. Microgrids will be providing enhanced resiliency and will be owned by utility customers, third parties and/or agencies providing life safety services. Our software, models, planning, design and operations must transform now to reflect modern power systems. We need to recognize T&D grids as a much more complex combined power system with no clear separation of functions.

Panelists:
Hala Ballouz, President, Electric Power Engineers
Ken Donohoo, Director, Electric Power Engineers

Leveraging all the benefits that storage and non-traditional resources, e.g. distributed generation and demand response, can provide requires a market environment that allows full utilization of those technologies. This session will examine how Texas laws and regulations affect storage and other non-traditional resources, and how those mechanisms are treated in other U.S. markets. The session will also highlight barriers in the Texas energy market and regulatory structure to the deployment of batteries as an asset, and how those barriers could be overcome.

Panelists:
Chris Reeder, Partner, Husch Blackwell
Lauren Cabral, Associate, Husch Blackwel

Can Texas Communities and homebuilders meet the customer's desire for affordable housing, green certification and renewable energy? Hear about the Whisper Valley neighborhood and what builders are doing in this community to achieve those goals.

Facilitator, Mike Myers, LEED AP, CEO, Myers Verde

Panelists:
David Jankowsky, CEO Francis Solar
Anita Ledbetter, Executive Director, Build San Antonio Green
Shawn A Kirkpatrick, CEcD, Director of Public Affairs, KB Home

Kimberly M. Britton, Chief Executive Officer, EPIcenter

Project development is where the “rubber meets the road” for turning renewable energy goals into reality. Transforming the hope of a planned project into a commercially operating resource requires numerous analyses, facing many challenges, and navigating the interests of many groups with a stake in the project. This panel will examine these challenges and discuss strategies for working through them. The panelists will discuss best practices and methods for identifying and working through some of the thornier development issues, such as key lease and easement provisions, co-locating with mineral rights’ owners, securing tax incentives, species “take” issues, and sharing common facilities between projects, all with a view toward securing construction and tax equity financing.

Panel discussion led by Cacki Jewart, Partner, Husch Blackwell

Panelists:
Chad Horton, RES, Vice President-Development, RES America Developments, Inc.
Pete Sullivan, Vice President, Wind and Solar Project Development, Longroad Energy
Nicholas Benjamin, Sr. Development Manager, Clearway Energy Group

Texas is a leader in the world in installed wind and leading the way in solar development. The "cherry picking" days are behind us and in this fast paced competitive market it is essential to have new technological tools to assist developers to fast track development pipeline decisions. This session will highlight examples of new technologies that streamline and strategically support making renewable energy decisions during early development, construction and into an operation life cycle.

Panel discussion led by Tony Giustino, Operations Director, Clean Energy, Americas, Wood.

Panelists:
Kenneth Y. "Woody" Duncan, Senior Vice President Technology, Aegean Energy Group
Sarah Herman, Senior Manager, O&M Transformation
Jacob Rachniowski, Director of Enterprise Solutions, Hangar

Renewables developers have a lot to be proud of when launching a new infrastructure project. So why does it seem so hard to get a project done? Why do you have to spend so much time and money fighting opposition and spin? You may have gotten the regulatory permits necessary to proceed but neglected to collect the social permit -- the public’s support. Without it opposition is empowered to speak up and organize, potentially costing you significant delays and millions of dollars in added costs. This panel will discuss the strategies and lessons learned with community engagement. Read Article

Panel discussion led by Peter Kelly-Detwiler

Panelists:
Jeff Risley, Chief Strategy Officer, Saxum
Susan Sloan, Vice President, State Affairs, AWEA
Melissa Miller, Regional Manager, Central US Renewables, Avangrid Renewables
Scott Macmurdo, Business Development Director, Duke Energy

Join us as we close out GridNEXT in an open audience discussion of lessons learned and next steps for GridNEXT.

Facilitated by Peter Kelly-Detwiler