Conference Grid

ELECTRIC POWER is proud to announce Mr. William F. Hederman, JR. - Deputy Director for Systems Integration and Senior Adviser to the Secretary of Energy as our opening Keynote presenter for the 17th Annual Conference. "Insights from the First Quadrennial Energy Review." The Department of Energy has announced the development of a Quadrennial Energy Review (QER). Lead by the office of the Secretary of Energy the DOE will hold a series of meetings to discuss and receive comments on issues related to the development of a comprehensive strategy for the infrastructure needed to transport, transmit and deliver energy to consumers. Other federal agencies will also join these meetings. The Nation’s current infrastructure is increasingly challenged by transformations in energy supply, markets, and patterns of end use; issues of ageing and capacity; impacts of climate change; and cyber and physical threats. The QER will serve as a roadmap to help address these challenges. Our Keynote presentation from Mr. William Hederman, Jr. Senior Adviser to the Secretary, U. S. Department of Energy, Deputy Director, Energy Systems Integration, Energy Policy and Systems Analysis (EPSA) will discuss the origins, preliminary findings and the analytical approach to gathering the information for this report.

This session will explore the rebalancing of the three primary aspects of electric delivery; cost, reliability and environmental impact. The EPA, through the Clean Power Plan, is boldly redefining the threshold of environmental impact. This transformed definition leads to a greater emphasis on an environmentally focused system dispatch to the potential detriment of low cost power production and maintaining reliable electric delivery.

The electric power industry is in the midst of a major transformation for a variety of reasons. These reasons include lower to zero demand growth from energy efficiency measures and organic changes in the U.S. economy, shifts in the relative cost of various fuels to generate electricity with the rise of lower cost shale natural gas, new environmental requirements such as EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan, and disruptive technologies such as distributed generation and storage. These forces are causing some to call for fundamental changes in power sector business models and associated regulatory reforms at the federal and state levels. Continuing its tradition of attracting industry thought-leaders, ELECTRIC POWER has invited several leading industry executives to join the annual Executive Leadership Round Table on the morning of April 22. The session will be moderated by John Shelk, President and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association. This panel of power sector leaders will share with the audience what keeps them up at night, what they think the next obstacles will be, and how they are leading their companies to meet these many challenges.