Conference Program

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.

This session will focus on FGD strategies due to regulations, minimizing discharge, and optimizing operation.

A power plant is a complex set of systems which contributes to the overall operation of the plant. This session explores innovations for improvements to existing process challenges.

Water may be the next major focus of the EPA but Gas Turbine plants are still working out how to meet the Cross State Air Regulation Rules. This session will cover some retrofits for mature plants as well as technologies for simple and combined cycle plants.

Human error is a leading cause of accidents in a power plant. This panel will focus on what utilities are doing to address and deal with situations that arise.

Energy markets constantly strive to efficiently respond to changes in technology and new environmental regulations. In this session we will review some of the current challenges and opportunities facing the market.

Rarely does a utility provide training to the members of the first response community. Usually the only time training is offered is when it is followed by suffering. A large scale incident tends to flush these issues out. Unfortunately, the problem is compounded by appointing personnel to design a training program without considering stakeholder needs. These programs are usually designed to give an engineering overview of how the facility works. When this program is rolled out to first responders it is met with “lemon face”. This is the painful look from the fire department when an engineer is explaining the phase angle concept rather than the basic hazards and response tactics necessary to keep them safe. Learn how to avoid lemon face by attending this session from key personnel who have designed training and drills for the full gamut of the first response community.

Hear from 4 panelists aged 28-32 years old who have earned success at Sargent + Lundy. Gain insight and interact with these emerging leaders as they describe their career path highlights thus far and share lessons that helped spur their rapid success.
Speakers:

• Caleb Kadera, Mechanical Project Engineer
  
• Krunal Patel, Structural Project Engineer
  
• Nicole Lessard, Electrical Project Engineer
  
• Michelle Hack, Project Manager

North American Power Industry Outlook – 30 minutes

The North American Power Industry continues moving into unprecedented territory. Changing natural gas prices, pending environmental legislation, aging infrastructure, and an increasing number of plant retirements are pulling the industry in several new directions. Join Industrial Info for our Power Industry Outlook to help make sense of these trends and discover how they will affect Power Industry spending over the next 12 to 24 months.


Presented by Brock Ramey, Power Specialist

April 21: 12:45 PM (All Attendees)

April 22: 12:45 PM (All Attendees)



2015 U.S. Industrial Market Outlook – 30 minutes

Immediately following our Power Industry Outlook, Industrial Info provides a broader view of North American industrial markets with our "Top-Line" spending forecast, covering 12 industrial sectors, including Electric Power Generation. Gain insight into the big picture of how the drivers and constraints for all industrial sectors will affect plant spending in the U.S. and Canada. Industrial Info will discuss its spending indicators, including Construction Starts, Project Fallout, Project Restarts (previously canceled or on-hold projects coming back to life) and our Project Spending Index.


Presented by Michael Bergen, Executive Vice President

April 21: 2:00 PM (All Attendees)

April 22: 2:00 PM (All Attendees)



Knowledge-building sessions for beginning & advanced current users – 30 minutes

Already a user of Industrial Info’s online database tools? In these sessions, we provide tips, techniques and best practices to get the most out of PECWeb, Power Tracker and other resources. Learn how to streamline and optimize your queries to obtain the data you want, as well as how to use features such as Saved Searches and Email Alerts to help customize our tools to fit your needs. We also will touch on new features, products and enhancements that will help you become more successful in your sales and marketing activities!


Separate sessions are provided for beginning and advanced PECWeb users.


Presented by Christine Garcia, Vice President of Support Services

Chris Keister, Vice President of Electronic Products

April 21: 2:45 PM (Advanced Users *)

April 22: 2:45 PM (Basic Users **)


* = This session is for current users with a relatively strong understanding of PECWeb.

** = This session provides beginning users an understanding of the basics of PECWeb.these trends and discover how they will affect Power Industry spending over the next 12 to 24 months.


Presented by Brock Ramey, Power Specialist

April 21: 12:30 PM (All Attendees)

April 22: 12:30 PM (All Attendees)



2015 U.S. Industrial Market Outlook – 30 minutes

Immediately following our Power Industry Outlook, Industrial Info provides a broader view of North American industrial markets with our "Top-Line" spending forecast, covering 12 industrial sectors, including Electric Power Generation. Gain insight into the big picture of how the drivers and constraints for all industrial sectors will affect plant spending in the U.S. and Canada. Industrial Info will discuss its spending indicators, including Construction Starts, Project Fallout, Project Restarts (previously canceled or on-hold projects coming back to life) and our Project Spending Index.


Presented by Michael Bergen, Executive Vice President

April 21: 1:15 PM (All Attendees)

April 22: 1:15 PM (All Attendees)



Knowledge-building sessions for beginning & advanced current users – 30 minutes

Already a user of Industrial Info’s online database tools? In these sessions, we provide tips, techniques and best practices to get the most out of PECWeb, Power Tracker and other resources. Learn how to streamline and optimize your queries to obtain the data you want, as well as how to use features such as Saved Searches and Email Alerts to help customize our tools to fit your needs. We also will touch on new features, products and enhancements that will help you become more successful in your sales and marketing activities!


Separate sessions are provided for beginning and advanced PECWeb users.


Presented by Christine Garcia, Vice President of Support Services

Chris Keister, Vice President of Electronic Products

April 21: 2:15 PM (Advanced Users *)

April 22: 2:15 PM (Basic Users **)


* = This session is for current users with a relatively strong understanding of PECWeb.

** = This session provides beginning users an understanding of the basics of PECWeb.

This session presents approaches for handling and disposing of fly ash, bottom ash, and FGD byproducts in the context of EPA’s proposed coal combustion residuals (CCR) rule. CCR compliance strategies and costs will be discussed and specific case studies and technologies for CCR management will be highlighted.

This session will explore how plant data analytics is being utilized for plant efficiency, asset optimization and dispatch of generation assets.

This session will host several presentations ranging from current energy storage applications all the way to near future applications. Discussions on using storage to be more competitive peaker, business model for storage facility, creating an integrated resource plan.

The topic of Asset Optimization means many things to many different people. This session invites recognized industry leaders to provide a brief discussion of their respective technology and expertise followed by a panel discussion on the benefits, challenges, and issues of practical application.

Cyber Security is a hot topic in today’s internet based environment. Government regulations and internal utility management are driving the new cyber security efforts to protect the critical electric power infrastructure from cyber-attacks. This session will address some of the industry’s best practices. Cyber-attacks have become more prevalent than ever before and the need to establish a robust cyber security initiative in the utility market is more crucial than ever before.

Fire investigations, in residential and commercial buildings, require documentation of the electrical systems. Fire investigators routinely rely on information obtained from the power company as part of this documentation process. This presentation will discuss the some of the requirements in NFPA 921 and 1033, the type of information fire investigators are likely to request, and how providing this information may be beneficial to the power company.

Our society relies on the steady, reliable, and safe availability of electricity and natural gas to power our homes and businesses. However as our infrastructure ages we are observing an increasing number of fire and explosion events as a result of infrastructure failures. A recent study indicated that in Washington, DC alone a survey found nearly 6,000 methane leaks in the 1,500 miles of roadway. Enough gas was observed to be leaking to power 7 homes on a daily basis and 12 sampling locations had concentrations that were flammable. This and other data indicates that the rate of infrastructure failure may be increasing and that incident frequency may increase as well. The cities with the largest portion of aging infrastructure are also those with the some of the highest populations, namely Boston, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. These cities also have some of the largest quantities of “unaccounted” for gas. In addition while the quantity of cast iron piping is slowly decreasing as it is replaced by utilities, PHMSA states that incidents involving the cast iron piping account for more than 11% of incidents resulting in injuries or deaths.

In this presentation we discuss a summary of prior incidents including recent events in California, New York, Ohio, Arizona, and Indiana as well as elsewhere. We discuss the potential to use fire and explosion modeling tools to evaluate potential high risk areas and the consequences that could occur as a result of a leak and subsequent ignition. By examining pipe sizing, pressure, material, and age an analysis can be done to establish areas that require additional focus and computational fluid dynamics modeling (CFD) can be used to evaluate the potential consequences of an incident on the community. By systematically indexing the risk and consequences corrective actions can be taken to efficiently implemented changes to the system. In addition the use of the tools can be highly effective in evaluating post incident reconstructions as well as designing potential protection systems.

Co-located with ELECTRIC POWER, the Women in POWER Panel Discussion is designed to be an interactive discussion of ideas and concerns relevant to women professionals in the electric power industry. The format is organized around a group of key issues with a panel of high-level women professionals in the power industry who will help facilitate discussion among the attendees. The event’s emphasis will be on encouraging the attendees to share concerns, career strategies, professional accomplishments, and lessons learned. In addition, there will be discussions about how to foster networking among women power professionals, develop mentoring relationships for both technical expertise and career development, and promote future careers in the electric power industry for young female students through educational outreach programs to middle schools and high schools. Get ready to feel the positive energy, hear success stories, gather new industry contacts and leverage connections in the Power Industry! Women in POWER will host a reception at the upcoming ELECTRIC POWER Conference and is open to all registered attendees.

Moderator/Chair:
Colleen Campbell, Director, Business Development, URS Corporation

Panelists:
Tracy Ortiz, Fuels Superintendent, Tuscon Electric


Teresa Mogensen, VP Transmission, XCEL Energy


Sharon Pfeuffer, Director of Engineering, Conners Creek Power Plant, DTE Energy


Kathleen O'Leary, President, NiSource Corporation


Karen Peery, Vice President, IT, Exelon Generation LLC

Kim D. Flowers, VA - Technical Services, Southern Company