Event Coverage

Attending GridTECH Connect Forum? Here’s what’s happening in Newport Beach

Attending GridTECH Connect Forum? Here’s what’s happening in Newport Beach
(Becca Jones-Albertus, director of the Solar Energy Technologies Office at the U.S. Dept. of Energy, delivers the keynote address at the inaugural GridTECH Connect Forum in San Diego, California. )

The interconnection event GridTECH Connect Forum is taking over the Hyatt Regency in Newport Beach, California next week, from June 24-26. If you’d like to collaborate alongside industry leaders working to get more clean energy on the grid, it’s not too late to register.

If you’re making the trip, make sure to flag me down and say hello! More importantly, keep a keen eye on our session content. We’ve wrangled some of the sharpest minds in CAISO’s territory and beyond to share their insights with our attendees. Here’s a summary of our event; I didn’t include our opening reception or happy hour, but those also tend to be productive sessions.

Monday, June 24

From 1-5PT, the Department of Energy’s i2X team will partner up with two California ISO representatives to go over CAISO’s revised interconnection process. DOE will introduce attendees to the changes and help them navigate as efficiently as possible. Stick around for a group activity that involves engineering interconnection solutions under specific conditions and parameters.

Speakers: Julie Mulvaney Kemp, Berkeley Lab; Jason Foster, CAISO; Robert Emmert, CAISO; Ammar Qusaibaty, DOE; Dexter Hendricks, DOE

Tuesday, June 25

This is a full day of content at GridTECH Connect Forum, starting bright and early with a packed keynote at 8:45am. Nextracker CEO Dan Shugar will share his unbridled excitement over solar industry growth and Scale Microgrids founder Tim Hade frames our ongoing decarbonization fight as “a war we cannot afford to lose.”

Opening remarks: Tim Stafford, Slalom; Shinjini Menon, Southern California Edison; Quinn Nakayama, PG&E, Eric Pollock, DSD Renewables

From then onward, attendees can dive into a curated cornucopia of content: 45-minute sessions spanning the breadth of interconnection-related issues across the industry.

California interconnection 101: What to do when you’re stuck in the queue: An introduction to the basics of interconnection in California. It will discuss what qualifies as a study and compare distribution and transmission grid interconnection processes. Panelists will elaborate on how to effectively communicate with the local utility and grid operator CAISO while abiding by the rules established by CEC and CPUC.

Moderator: Renae Steichen, REV Renewables

Speakers: Sushant Barave, Clearway; Jason Foster, CAISO; Julie Love, Avantus; David Mindham, EDP Renewables

Protecting assets: DERs and cybersecurity: New standard 1547.3 explores standardizing cybersecurity for DERs and assesses the risks posed to a diverse collection of stakeholders, including asset owners and operators. This session will explore how to protect essential energy assets via cybersecurity.

Moderator: James W. Sample, Deloitte

Speakers: Ryan Cryar, NREL; Kevin Grant, SCE; Remy Stolworthy, Idaho National Lab; Abraham Jose, PG&E

Navigating interconnection through CAISO’s new process: This session will explore how the new CAISO interconnection process might work for all stakeholders and how it intends to speed up queues.

Moderator: Brian Fitzsimons, GridUnity

Speakers: Jason Burwen, GridStor; Jasmie Guan, AES; Robert Emmert, CAISO; Ashwini Mani, PG&E

Turning virtual power plants into reality: This session will consider models for operating virtual power plants including architecture, participation pathways, and alternatives to FERC Order 2222. Should utilities handle VPPs, or should their operation be outsourced? If the DSO model isn’t the right structure, what is?

Moderator: Jill Powers, CAISO

Speakers: Amaani Hamid, Kraken; Susan Gladwin, DOE; Maryam Mozafari, CPUC; Steven Rymsha, Sunrun

Improving the California service upgrade process: Streamlining the utility interconnection process and enhancing the customer experience is foundational for the adoption of solar and batteries, as well as boosting grid reliability through vehicle-to-grid and virtual power plants.  The service upgrade processes in California are often inefficient, slow, and frustrating for customers and developers who want to interconnect. This session will discuss how IOUs are trying to make the experience smoother, including PG&E’s innovative vehicle-to-grid pilot and SDG&E’s Builder’s Express program. This session will also include Sunrun sharing additional best practices to enable customer adoption and more efficient utility processes. 

Moderator: Lauren Nevitt, Sunrun

Speakers: Chris Moris, PG&E; Giovanna Casillas, SDG&E; Whitman Fulton, ConnectDER

Interconnection process innovations and use cases: Sandia National Laboratories will share findings from its work with utilities to improve DER interconnection. Sandia will present tools and algorithms that incorporate customer smart meter data and estimate the amount of solar that can be installed at a given location. Attendees will learn about challenges and solutions for interconnecting distributed energy resources in downtown secondary grid networks. This session will present ideas for increasing the hosting capacity of distribution networks through switching changes to reconfigure the system.

Speaker: Joseph Azzolini, Sandia National Laboratories

EV fleet charging: Managing massive load: California is quickly electrifying large fleets and adding massive load to the electric grid. However, no statewide interconnection rules apply to EV charging infrastructure. This session will explore how fleet owners are getting the job done, how drayage might work, and how grid operators are managing increased demands.

Moderator: Kristan Kirsh, Nextracker

Speakers: Leslie Goodbody, CARB; Audrey Neuman, CPUC; Sean Kiernan, EV Realty; Raj Jhaveri, Greenlane

Addressing capacity and permitting issues in transmission development: Permitting can be a major challenge to transmission development. How can utilities and transmission owners effectively navigate complex rules and capacity challenges and still get projects online on time? What lies ahead in the next year?

Moderator: Andrew Davies, EKN

Speakers: Sean Adderly, PG&E; Cathleen Colbert, Vistra Corp.; Aaron Stoll, Grid United; Sumeet Mudgal, Qcells

How flexible interconnection can help fix California’s distribution grid: Last year, California passed legislation addressing delays in customer connections to the utility distribution grid. Two CPUC studies found that managing DER development, including interconnection, could make a $30 billion difference in costs to upgrade the distribution grid. Technologies and strategies applied at DER interconnection (i.e. phased or flexible interconnection, automated load management, on-site DERs, and others) provide an opportunity to improve grid connection timelines and reduce costs. This session will explore ways California’s distribution grid can be improved via mitigated interconnection.

Moderator: Brian Turner, Advanced Energy United

Speakers: Sky Stanfield, Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger; Raghav Murali, PowerFlex; Bobby Wright, DSD Renewables; Victoria Moroney, Forefront Power

Alternative technologies for grid planning and operations: Alternative technologies can help us plan and operate the electric grid more effectively and efficiently. This session will explore the implementation of power flow controlling devices, topology optimization, and using near real-time data to predictively rerate lines.

Moderator: Jon Grooters, Smarter Grid Solutions

Speakers: Mark G. Lauby, NERC; Alexina Jackson, AES; Joaquin Peirano, Smart Wires; Brinda Malladi, Arevon Energy

Non-wire alternatives as real-world solutions: How DERs impact transmission planning and reliability: As California adds more Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) to the grid, transmission planners must account for extra load. How can we spot issues on the distribution grid before they cause problems at the transmission level? This session will discuss reliability reform on both sides of the meter, FERC Order 2222, and explore how DERs can postpone or forgo transmission development. 

Moderator: Kelsey Devine, Piclo

Speakers: Ben Schwartz, Clean Coalition; Shea Hughes, Scale Microgrids; Leah Rubin Stein, Advanced Energy United; Devin Rauss, SCE

AI, machine learning, and interconnection: Artificial intelligence and machine learning dominate conversations across the energy industry. This session will explore how these new tools can optimize planning and alleviate pain points like long interconnection queues. It will also feature use cases that are already being implemented at scale.

Moderator: Tim Stafford, Slalom

Speakers: Jun Wen, SCE; Quinn Nakayama, PG&E; Benjamin Piiru, Nexamp; Tom Gros, Slalom

Tuesday’s peer-to-peer roundtables and presentations:

Wednesday, June 26

Wow, that page separator sure is doing a lot of work holding off that wall of text, isn’t it? Are you still reading this, or did you just jump down here to check out Wednesday’s half-day of action? Either way, enough with the questions, and back to the content! If battery energy storage is your bag, you’re going to want to stick around through lunchtime on the 26th.

The battery safety dance: We can dance if we want to, but we’d rather talk about battery energy storage fires. More specifically, storage safety. This session is centered on the uniqueness of battery fires, how to prevent them, and how to fight them. Panelists will share what it means to “fail safe,” elaborate on prevention and safety mechanisms, and consider how to effectively communicate risks to the community.

Moderator: Sandra Louis, EVLO

Speakers: Eula Billaut, EPRI; Elizabeth Waldren, REV Renewables; Scott Murtishaw, CESA; Daniel Clark, Terra-Gen LLC

Making California’s grid more inclusive and equitable: Electric Rule 21 describes interconnection, operating, and metering requirements but it doesn’t consider energy equity. Yet such consideration is baked into California’s policies via SB 350. This session will explore ways to make California’s grid a more inclusive and equitable one. Panelists will explain how the interconnection process can be a barrier to renewable energy, discuss the financing challenges facing LMI projects and incentives to develop them and share innovative and collaborative projects in CA.

Moderator: Miia Hubbard, CleanCapital

Speakers: Steve Campbell, Vote Solar; Shay Banton, IREC; Anna Brockway, SCE; Simon Zewdu, LADWP

Battery energy storage: Distribution’s BESS friend: Battery energy storage is a multifunctional solution for a variety of grid constraints.  California just approved energy systems connecting to the grid with export schedules. There’s great potential for using storage not just to meet energy demands but also to provide ancillary services. This session will explore market incentives and how they’re guiding battery development while exploring innovative and creative battery projects.

Moderator: Elias Hatem, Madison Energy Infrastructure

Speakers: Suma Jothibasu, EPRI; Emma Marshall-Torres, Convergent; Alexey Tronkin, SCE; Gabe Petlin, CPUC

Using battery energy storage to provide transmission benefits: This session will delve into the value streams that Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) can offer in shaping the future of the California grid. Panelists will share their insights on how batteries can be leveraged to provide energy, ancillary services, and potentially avoid or delay transmission upgrades while maintaining grid reliability. Additionally, the panel will discuss challenges related to modeling and the regulatory landscape.

Moderator: Hui Zhang, AES

Speakers: Gigio Sakota, Avantus; Manuel Avendano, SCE; Sergio Duenas, CAISO; Colleen Lueken, AES

Microgrids as a wildfire resiliency solution: As wildfires become increasingly frequent in California, clean energy microgrids are emerging as a resiliency solution. This session will discuss the advantages of using small-scale, local energy sources disconnected from regional grids during emergencies.

Moderator: Dr. Sercan Teleke, MEPPI; Tatiana Stein, Energy Vault; Angelo Campus, BoxPower; Renata Bakousseva, PG&E; Jennifer Chamberlin, ENGIE

Community solar: A California dream?: Can a community solar program survive (or thrive?) in California? Is it even legal? This session will discuss California’s Community Solar Initiative. Panelists will delve into the program’s unique features including storage and elaborate on incentive structures that could promote the development of such an industry. The session will also include the latest developments in the program and discuss how disadvantaged communities could be included.

Moderator: Stephanie Doyle, SEIA

Speakers: Derek Chernow, CCSA; Kristy Zaragoza, Aspen Power; Allison Conwell, Catalyze; Steve Wood, DSD Renewables

Better together: CAISO’s pursuit of a collaborative grid out West: The Western grid is in the midst of a transformation designed to boost reliability, support decarbonization efforts, and improve regional cooperation. The recently approved extended day-ahead market (EDAM) presents an opportunity to improve market efficiency and expedite clean energy deployment. This panel discussion will unpack CAISO’s market evolution and its focus on supporting regional cooperation across the West. 

Moderator: Billy Gamboa, 15-year industry veteran

Speakers: Kerstin Rock, PacificCorp; Anna McKenna, CAISO; Rahul Kalaskar, AES; Marianna Rasamoela, Avantus

Wednesday’s peer-to-peer roundtables and presentations:

How to unlock the value of smart meter data in the cloud with Dean Van Gerrevink, Diverge-VTS;

Interconnection everywhere all at once: FERC Order 2023-A and cluster studies with Jennifer Galaway of Portland General Electric and Sam Berger of Slalom; and finally

The Department of Energy: i2X town hall: The U.S. Department of Energy Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2X) convened diverse stakeholders across the U.S. electricity ecosystem to formulate a practical 5-year Strategic Roadmap for implementing simpler, faster, and fairer interconnection processes while enhancing the reliability, resiliency, and security of our distribution and transmission grid networks. Through a series of virtual meetings covering key issues such as cost allocation, queue management, data transparency, equity, workforce, and grid engineering practices, the i2X team facilitated numerous open dialogues about important interconnection issues, knowledge gaps, practical short-term solutions, and few paradigm-shifting ideas. The result is a roadmap for the next five years of interconnection innovation for stakeholders by stakeholders.

This is your chance to share your feedback and comments with the Department of Energy and i2X!

Speakers: Julie Mulvaney Kemp, Berkeley Lab; Ammar Qusaibaty, DOE; Dexter Hendricks, DOE

If you’ve scrolled this far, your reward is a look ahead – our next GridTECH Connect Forum will be held in a familiar locale: the Hyatt Newport in Newport, Rhode Island! Join us from October 28-30 for our return to the Northeast!