The Council’s Fall Conference

Wrap-Up of the 2023 Fall Conference: Crossing the Clean Energy Chasm: How California Can Successfully Navigate the Gap Between Early and Mainstream Markets.

2023 Highlights:

The event started with an opening reception on Tuesday evening featuring live entertainment, food, and drinks courtesy of CalNEXT. It was an excellent opportunity to meet new people and catch up with old friends. The band was fantastic, and their energy filled the space for the 3-hour event.

On Wednesday morning, we were thrown a curve ball with the news AT&T had an Internet service failure throughout the Lake Merrit area of Oakland. It knocked out Internet service everywhere, including at the Scottish Rite Center, and delayed the start by 30+ minutes. Kudos to Kira and the audio-visual team, who were able to MacGyver a solution with hot spots and secondary slide controls until AT&T service returned hours later.

Our theme, Crossing the Clean Energy Chasm: How California Can Successfully Navigate the Gap Between Early and Mainstream Markets, connected the presentations throughout the day.

Assemblymember Damon Connolly delivered a fantastic keynote on California’s commitment to clean energy, efficiency, and decarbonization. He impressed everyone with his depth of knowledge and experience on energy issues.

Ryan Hledik, Principal, Brattle Group, helped set the stage for the day with his presentation, Rediscovering Efficiency: Value for a Decarbonizing Power Grid, which highlighted the critical sources of value from Improved affordability, Consistent reliability, Reduced emissions, and Mitigated risk.
Next, representatives from all four Investor-Owned Utilities provided an overview of their respective Energy Efficiency budgets and fielded questions from Moderator Cody Coeckelenbergh, ICF, and the audience. The Council looks forward to continuing the conversation in the coming months.

A fireside chat moderated by Patricia Watts, FCI Management, followed. Speakers Karin Burns, CEO of San Diego Community Power, and Courtney Henderson, Truckee Town Council Member, and Former Mayor, each spoke passionately and eloquently about the role of Local Governments while sharing their personal stories.

This year’s Art Rosenfeld Achievement Award recipient was California Energy Commissioner Andrew McAllister, a 30-year champion of energy efficiency. His heartfelt remarks, dedication, and support for the Council’s work inspired everyone.

The afternoon sessions continued delivering high-value content. Strategies to Accelerate Building Decarbonization featured three nationally recognized experts speaking about financing strategies: Vincent Barnes, SVP Policy and Research; Martha Campbell, Principal, RMI; and Dr. Holmes Hummel, Managing Director, Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy, Standford University. Each delivered a fact-filled presentation, followed by a great discussion moderated by Andrea Marr, SVP Energy Services Division, Cadmus.

Attendees were treated to another informative session on Pathways to Meeting California’s Load Shift Goal moderated by Michael Romeo, VP of Business Development, Franklin Energy. Speakers included Erik Lyon, Reliability Program Decarbonization Lead, CEC, who provided an overview of the Lod Shift Goals and the framework adopted earlier this year, along with several policy recommendations, such as ‘incentivizing load-shifting technologies paired with dynamic rates.’; Patty Cook, SVP of Market Development, Distributed Flexibility Solutions at ICF, discussed how the utility is moving to an “Orchestrated Decentralization” model to manage distribution costs to enable affordable electrification. Jill Powers, Demand Response & Distributed Energy Sector Manager, CAISO, articulated the agency’s continued support for DERs. Finally, K.R. (Ammi) Armarnath, Principal Technical Executive, Electrification and Sustainable Energy Strategy Sector, EPRI, highlighted the importance of DERs, drawing from EPRI’s work in this area and providing context for demand flexibility.

The closing session, The Role of Market Transformation, moderated by Margie Gardner, CalMTA at Resources Innovations, offered a variety of perspectives. Charley Cormany, Executive Director of Energy First California, spoke frankly about the challenges for contractors and programs while providing practical recommendations grounded in his years of experience. Kelly Delaney, GoGreen Financing Programs, California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority (CAEATFA), provided an overview of their successful financing program leveraging private capital to remove the upfront cost market barrier preventing customers from making energy efficiency retrofits. Teddy Kisch, Senior Fellow, Building Decarbonization Strategy, Energy Solutions, spoke to the long-term market structures needed to achieve the heat pump market transformation, drawing comparisons to other programs such as the C.A. Solar Initiative and E.V.s. Maya Wolf, Principal, Clean Energy Transportation, PG&E, closed out with remarks about PG&E’s commitment to transportation electrification and details about new pilot programs for heavy-duty vehicles.

One final note: unfortunately, the delayed start impacted the Community Choice Aggregators session on Delivering Program Results: What’s Working and What to Expect in the Future. The Council will include that Session at the 2024 Spring Symposium.

Last Year’s Agenda:

Gold & Kickoff Reception Sponsor

Gold Sponsors

Silver Sponsors

Bronze Sponsors