Course Topics
Knowledge is your organization's most valuable and strategic resource, and a knowledge advantage, skillfully applied, is a competitive advantage.
Course topics encompass the following learning areas: fundamentals, leadership, trends and future.
Electric Power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution
Skip Collier - Professional Training Systems, Inc.
- Basics of generation, transmission, and distribution, including electrical terminology, equipment, construction, and operating theory
Natural Gas Production, Transmission, and Delivery
Richard Moore
- Basics of natural gas production, transmission, and distribution, including essential equipment and its operation
New Nuclear
- Latest research and development on creating nuclear reactors that are safer and more economical
Utility Accounting and Financial Reporting — How Utilities Make Money
Julie Desimone - Moss-Adams
- Basic accounting concepts
- What the financial statements communicate and how they are used
- Cost management and how to know when you are making money
Financial Management and Capital Markets
Brandon Lohse -Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation
- Value creation and the cost of capital/money
- Financial policy development and accessing capital
- Financial quality and credit ratings
- Perspective of a utility sector investment manager
Regulation and Rate Making
Ric Gale
- Rate making process including revenue requirements, cost allocation, and rate design
- How rate mechanisms are used in general rate cases
Utility Legislative and Regulatory Advocacy — Understanding the Big Picture
- Role industry advocacy plays in informing and shaping public policy
- Responsibility of legislators, state regulators, and FERC
- Customer preferences and the tension between stable prices and reliable services
- State's rights vs. federal rights
Customer Experience
Roy Barnes - Blue Space Consulting
- Customer experience design and management
- Integrate the customer experience into product and service design
- Identify and communicate the customer experience ROI
Safety Culture
Bo Hanchey - Idaho Power
- Creating a culture of safety that goes beyond protocols, training, and equipment
- Committing to safety excellence that improves safety performance, operational effectiveness, and business performance
Inclusive Leadership: Understanding and Managing Unconscious Bias
Scott Horton and Melanie Miller - Delta Concepts Consulting
- Creating personal learning and practical leadership skills to manage, lead, and contribute to a diverse and inclusive environment
Strategic Leadership in the Natural Gas Industry
- Utility industry perspective on improving safety, managing risk, and driving continuous improvement
- How current events affect natural gas operations, business strategy, and practices
Strategic Human Resources
- Energy industry challenges and the impact on the workforce
- Digital workforce
- Culture, engagement, and employee experience
- Talent crisis
- Workforce of the future
Regulatory Strategy
Noel Black - Southern Company
- How the regulatory model supports, or does not support, the changing industry
- How regulatory strategy supports corporate strategy
- Current issues, including rooftop solar, extreme weather, EV infrastructure, decarbonization
Experience Change: Accelerate and Realize Strategies, Initiatives, and Solutions
- Quickly turn powerful ideas and solutions into reality
- Speak and act with a common language
- Align and engage stakeholders around new ways of doing things
- Build a highly engaged culture of execution
Strategic Trends in Consumer Engagement
Greg Guthridge - EY Power and Utilities Advisory Practice
- How technology advances are powering new ways to engage
- Managing information for competitive advantage
- Building innovative products and services
- How nontraditional players are challenging the utility business model
Fuel Diversity: Integrated Resource Planning
Scott Kinney - Avista
- Trends in generation and the changing fuel mix
- How to manage fuel diversity
- Integrated resource planning process
Wholesale Power Markets
- Generation sources in the regional and national mix
- RTO market overview
- Fundamental design features of locational marginal pricing and financial transmission rights
- Where RTO markets are going
Trends in Energy Security
Charles Durant - Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Areas of greatest vulnerability and who is in charge of overseeing physical protections of the grid
- Strategies to detect and deflect attacks on critical utility infrastructure systems
- Challenges in building up the resiliency of our infrastructure to withstand disruptions
Energy Storage
Vince Sprenkle - Pacific Northwest National Lab
- Resource flexibility and reliability trends
Reliability: Advanced Grid Planning and Operations
Dana Cabbell - Southern California Edison
- Where the smart grid evolution is on the road to optimization
- Implementing new uses for the customer and integrating into operations
- Integrating renewables, advanced AMI, distributed generation, and storage
Data Analytics
Mo Al-Ahmar - Southern California Edison; Tim Fairchild - SAS; Lee Ragsdale - North Carolina's Electric Cooperative; Johnny Whitfield - OGE Energy Corp.
- Using predictive analytics for risk prioritization
- How energy companies are using big data to appeal more directly to what customers want
- How big data is transforming the energy industry
- Machine learning and AI
Next Gen Technologies
- Zero carbon sources of energy
- Connected home devices and the next wave of demand response
- Automation enables new capabilities
Environmental Collaboration
- Removing unintended regulatory barriers to increase utilities' capacity to invest in environmental solutions
- Making energy efficiency and renewable energy a profit center
- Creating diversified, environmentally responsible electric and gas resource portfolios to ensure more reliable and affordable service for customers
- Impact of federal environmental legislation on the utility industry
Experience Innovation: Design Thinking Simulation
Lyall Samaroden - ExperiencePoint
- Human centered design and balancing analysis with intuition
- Terms, techniques, and thought patterns of successful innovators
Energy Industry and the Environment - Shaping the Future
- How public policy, emerging technologies, and changing customer needs and expectations are transforming the energy industry
- Major trends reshaping the utility industry
CEO Panel - Pathways to the Future
- Identifying and prioritizing key success factors
- Scenario planning for the future impacts of today's management decisions
- Aligning corporate strategy across diverse stakeholder interests
Strategic Partnerships
- Leveraging strategic partnerships to deliver value to customers
- Responding to digital innovations
- Core competencies for collaboration
Climate Impact: Stakeholders, Resilience, Affordability, and Risk
- How utilities are managing climate impact across diverse stakeholders
- How utilities are positioning themselves for the future