ScottMadden to Sponsor and Present at Infocast’s Transmission Summit East

ScottMadden, Inc., one of North America’s leading energy consulting firms, will join industry leaders as a sponsor and presenter at Infocast’s 19th Annual Transmission Summit being held March 29–31 at the Washington Marriott Georgetown Hotel in Washington, DC. This three-day program features two distinct events: the Transmission Executive Forum on March 29 will address transmission’s role in the grid of the future, while the Transmission Summit scheduled for March 30–31 will discuss the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the electric transmission industry.

During the Transmission Executive Forum, Kevin Hernandez, manager at ScottMadden, will serve as the moderator for the panel, “Meeting Public Policy Goals – Transmission as a Support for Renewable Energy and Reliability.” Panelists will include Jared Alholinna of Great River Energy, Gerald Deaver of Xcel Energy, and Bruce Edelston of Southern Company. The panel will explore how their renewable and reliability policies are evolving and address:

• Which technologies are states currently thinking about pursuing to meet carbon reduction goals?
• What types of generation projects are going to launch and how will they impact transmission?
• Is adding transmission even necessary in many cases? Or, could reliability be attained through repowering what is left of the oil fleet with natural gas?

“Renewable energy and an evolving generation portfolio will have a profound impact on the transmission grid of the future,” said Dave Adams, director at ScottMadden and Transmission Executive Forum chair.

During the Transmission Summit, Todd Williams, partner and fossil practice co-leader at ScottMadden, will review the generation landscape and the impacts of the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Here, Mr. Williams will answer questions related to the current state of the rule and next steps, the state’s role, and impacts to the generation fleet. In addition to trends in generation, Mr. Williams will speak to areas of consideration for transmission as well as provide some suggestions for transmission industry response.

“The U.S. generation landscape continues to evolve. Regulatory pressures such as the EPA’s CPP continue to dominate the discussion, but there are other trends we are tracking as well,” said Mr. Williams. “North American reserve margins continue to trend downward despite a decline in electricity demand. Nine of 21 NERC sub-regions are at risk of falling below reference margin levels by 2025. The generation mix continues to evolve. Coal is declining faster than estimates made just two years ago, primarily made up by renewable energy. The grid continues to change in the United States, new technologies, evolving resource mix, and market conditions are changing the energy delivery infrastructure. It is important for transmission owners and operators to understand at a high level the changes generators are facing.”

“The Transmission Summit brings together leaders from across the industry, and we are pleased to sponsor the event again this year. The transmission landscape is changing yet again, and this event provides an excellent window into those shifts,” said Cristin Lyons, partner and grid transformation practice leader at ScottMadden and Transmission Summit chair.

About ScottMadden’s Grid Transformation Practice
For more than 30 years, ScottMadden has helped our clients transform the way they operate, plan, and maintain the grid and interact with their customers. The Grid Transformation practice focuses on helping clients adapt to the myriad changes driven by the increasing penetration of distributed energy resources, such as distributed generation, storage, demand response, and microgrids. We help our clients choose the path that meets their reliability, customer, and regulatory goals, and then we help them implement it.