This PGS seminar will focus on Microgrid commercialization, where renewable energy fits into this equation, and what's on the horizon for investor owned utilities in this space.
Microgrids are emerging into a commercialization phase and present an opportunity as distributed energy resources are now rising to prominence. To date, knowledge of microgrid market developments has been highly dispersed in technical publications and restricted to academic, utility industry, government and equipment manufacturing audiences. Microgrids are now creating value by aggregating distributed energy resources, bringing private capital to the market, and improving energy efficiency as they are sited close to end use.
Superstorm Sandy and other weather related occurrences have focused more attention on "hardening" the grid infrastructure. These occurrences also offer a unique opportunity to look at the electric utility infrastructure and a reversion to an older model of onsite electric power generation through smaller scale power generation. The Microgrid is actually more cost effective and is a competitive strategy for small scale electric power production close to end use. The Microgrid offers increased electricity reliability, operational flexibility and more intelligent load management.
The challenge to electric utilities is load and revenue erosion. Their focus of attention has been primarily on small scale solar energy projects under power purchase agreements and net metering. The utility cost recovery model is turned on its head in this new electric power world. In a perfect world, large investor owned utilities and municipal utilities would build out this small scale infrastructure; but most today are purchasing the power generated under traditional power purchase agreements. Some estimates are that the US could lose one major utility per year due to the microgrid. This may be wildly optimistic but the competitive threat is real as microgrid technology gets better with energy efficiencies rising and costs coming down. The key breakthrough may be to allow Microgrid to participate in wholesale power markets.
Peter C. Fusaro wrote the New York Times best seller “What Went Wrong at Enron” and is an international expert on sustainable finance, carbon markets and renewable energy, His knowledge of the energy industry goes back almost 5 decades as both a policy maker at the US Department of Energy in Washington DC and as a senior executive at a multinational oil company and at an original equipment manufacturer. Peter founded and runs the Wall Street green Summit, the oldest sustainable finance event in North America.
Peter has been very involved in ESG (Environmental, Social Governance) and impact investing for the past decade. Formerly, he was a member of trading and markets committee of the voluntary Chicago Climate Exchange and on the board of Carbon Trade Exchange in the UK and Australia. Peter was also involved in implementation of AB32, California’s Climate Change law, and Clean Development Mechanism projects under the Kyoto Protocol. Through PGS and other entities such as the Swiss Finance Institute in Geneva, he has taught over 1,000 people on carbon markets and carbon finance. Today, carbon markets are in an upsurge with over 65 mandatory markets as well as voluntary markets throughout the world. Peter offers unique insights into their market development and maturation.
Peter has been on the Advisory Board’s of the University of Michigan Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise and Bard College’s MBA in Sustainability. He was an adjunct professor at Columbia University and developed and taught a popular renewable energy project finance course. He is a graduate of Tufts University with an MA and Carnegie-Mellon University with a BA.
This live group seminar is eligible for 7.0 CPE credits. Be aware that state boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. As of January 1, 2002, sponsored learning activities are measured by program length, with one 50-minute period equal to one CPE credit. One-half CPE credit increments (equal to 25 minutes) are permitted after the first credit has been earned in a given learning activity. You may want to verify that the state board from which your participants will be receiving credit accept one-half credits.
Professionals from natural gas and electric utilities, investors, banks and hedge funds, venture capitalists, real estate executives, entrepreneurs, attorneys; government regulators, traders & trading support staff, energy producers and marketers, government regulators, accountants & auditors, industrial trade groups, equipment manufacturers and suppliers, environmentalists, and anyone needing a solid overview and foundation of what the Microgrid is, where it is going and what opportunities there are for investors, technologies, and end-users.
This fundamental level group live seminar has no prerequisites. No advance preparation is required before the seminar.
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