Grid Modernization & Innovation

Solar Power International & Energy Storage International

Distribution Planning and DRP

Tuesday, September 25
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location: 207AB

Amid transformational grid changes, distributed energy technologies offer new solutions to utilities' traditional investments in distribution equipment. This session will explore new opportunities for market entrants to provide grid services as distributed resource providers and how distribution planning for utilities can adapt to integrated DERs onto the grid.

ViewAttendees 1

Anastasia Palivos

Acting Commissioner
Illinois Commerce Commission

Anastasia Palivos was appointed to the Illinois Commerce Commission by Governor Rauner in January, 2018.An Illinois native, Palivos is the first Greek-American woman appointed to the Commission and, at 28, the youngest-ever appointed commissioner.During her first five months at the Commission, Palivos hosted a policy session to examine the nexus between electric vehicles and grid stabilization, and later published an article in Public Utilities Fort Nightly discussing EV deployment in Illinois.Palivos also hosted a policy session on the future of energy storage in Illinois, which provided an overview of the history of energy storage and considered best practices to operate and integrate energy storage with the electric grid.

Prior to her appointment, Palivos was a legal and policy advisor to the chairman of the ICC.During that time, Palivos planned, organized, and moderated policy sessions on important and emerging industry issues, such as business and IT investments in cloud computing arrangements, energy efficiency in affordable housing, smart cities, and solutions to resource adequacy.Palivos also spearheaded a Notice of Inquiry to explore the prudency of utility investment in cloud computing by evaluating issues such as cybersecurity and customer rate impacts of such investments.Her efforts ultimately led to a Commission rulemaking proceeding.

Most recently, Palivos worked as a business development strategy analyst for a Chicago-based health intelligence firm.She graduated magna cum laude from DePaul University, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and later earned her Juris Doctor at DePaul University College of Law.During her studies, she engaged in a number of volunteer opportunities, including volunteering at the Domestic Violence Courthouse and received the Chancellor’s Service Award.Palivos is a founding board member of the Hippocratic Cancer Research Foundation, which provides philanthropic support for cancer research teams at Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.

Presentation(s):

ViewAttendees 1

Send Email for Anastasia Palivos

Tim McDuffie

Director, Engineering
CalCom Energy

After graduating from college with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 2006, I immediately started my career as a consulting engineer in Tampa, FL. Much of the work I did in this role was centered around healthcare facility design. The level of detail and pressure to perform under tight deadlines required that I develop a strong and sensible work ethic that has served me well throughout my career. It was during this posting that I was exposed to my first solar-PV design in 2007, which was a 65kW roof mount project in Lakeland, FL.

From that position I went on to a new role as an energy engineer in 2011. There I worked for a Fortune 500 company to provide energy services through performance contract. As luck would have it, many of these services included on-site generation and added several more projects to my solar-PV portfolio.

In 2014, I accepted a position at a small solar startup in Bakersfield, CA. CalCom Solar (now CalCom Energy) started as a group of founders with an idea to bring solar to agricultural facilities in California’s San Joaquin Valley. This position allowed me to develop an engineering department from scratch, a challenge that I happily accepted.

Today, I oversee three departments (Design & Engineering, Asset Management & Interconnection) comprised of dedicated people who are committed to serving our customers and developing solar throughout California.

While I take pride in all of my departments, my passion is truly the work I do with interconnection. It allows me to provide insight at the highest level of both the investor owned utilities and the Public Utilities Commission within the state of California. The work I do helps create a sustainable, safe, and reliable utility grid that can facilitate ever increasing amounts of Distributed Generation.

Presentation(s):

ViewAttendees 1

Send Email for Tim McDuffie

Jason Prince

Senior Associate
Rocky Mountain Institute

At Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) Jason is leading the development of a non-wires solutions playbook to help utilites and regulators implement best practice processes for innovative procurment. He is also leading solar+storage procurement efforts in Texas with RMI's Shine program. Before joining RMI, Jason worked on the Global Capital Markets team at SolarCity in San Francisco where he structured an innovative debt-financing to help risk-manage their renewable energy credit (REC) portfolio. He also analyzed various US state incentive policies to inform new market development and direct lobbying efforts. Prior to SolarCity, Jason worked at the energy financial service firm Karbone in New York City, where he started interning as a broker and ended up leading the research group. At Karbone, he grew the consulting practice to provide energy and environmental market advisory to developers, financiers, and corporate clients. As an independent consultant, Jason has also worked on renewable fuels, combined-heat and power, and solar markets across the US and Canada.

Presentation(s):

ViewAttendees 1

Send Email for Jason Prince

Brandon Tolentino

Principal Manager
Southern California Edison

Brandon Tolentino is the Principal Manager of the Grid Modernization group at Southern California Edison. His team facilitates the modernization of the utility electric grid through aligning efforts in planning, design, and operations to increase reliability, grid flexibility, and interoperability between distributed energy resources, the utility grid, and customers. This effort includes enhanced distribution and substation automation, advanced communications networks, IT system architecture and cybersecurity, as well as a suite of planning and operations tools to enable integration of DERs into planning and operations. He has over 16 years of experience in various distribution engineering and manager roles at both PG&E and SCE. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of California.

Presentation(s):

ViewAttendees 1

Send Email for Brandon Tolentino


Assets

Distribution Planning and DRP



Attendees who have favorited this

Please enter your access key

The asset you are trying to access is locked. Please enter your access key to unlock.

Send Email for Distribution Planning and DRP