Preventing The Next Blackout Conference

April 14-15, 2004 - Marriott at Metro Center - Washington, DC

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Well before the massive outage of August 14, 2003, there had been warnings from top energy experts of an impending crisis in major parts of the nation’s interconnected systems

Did the blackout fit the predictions?
Was the blackout an isolated aberration or a precursor of others to come?

Find out the answers to these and many other vital questions that will have profound implications for how the nation’s transmission grids are organized, operated, and maintained!!!

Topics Include:

Update on the Northeast Blackout
Policy Initiatives
Status of energy legislation
Can regulatory gridlock be broken?
State vs. federal issues
Regional and seams issues
Can/Should FERC mandate and monitor reliability issues?
How S&P Rates Utilities and Why Performance Matters
Coordinating Dispatch and Planning Between Regions
Transmission Expansion and Financing Grid Enhancements
Does the current regulatory environment impose unreasonable hurdles to expansion?
What role can a market-oriented transmission investment model play, and how should it interact with the regulated model?
How can state vs. federal issues be solved with regards to transmission?
What is the proper scope of federal oversight?
What does it take to make merchant transmission investments viable?
What does it take to make transmission projects bankable?
Vegetation Management
Technology Solutions
Cutting edge technologies to increase grid throughput (FACTS, HVDC, Wide area monitoring applications)
Super-conducting technologies, energy storage

Speakers and Workshop Instructors Include:

David Meyer, Sr. Policy Advisor-Office of Transmission & Distribution, DOE
Pete Landrieu, former Vice President-Transmission, PSEG
George Loehr, Unaffiliated Member of the Executive Committee, New York State Reliability Council
Sam Jones, Chief Operating Officer, ERCOT
Andy Ott, General Manager, PJM Interconnection, LLC
John Chandley, Principal, LECG
Ziad Alaywan, Director-Market Operations, California ISO
William Hogan, JFK School of Government, Harvard University
Roberta Brown, Vice President, PEPCO
Paul McCoy, Executive Vice President, TransElect
Paul Halas, President, Grid America LLC
Rana Mukerji, Vice President & General Manager, ABB
Kiah Harris, Burns & McDonnell
Bob Novembri, CEO, CN Utility Consulting
Henry Chao, Vice President-Business Development, ABB
John Howe, Vice President, American Superconductor Corp.
Prabu Prabhakara, Executive Consultant, ABB Electric Systems Consulting
Peter Rigby, Director, Standard & Poor’s
Richard O’Neill, Chief Economic Advisor, FERC
Leon Lowery, Professional Staff-Minority, Senate Energy & Natural Resource Committee
John Anderson, Executive Director, ELCON
Charles Penry, Sr., Principal-Legislative Affairs, NRECA

Attend The Post-Conference Workshop

New Business Models for Transmission Expansion - Friday, April 16

Click Here To Download A Complete Conference Brochure
Click Here For A Complete Listing Of Upcoming Conferences