Historically, electricity has been produced by rotating turbines revolving at a constant speed to maintain consistent power quality, and power was delivered to homes and businesses from a single centralized location, ensuring relatively consistent and unidirectional power flow and regulation.
Today, there is a need for more dynamic and intelligent control of the power system as increasing quantities of distributed solar, energy storage, and flexible demand connect at the grid's edge.
Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems, or DERMS, are one way to adequately manage this growth of distributed energy resources. DERMS provide the ability to maintain consistent power flow and power quality while providing a range of other benefits, including improved inverter performance, enabling microgrids, predicting grid issues, ensuring the safety of maintenance personnel, improving system resilience, and supporting investment planning -- all critical elements of enabling a clean energy future.
Join us on November 18th at 6:00pm for a panel discussion by DERMS experts who will explain how grid infrastructure will be overhauled over the next decade, the challenges utilities will face, and how DERMS will play a key role in enabling the growth of distributed energy.
You can find more details on the panelists below. We look forward to seeing you there!
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Event Speakers:
David D'Achiardi
Head of Energy Systems, Blueprint Power
David is the Head of Energy Systems at Blueprint Power, a NYC-based tech company that transforms real estate portfolios into clean power plants, accelerating the growth and financial sustainability of distributed, intelligent clean energy. Prior to joining Blueprint, David was a Research Assistant at the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research interests include energy market design under high renewable power adoption and transactive control of power systems. David also worked as a Mechanical Design Engineer at Tesla’s Gigafactory 1, where he focused on physics-based modeling of manufacturing and building utility systems. David holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Economics from MIT.
Steven Malena
Program Manager Distribution Planning Department, Con Edison
Steven Malena is a Program Manager with the Distribution Planning Department at Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc. In this role, he is responsible for leading the efforts in developing the Distributed System Platform (DSP), and the Electric Grid Modernization Plans. Steven has 17 years of experience in the utility industry through his past leadership roles in Energy Services, System Operation, Transmission Construction, Substation Construction, Substation Operations, and Overhead Technical Services. Over the past five years, Steven has been actively working towards supporting New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV), and Community Leadership Climate Protection Act (CLCPA) on several planning, strategy, and implementation fronts at Con Edison. Steven holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology, a M.S. in Organizational Leadership from Mercy College, and an Executive MBA from Fordham University.
Ben Ullman
Product Manager for Transactive Energy, Opus One Solutions
Ben Ullman is Product Manager for Transactive Energy at Opus One Solutions. In that role, he works alongside utilities across the world to develop distribution-level energy markets that showcase the time and location specific value of distributed energy resources. Prior to Opus One Solutions, Ben worked at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission investigating allegations of market manipulation, and later at Navigant Economics on energy market competition engagements.
Event Moderator:
Elta Kolo, Ph.D.,
Content Lead Grid Edge Research, Wood Mackenzie
Elta is the Content Lead for Grid Edge Research for the Power and Renewables team at Wood Mackenzie working on utility digitization and flexibility in U.S. electricity markets. Prior to joining Wood Mackenzie, Elta pursued a joint Ph.D. funded by the European Commission on Sustainable Energy Technologies and Strategies at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. During her doctoral studies, she researched demand response policies for the implementation of smart grids and has presented her work at both U.S. and European conferences, in addition to publishing in international scholarly journals. Elta holds a Master of Science degree in economics and management of network industries from the ICAI School of Engineering (Spain) and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Union College (New York).
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Started in 2019, DER Task Force is a community dedicated to unlocking the immense promise of distributed energy resources (DERs) in our energy system. Our membership consists of project developers, engineers, analysts, community organizers, utility employees, policy experts, academics, and investors from the most forward-thinking grid edge organizations in the country. The Task Force is a platform to ask questions, debate ideas, meet experts, make policy suggestions, learn and teach. In addition to being constantly connected via the Slack community, we meet virtually once a month to hear a member of the group present what they've been working on or thinking about. And in an effort to expand the conversation, we publish a podcast every month themed around the last meeting's content. Unlike most industry groups, DERTF is not sponsored or influenced by companies in this sector – all participation is from individual volunteers who are highly informed and enthusiastic about distributed energy resources.
