Planning on attending DISTRIBUTECH (DTECH) but don’t know which sessions to attend? The agenda is jam-packed, so we don’t blame you for not knowing where to start.
DISTRIBUTECH® is the leading annual transmission and distribution event that addresses technologies used to move electricity from the power plant through the transmission and distribution systems to the meter and inside the home.
Register now to secure your spot, and we’ll see you March 24-27, 2025 in Dallas, Texas!
In the meantime, here are some sessions you won’t want to miss when you attend:
5 IOUs on the integration of DERMS, ADMS, VPPs and microgrids for next generation distribution operations
This session may be the best one-stop-shop to hear from the top #smartgrid experts in the U.S., including Alex Portilla/Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Shikhar Pandey/ComEd, Jared Trumpetto/Con Edison, and Chad Abbey/Quanta Technology, LLC.
DERs continue to integrate with the distribution system in a variety of ways, as behind-the-meter assets (either aggregated or stand-alone), front-of-the-meter DERs connected to the medium-voltage system, and in some cases operated as part of microgrids. Moreover, regional transmission organizations (RTOs) are at various stages of implementation of FERC Order 2222, which aims to remove barriers to the participation of DERs in wholesale electricity markets. Utilities responsible for the planning and operation of distribution systems need to strategically assess how these trends will impact their business and evaluate the most appropriate architectures to seamlessly integrate and operate these systems in the most effective manner possible.
This panel will provide views from several different investor-owned utilities, including PG&E, ComEd, Con Edison, and Georgia Power, to compare their perspectives and experiences of how they are planning for the coming changes, what specific initiatives are underway, and learn how they see the impacts and growth within the medium term. The moderator will then guide a discussion on specific topics around the different DER applications and how this should affect the operation of the distribution system of the future. Specific discussion points may include:
- How are DER aggregations expected to operate in different jurisdictions and what is being done to understand how to best coordinate their operation with distribution systems?
- With ADMS at various stages of deployment, how are DERMS, microgrids, and VPPs integrated into ADMS and how does it affect the advanced ADMS applications?
- What are some of the barriers or challenges that have been encountered with the deployment of these operating technologies, and what strategies have been devised to address these issues?
- Does the concept of hosting capacity or other DER planning need to be rethought in the context of DER aggregators for both PV and EV, and customer-owned storage?
- How do system operators gain situational awareness of DER aggregation, and can they influence the operation of these DERs in any way?
- Do aggregators have a role in power restoration after a storm or proactive de-energization to improve overall system resilience?
How Duke Energy used generative AI for DER growth and grid reliability
We’re starting to see some tangible examples of GenAI implementation from utilities. Duke Energy Corporation’s Rachel Fricke and Rick Glover join Abhineet Parchure and Josh Kulas to share how Duke is using Gen AI for DER siting and asset health analysis.
The growth of generative AI (GenAI) has introduced new opportunities for electric utilities. This session will explore how Duke Energy and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have partnered to build applications with GenAI that enable engineers to seamlessly connect enterprise data from different sources to perform meaningful analysis for use cases such as transformer health analysis or DER siting. It will also highlight how implementing AI and ML has helped Duke Energy better identify grid assets and fleet electrification opportunities.
Session participants will show how recent advancements in the GenAI space have enabled a deeper and more robust user experience, allowing weeks’ worth of hard-to-do analytics to be completed in minutes via an interactive experience. Users can perform analysis against a variety of sources without worrying about data integrations, data joins, or AI/ML model selection and tuning at scale. This includes tabular data such as historical grid data accessed via SQL databases, asset maintenance reports in an enterprise knowledge base/vendor software systems, real-time telemetry data such as AMI/SCADA accessed via APIs, or external data such as county-provided real-estate parcel data.
Such analytics, made easier and faster with GenAI, is a critical enabler for adding gigawatts of DERs within the next five years, which is orders of magnitude more than the capacity added to date.
The future of flexible interconnections
One of the buzzy topics of the past couple of years: can flexible interconnections alleviate the time and cost challenges in the interconnection process? Four New York utilities weigh in— Zachary Caruso/Avangrid, Adam Podpora/Central Hudson, Ben Brown/Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc., and Gabriele Viscariello, P.E./National Grid— with an assist from Drew Smith of Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc.
One way to alleviate the time and cost challenges in the interconnection process is through a Flexible Interconnection. Flexible Interconnections allow generation, load, or storage assets to connect to the grid in exchange for the utility controlling the assets for certain periods of time to alleviate grid constraints.
This session will bring together four utilities from New York to discuss flexible interconnections. Avangrid, National Grid, Orange & Rockland, and Central Hudson will join flexible interconnections pioneer Smarter Grid Solutions to dive deep into the technical and policy requirements necessary to implement a flexible interconnection solution. The utilities will discuss the benefits of flexible interconnections, lessons learned from their implementation, and what they see as the future of flexible interconnections in New York.
Attendees will learn about how each utility implemented flexible interconnections, the grid benefits seen from utilities’ projects and how they plan to carry their projects forward into the future.
4 utilities share advanced tech for identifying and locating wildfires
This will be a great chance to see how leading utilities like Xcel Energy, Arizona Public Service – APS (Scott Bordenkircher), Oncor Electric Delivery (Robel Lulseged, PE), and National Grid (Casey Kirkpatrick) are using AI and other technologies to prevent and limit wildfires.
Wildfire risk is one of the top risks faced by electric utilities today. Fire season is year-round. California and the West have experienced a dramatic increase in the number and intensity of wildfires. And now, utilities across North America realize they must have a fire mitigation plan. Regulators, investors, the insurance industry, and customers expect a wildfire mitigation plan as a best practice. They all demand a safer and more resilient T&D system.
Explore these new fire mitigation plans with four utilities — SDG&E, Arizona Public Service, Oncor, and National Grid — that are leading the industry in the identification and location of wildfires. Learn the costs and benefits of new fire mitigation strategies like sensor systems, satellites, cameras, covered conductors, strategic undergrounding, and public safety power shutoff. Learn how AI is adding value to massive amounts of raw data coming from transmission and distribution rights of way at the grid edge.
Discover the challenges of planning, permitting, and executing these immediate and long-term initiatives from proactive utilities directly engaged in increasingly detailed wildfire mitigation programs.
