The Summit

9th - 11th November 2010

Summit Venue
The Four Seasons Hotel, Miami

In today's troubled climate, the utilities sector is in the midst of unprecedented transformation. Several factors are driving fundamental change: liberalization and increased competition, strategic mergers and acquisitions, regulatory pressure around climate change, systems reliability, convergence, electricity and renewable concerns.

Previous Summits
- May 2010
  NGU Summit May 2010
- Oct 2009
  Next Generation Utilities Summit
- Mar 2009
  Next Generation Utilities Summit 2009

White Papers

Laying the Foundation for the Grid-Tied Smart Inverter of the Future

By Mesa Scharf and Michael Mills-Price, PV Powered. The purpose of this white paper is to highlight the major economic benefits and technical advancements PV Powered and its partners—Portland General Electric (PGE), Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL), Sensus, and Northern Plains Power Technologies (NPPT)—are pursuing under the Solar Energy Grid Integration System (SEGIS) Stage 2 program to address the challenges utilities will experience as the penetration of distributed photovoltaic power generation increases. The SEGIS program advancements will help lay the foundation for an “intelligent” or smart inverter capable of integrating large-scale photovoltaic power generation into the Smart Grid with greater stability and protection, and at a far more competitive Levelized Cost of Energy. By providing the monitoring, control, and other capabilities utilities need to successfully integrate high penetrations of distributed photovoltaic power, the industry will be in a better position to satisfy even the most aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standards.

Grid Net: 4G Smart Grid Solution Overview

The Smart Grid is a series of interconnected, interoperable networks of control systems and asset‐management tools, empowered by sensors, communication pathways and information tools – all designed to help utilities deliver energy more efficiently to customers. Implementing the Smart Grid requires connecting existing utility grid infrastructure, in order to leverage legacy investments, as well as enabling future innovations with adaptable “future‐proof” investments in new Smart Grid technologies. Instead of focusing on single Smart Grid elements, the entire Smart Grid infrastructure of hardware, software and communications connectivity architected with the following underlying principles needs to be taken into consideration.