Course Topics
Knowledge is your organization's most valuable and strategic resource, and a knowledge advantage, skillfully applied, is a competitive advantage.
Course topics encompass the following learning areas: fundamentals, leadership, trends and future.
Electric Power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution
Skip Collier - Professional Training Systems, Inc.
- Basics of generation, transmission, and distribution, including electrical terminology, equipment, construction, and operating theory
Natural Gas Production, Transmission, and Delivery
Richard Moore
- Basics of natural gas production, transmission, and distribution, including essential equipment and its operation
Next Generation Nuclear
- Latest research and development on creating nuclear reactors that are safer and more economical
Utility Accounting and Financial Reporting — How Utilities Make Money
Julie Desimone - Moss-Adams
- Basic accounting concepts
- What the financial statements communicate and how they are used
- Cost management and how to know when you are making money
Financial Management and Capital Markets
Brandon Lohse - Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas
- Value creation and the cost of capital/money
- Financial policy development and accessing capital
- Financial quality and credit ratings
- Perspective of a utility sector investment manager
Regulation and Rate Making
Ric Gale; Paul Kjellander
- Rate making process including revenue requirements, cost allocation, and rate design
- How rate mechanisms are used in general rate cases
Utility Legislative and Regulatory Advocacy — Understanding the Big Picture
- Role industry advocacy plays in informing and shaping public policy
- Responsibility of legislators, state regulators, and FERC
- Customer preferences and the tension between stable prices and reliable services
- State's rights vs. federal rights
Managing Grid Operations
Brian Johnson - University of Idaho
- Challenges of operating and coordinating a more complex grid with more information, distributed resources, and customer expectations
- Balancing supply and demand in a dynamic and complex system
- Enabling more flexibility, adaptability, and responsiveness
Customer Experience
Roy Barnes - Blue Space Consulting
- Customer experience design and management
- Integrate the customer experience into product and service design
- Identify and communicate the customer experience ROI
Safety Culture
Bo Hanchey - Idaho Power
- Creating a culture of safety that goes beyond protocols, training, and equipment
- Committing to safety excellence that improves safety performance, operational effectiveness, and business performance
Inclusive Leadership: Understanding and Managing Unconscious Bias
Scott Horton and Melanie Miller - Delta Concepts Consulting
- Creating personal learning and practical leadership skills to manage, lead, and contribute to a diverse and inclusive environment
Strategic Change Leadership
Roger Woodworth - Mindset Matters
- How leadership behavior influences organizational culture
- Gain personal insights about how "who you are" affects "how you are" as a leader
- Systems thinking in developing a pro-active strategic response
- Develop personal commitments and plans to be a high impact leader
Strategic Leadership in the Natural Gas Industry
- Utility industry perspective on improving safety, managing risk, and driving continuous improvement
- How current events affect natural gas operations, business strategy, and practices
Strategic Human Resources
Bryan Cox – Avista
- Energy industry challenges and the impact on the workforce
- Digital workforce
- Culture, engagement, and employee experience
- Talent crisis
- Workforce of the future
Regulatory Strategy
Noel Black - Southern Company
- How the regulatory model supports, or does not support, the changing industry
- How regulatory strategy supports corporate strategy
- Current issues, including rooftop solar, extreme weather, EV infrastructure, decarbonization
Stakeholder Engagement
Faith McKenna; Sayuri Yamada
- Understanding the language of our stakeholders
- Employing effective advocacy tools and messaging to build collaboration
Strategic Trends in Consumer Engagement
Greg Guthridge - EY Power and Utilities Advisory Practice
- How technology advances are powering new ways to engage
- Managing information for competitive advantage
- Building innovative products and services
- How nontraditional players are challenging the utility business model
Fuel Diversity: Integrated Resource Planning
Jason Thackston - Avista
- Trends in generation and the changing fuel mix
- How to manage fuel diversity
- Integrated resource planning process
Wholesale Power Markets
- Generation sources in the regional and national mix
- RTO market overview
- Fundamental design features of locational marginal pricing and financial transmission rights
- Where RTO markets are going
Trends in Energy Security
Charles Durant - Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Areas of greatest vulnerability and who is in charge of overseeing physical protections of the grid
- Strategies to detect and deflect attacks on critical utility infrastructure systems
- Challenges in building up the resiliency of our infrastructure to withstand disruptions
Energy Storage
- Resource flexibility and reliability trends
Advanced Grid Planning and Operations
Dana Cabbell - Southern California Edison
- Where the smart grid evolution is on the road to optimization
- Implementing new uses for the customer and integrating into operations
- Integrating renewables, advanced AMI, distributed generation, and storage
Environmental Collaboration
Ralph Cavanagh - Natural Resources Defense Council
- Removing unintended regulatory barriers to increase utilities’ capacity to invest in environmental solutions
- Making energy efficiency and renewable energy a profit center
- Creating diversified, environmentally responsible electric and gas resource portfolios to ensure more reliable and affordable service for customers
- Impact of federal environmental legislation on the utility industry
- Investing in grid assets to enhance reliability and reduce congestion, despite opposition to new transmission lines
Current Issues in the Natural Gas Industry
- Industry wide perspective on natural gas abundance, new demand, emissions, infrastructure replacement, and the future of energy policy
- Operational and regulatory differences between managing electric and natural gas delivery systems
Data Analytics
- Using predictive analytics for risk prioritization
- How energy companies are using big data to appeal more directly to what customers want
- How big data is transforming the energy industry
- Machine learning
Next Generation Technologies
Raiford Smith - Google
- Zero carbon sources of energy
- Connected home devices and the next wave of demand response
- Automation enables new capabilities
Corporate Strategy
Jesse Langston
- How an industry creates a context for corporate strategy
- Role and responsibility of the main decision makers in the forming and implementation of corporate strategy while balancing competing interests
- Consensus-driven strategy development
Experience Innovation: Design Thinking Simulation
Lyall Samaroden - ExperiencePoint
- Human centered design and balancing analysis with intuition
- Terms, techniques, and thought patterns of successful innovators
The Energy Industry--Key Issues Shaping the Transformation
- Increased decarbonization
- Aging infrastructure
- Transmission reforms
- Federal-State regulatory issues
- New competitors and emerging technologies
- Cyber and physical security
- Changing customer preferences and behaviors
Global Development and the Decade Ahead for Utilities
Grant Dougans - Bain and Company
- Key trends in global energy markets and implications for U.S. utilities
- U.S. energy transition
- Key capabilities for leaders navigating the decade-ahead industry
Climate Risk
- SEC climate rules, greenhouse gas emissions, net zero goals, and resource planning
- Understanding the impact on investors, consumers, and regulation
Retail Company of the Future
- Bridging capabilities across silos to create more collaboration
- Gaining customer trust and building strategic partnerships
- Becoming a solutions provider
Pathways to the Future
- Identifying and prioritizing key success factors
- Scenario planning for the future impacts of today's management decisions
- Aligning corporate strategy across diverse stakeholder interests