Half-Day Conference, Electrification and Decarbonization: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Future of Minnesota Energy

Presenters: 

Gabriel Chan
Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Presentation Description:
This presentation will be a discussion of landscape trends in the energy transition, recent state and federal energy policy, and what’s needed at the interface of policy, planning, and implementation to move energy transition forward. Utilities and their regulators are working toward integration of planning, deploying distributed energy resources as virtual power plants, and aligning energy-system planning with a changing funding and policy landscape.

Dr. Gabriel Chan is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs in the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy area. In his research and engagement, Prof. Chan examines public policy to inform how technological innovation can enable a more rapid and equitable energy transition in domains such as distributed energy resource deployment, consumer-owned electric utilities, community solar, and national innovation policy. Prof. Chan is the Co-Director of the University of Minnesota Center for Science Technology, and Environmental Policy, the Co-Director of an Environmental Justice Thriving Community Technical Assistance Center in EPA Region 5 and is the Co-Director of the Electric Cooperative Innovation Center. Prof. Chan holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Siva Sankaranarayanan
Principal Technical Leader at Electric Power Research Institute

Presentation Description:
The presentation will highlight how a combination of climate action planning and policy, market adoption, and technology maturity are driving a variety of economy-wide decarbonization solutions through electrification. The rapid evolution of these solutions requires a framework-driven approach that can help identify strategies and specific actions that coherently work with multiple stakeholders in the energy ecosystem to produce win-win outcomes for all stakeholders involved.

Siva Sankaranarayanan is a Principal Technical Leader at the Electric Power Research Institute where he currently leads research in smart buildings and the application of building codes and standards for Grid Interactive and Efficient Buildings.  Siva is the Principal Investigator for EPRI’s Department of Energy-funded Connected Communities Project which is studying the potential of using high-efficiency and connected customer technologies such as heat pumps, batteries, EV chargers, and rooftop solar to help with decarbonizing buildings.  Siva also serves as the lead for EPRI’s Artificial Intelligence initiative focused on advanced buildings and smart communities.  Siva’s career spans over 25 years in various industries including Telecommunications, Healthcare, Energy, and Consulting, and has several publications to his credit.

Panelists:

Teja Dasari
Senior Research Engineer at Xcel Energy

Teja Dasari is a Senior Research Engineer at Xcel Energy, MN. He is involved with Performance optimization, research studies, and data analytics of Xcel’s Renewable Energy portfolio: 4.6 GW of onshore wind and a budding solar fleet. His work involves studying the underperformance of wind turbines and exploring avenues to improve performance. Among various tasks, he also leads a field-scale experimentation team equipped with lidar to investigate the wind flow patterns within wind farms. Before joining Xcel, Teja got a Ph.D. in Mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, in 2018. His research was in experimental fluid mechanics involving field-scale wind turbine wakes, using natural snowfalls of MN. He also holds an MS and BS in Mechanical Engineering from India. Teja enjoys biking, hiking, skiing, and amateur astronomy in his free time. He also offers guest lectures on renewable energy.

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Joe Gillis
Burns & McDonnell

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Emily Neumann
Electrical Engineer a Black & Veatch

Emily Neumann, P.E. (MN, NJ, FL) has been an Electrical Engineer at Black & Veatch for over 5 years, specializing in substation design. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering in 2018. While studying at the U, she interned at Xcel Energy for 2 years in their System Protection group.

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Rachel Pietsch
Relay Protection and Control Engineer at Mortenson Young Engineers Panel

Rachel is a relay protection and control engineer at Mortenson. She graduated from the University of St. Thomas in 2022 with a degree in electrical engineering power systems emphasis and a minor in physics. While attending the University of St. Thomas, she interned with Mortenson performing SCADA integrations at renewable generation substations across the country. Additionally, she was a part of the University of St. Thomas Microgrid Research Center.

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Amera Poppen
Substation Engineer at Great River Energy

Amera has been a substation engineer at Great River Energy for 1.5 years and works on relay and control, and metering. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Engineering in 2021. While attending the University of Minnesota, Amera interned at GRE in the substation group for 3 years.

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Abigail Schoonover
Reliability Engineer, Performance Optimization 

Abby is a Renewable Reliability Engineer focused on hydroelectric dam safety at Xcel Energy. Abby graduated from The University of Minnesota-Duluth with a Civil Engineering degree in 2019. She has experience in managing capital projects, completing dam safety inspections, and ensuring regulatory compliance for reliable operations at the hydroelectric facilities.

Registration closes January 5.

Registration is free for current MnSPE members, and $65/PDH hour for non-members, a total of $227.50 for the conference. Some discounts apply for annual sponsors. Contact Katie for details.