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USEA Power Sector Podcast Episode 86: Schneider Electric Global Chief Technology Officer Scott Harden

October 17th, 2024
In today’s USEA Power Sector Podcast, Scott Harden, Global Chief Technology Officer for multinational digital automation and energy management provider Schneider Electric answered questions by journalist Herman K. Trabish about how accelerated computing and automation are making the management of data central to optimizing power sector decarbonization and reliability and reducing customer costs.

Beth Garza

Job Title: 
Senior Fellow, Energy
Organization: 
R Street

Beth Garza is a senior fellow with R Street’s Energy & Environmental Policy Team.

Prior to joining R Street, Beth served as the director of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas Independent Market Monitor from 2014 through 2019 after serving as the deputy director since 2008. In this role, she was responsible for monitoring market participant activity, evaluating wholesale market operations and recommending improvements to the wholesale market design.

Over the course of her 35-year career in the electric utility industry, Beth has held a variety of leadership roles in generation and transmission planning, system operations, regulatory affairs and market design for both regulated and competitive entities. Her previous employers include Nextera and Austin Energy.

Beth is a graduate of the University of Missouri and is a registered professional engineer in the State of Texas.

Nick Pappas

Job Title: 
Principal
Organization: 
NP Energy
Nick Pappas is an energy industry consultant focused on policy and market design for the electric sector. His consulting practice provides strategy, market intelligence, and advocacy for clean energy industry and stakeholder clients. Prior to establishing his consulting firm, Nick held leadership roles in regulatory and legislative policy at the California Community Choice Association, Southern California Edison, and the California State Assembly. Nick holds a MS in Energy Systems and BA in Economics from the University of California, Davis.

Tanuj Deora

Job Title: 
Former Director for Clean Energy
Organization: 
Office of the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer
Tanuj led the White House effort to decarbonize the electricity supply for US Government operations through implementation of President Biden’s Executive Order 14057, “Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs through Federal Sustainability.” He brings two decades of experience driving sustainability across the electric power supply chain, from upstream production through to consumer engagement. His prior roles include developing wind energy and transmission projects for EDP Renewables, serving in the cabinet of Governor John Hickenlooper as Director of the Colorado Energy Office, consulting roles at McKinsey and IHS (now S&P Global,) and leading research and program development as Chief Strategy Officer at the Smart Electric Power Alliance. Tanuj most recently served as Vice President of Market Innovation at Uplight, a SaaS company enabling utilities to deliver world-class customer engagement for demand management programs. Tanuj started his career as an engineer and later served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica. He holds a mechanical engineering degree of the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In his free time he enjoys travel and hiking with his wife and two daughters, and attempting to play blues harmonica.

USEA Power Sector Podcast Episode 85: EPRI Deputy Program Manager Anna Lafoyiannis

October 15th, 2024
In today’s USEA Power Sector Podcast, Electric Power Research Institute, or EPRI, Deputy Program Manager Anna Lafoyiannis answered questions by journalist Herman K. Trabish about EPRI’s research into existing US system operator and utility approaches to ensuring resources are adequate to meet demand spikes beyond planning expectations and how a new understanding and valuing of the flexibility of DER can be assessed as a resource adequacy tool.

USEA Power Sector Podcast Episode 84: R Street Energy & Environmental Policy Senior Fellow and former ERCOT Director Beth Garza

October 11th, 2024
In today’s USEA Power Sector Podcast, Beth Garza, a senior fellow with policy consultant R Street’s Energy and Environmental Policy Team and a former director of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas independent market monitor, answered questions by journalist Herman K. Trabish about the strengths and weaknesses of scarcity pricing as a resource adequacy solution in ERCOT’s energy-only market and some of the adaptations added recently as reliability has failed.

Andrew Abranches

Job Title: 
Senior Director
Organization: 
PG&E

Andrew Abranches is the Senior Director of Wildfire Preparedness and Operations at PG&E. He has been with PG&E for ten years serving in leadership roles in Finance, Electric Operations and Human Resources. Prior to PG&E, he has worked at Northrop Grumman and General Electric. Andrew has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

Omar Hatamleh

Dr. Omar Hatamleh is NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer. He is also the agency lead for the NASA 2040 AI Track. Previously, he was the Chief Advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Innovation at Goddard and the Lead for NASA IT Strategy at NASA Headquarters, responsible for creating the AI Strategy and identifying and integrating cutting-edge AI and technology solutions that support NASA’s missions and goals. Dr. Hatamleh was also the former Chief Innovation Officer, Engineering at NASA JSC, and the executive director for the International Space University SSP Program. Dr. Hatamleh has 27 years’ experience at NASA and has authored two books on AI, and published over 33 international journal articles in engineering with over 1400 citations. He has received multiple awards and recognitions from NASA, including the Silver Achievement Medal, the NASA Innovation Award, and the Superior Achievement Award. He holds four engineering degrees, and speaks four languages. Dr. Hatamleh is recognized as one of the Top 100 Global Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence and Innovation and has been an invited keynote speaker to various events including G20, Google, IBM, Dell, European Investment Fund, and has been featured in various media like CNN, Forbes etc.

Satya Nitta

Job Title: 
Co-Founder and CEO
Organization: 
Emergence

I have an abiding interest in all aspects of computing, especially AI and silicon technology. Other interests span: Cosmology, life sciences including astrobiology, nanoscale phenomena and conservation of species and habitats.

I'm an entrepreneur, technologist and inventor. My formal background is in the physics of nanoscale phenomena which I worked on during my Ph.D. My career since then has been split into two parts. For the first part of my career, I helped advance Moore's law through my work in silicon technology at IBM research.

For the 2nd half of my career, I have been working in AI (conversational systems and NLP) and this has spanned the better part of the last 15 years. I have also spent 6 of those as a startup founder and CEO after leaving IBM Research. I have over 40 publications, 100 patents and 5000 citations. I sit on the board of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and was a past board member of the Nanoscience Research Center at Rensselaer. Major awards include: IEEE Innovator of the Year, IEEE Technology of the Year, IEEE-ACE Technology Winner.

Venkat Tirupati

Job Title: 
Vice President of DevOps and Grid Transformation
Organization: 
ERCOT

Venkat Tirupati is the Vice President of DevOps and Grid Transformation.

In his role, Mr. Tirupati serves the teams responsible for business technology development and operations and partners with system operations, system planning, commercial operations, cybersecurity, compliance, treasury, human resources, and legal groups to implement the tools and technology needed to meet their mission. He also oversees the technology innovation capabilities to effectively manage the complexities of rapidly transforming electric power grid by guiding staff, systems, and solutions and is responsible for collaboration with external stakeholders such as vendors, academic institutions, research and development institutes, and electric power industry consortiums. He joined ERCOT in 2020 as the Director for Grid and Market Solutions.

Prior to joining ERCOT, Mr. Tirupati was the Director of Line of Business at Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) serving teams responsible for supporting wholesale power and water business units with their business technology needs. He also held Manager of Market Systems and Supervisor of EMS and Advanced Applications roles at LCRA, supporting control room personnel with business technology. Prior to LCRA, Mr. Tirupati worked as a Senior Reliability Engineer in the Reliability Risk Management Group at North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). He started his career at Siemens Power Transmission and Distribution division, where he worked in various power systems applications engineering roles supporting global power utilities with grid automation technology.  

Mr. Tirupati has served on various committees of NERC and has chaired the NERC EMSWG and ERCOT TWG. Mr. Tirupati has a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering with a focus on power systems from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and a Master of Business Administration with a focus on data analytics and sustainability from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Mr. Tirupati earned his Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from University of Mumbai, India. He is a registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) in the State of Texas.

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