Ashley Pilipiszyn strives to create a sustainable, connected planet through scaling blockchain technology and artificial intelligence for distributed energy systems. Ashley has worked with a number of companies, organizations, and governments to explore blockchain and energy use cases, prototype Dapps, and develop smart contracts with regards to DER, electric vehicles, and peer-to-peer trading. She is currently a Program Manager for the Grid Integration, Systems & Mobility (GISMo) team at SLAC and PhD student at Stanford.

At the Department of Energy, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Chris has had the opportunity to manage and oversee just over $1.5B in grid modernization projects. He has seen some of the top utilities in the country, from very large to very small, tackle technology, integration and business challenges necessary to bring about the Smart Grid.

Chris leads DOE’s Smart Grid standards and interoperability efforts, working alongside NIST, FERC and other federal agencies in the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel and other forums. He founded DOE’s participation in the Federal Government’s Green Button Data Access Initiative to empower customers with improved access to their own energy data, and I also stay involved in State and Federal regulatory developments, and policy aspects of consumer level issues.

Prior to joining the DOE, Chris served as Director of Products at Eka Systems, also participating in Marketing and Business Development. In that role, he gained a full market perspective on the electric energy sector, as well as natural gas and water infrastructure. This experience, combined with his semiconductor and satellite communications background, gives Chris a unique and valuable perspective on the US energy business under transformation.

City Councilor Clifton Below is Chair of the Lebanon Electric Aggregation Committee and the principal driver behind the development of Lebanon Community Power (LCP), a transactive platform in the making. Below is a former NH Public Utilities Commissioner, State Senator, and Representative. In the mid-90s he was one of the principal architects of NH’s first in the nation Electric Utility Restructuring statute that called for the development of a retail market for energy services and customer choice for options like real time pricing (RTP) and distributed generation.

As a PUC Commissioner he served on the EPRI Energy Efficiency & Smart Grid Public Advisory Group, on the FERC/NARUC Smart Grid/Demand Response Collaborative, as a Board officer in RGGI, Inc. and as President of the New England Conference of Public Utility Commissioners. As a City Councilor Below has represented the City in several PUC proceedings including Grid Modernization Investigation, updating of net metering tariffs, and Liberty Utilities’ proposed 5 MW residential battery pilot with TOU T&D rates, that can work with RTP in LCP.

Danielle Sass Byrnett has been Director of NARUC’s Center for Partnerships & Innovation (CPI) since December 2017. She leads this grant-funded team focused on identifying emerging challenges and connecting state public utility commissions with expertise and strategies to navigate complex decision-making. CPI builds relationships, develops resources, and delivers training in areas ranging from energy efficiency and distributed energy resources to natural gas infrastructure to cybersecurity and more. Danielle launched and leads the NARUC-NASEO Task Force on Comprehensive Electricity Planning.

Prior to joining NARUC, Danielle served in the federal government and consulting roles at the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In this work, she supported state environmental and energy agencies in expanding their clean energy policies and programs through facilitated workshops, direct technical assistance, national and state-level analyses, resource development, and numerous publications.

Danielle holds a BS in biology and environmental studies from Swarthmore College and an MPP with an energy and environment concentration from Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

Daniel is a Project Manager for New Energy Solutions (NES) at National Grid. In this capacity, he is responsible to drive innovation by leading complex projects that integrate new technology, renewable energy, and customer-centric research in order to create new business models and opportunities for National Grid to build the utility of the future. Currently, he is managing the first of its kind Distribution System Platform (DSP) pilot in Buffalo, NY while collaborating on other projects that involve renewable energy, Blockchain, and IoT. Daniel has experience in large scale deployment planning of smart grid technologies for utilities, electrical substations design, management of energy audits and energy efficiency projects within the Energy and Oil & Gas industries, as well as electrical installation project design for large residential and commercial buildings. A certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Daniel also holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree from Hult International Business School in Boston and a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela.

Don led two of the nation’s most visible smart grid field demonstrations: the GridWise Testbed demonstrations (Grid Friendly Appliances and Olympic Peninsula study) and the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration. He is the principal author of the three technical reports that resulted from these two field demonstrations. Don developed PNNL’s Grid Friendly Appliance Controller, an electronic controller that senses the local frequency and voltage and advises its host electric load how to respond in a way that benefits the power grid. Don work has influenced architectures of transactive systems. He has authored or coauthored 22 U.S. patents since 2001 in various topic areas.

Dave Hardin has extensive experience designing, integrating and managing enterprise information and automation in the energy and manufacturing sectors. He has held senior technical and management positions at EnerNOC and Schneider/Invensys. Dave has been active in Smart Grid initiatives since 2006 including serving on the OpenADR Alliance Board of Directors, SGIP Board of Directors, co-chair of the SGIP Architecture Committee, chair of the SGIP Industrial-to-Grid Domain Expert Working Group and vice chair of the SGIP Transactive Energy Coordination Group. Dave is also serving on the OPC Foundation Technical Advisory Council and is member emeritus of the GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC), a Registered Professional Engineer (PE), Project Management Institute Project Management Professional (PMP), and an IEEE Certified Professional Software Engineering Master (PSEM).

Phone: 202.871.7444     Email: [email protected]

Board: Director

David Forfia is Director of Enterprise Architecture and IT Transformation at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, where he is responsible for the architecture for the systems which operate the Texas electric grid operations and implementing the programs that transform the delivery of IT services to ERCOT’s stakeholders. Previously, he was responsible for ERCOT’s IT functions supporting the bulk electric system including application development, network and telecommunications, data center operations, application production support and IT infrastructure. He also served in multiple leadership positions during the implementation of the Texas Nodal program, including the deployment of the technology infrastructure, integration, testing and internal operational readiness for the systems.

David served on the SGIP Board of Directors beginning in 2011, was Board and Executive Committee Chair from 2015 to 2017 and was Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee and a member of the Audit and Technical Committees. David is also a member of the GridWise Architecture Council and has been Chairman since 2015. David began his career at Austin Energy Director of Information Technology Services for Austin Energy and was Deputy Director and Chief Information Officer for an $18B pension fund. David holds a BBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from St. Edward’s University.

Dr. David G. Holmberg is a mechanical engineer in the Mechanical Systems and Controls Group of the Energy and Environment Division (EED) of the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). David Holmberg joined the Mechanical Systems and Controls Group in March 2002. Dr. Holmberg’s current research is focused on building integration into the “Smart Grid”, with a focus on information modeling to address facility energy interactions and the interfaces to outside service providers, including the utility and other energy-related service providers.

Ed McNamara is Director of Energy Policy and Planning for the Vermont Department of Public Service. In this role, he is responsible for developing and implementing statewide energy policy, including energy efficiency and demand resource management programs, renewable energy policy, and electric utility planning. In addition, Ed is the lead staff for developing Vermont’s positions on federal energy issues, including wholesale electricity market rules and transmission planning processes. Prior to working at the Department of Public Service, Ed worked as a Hearing Officer and Staff Attorney for the Public Service Board.

Ellen Anderson is the Executive Director of the University of Minnesota’s Energy Transition Lab and served in the Minnesota Senate from 1993 to 2011 and was re-elected five times, representing several neighborhoods of St. Paul and the city of Falcon Heights. She chaired the Jobs, Energy and Community Development Committee; the Commerce Committee; the Energy and Telecommunications Committee; and the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Finance Committee. In March 2011 Gov. Dayton appointed Anderson chair of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, where she served until early 2012. From 2012 to 2014, Anderson was senior advisor on energy and environment to Gov. Mark Dayton and assisted the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board on energy and environmental issues.

Named Executive Director of the New York State Smart Grid Consortium (NYSSGC) in April 2013, James T. Gallagher brings over 35 years of energy policy and industry experience to his role.
As Executive Director, Gallagher oversees the Consortium and its members as they work toward broad statewide implementation of a safe, secure, and reliable smart grid to modernize New York’s energy infrastructure. Gallagher is the architect of the NYSSGC’s priority initiatives, which are designed to modernize New York’s electrical grid to improve reliability and resiliency, lower long-term costs, and identify best practices for meeting the evolving energy service needs of consumers. He recently co-facilitated the stakeholder process for Market Design and Platform Technologies for the NY Public Service Commission’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) Proceeding.

Prior to joining the NYSSGC, Gallagher served as Senior Manager for Strategic Planning at the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), where he was responsible for establishing the long term strategic direction for the NYISO, which operates New York’s electric transmission system and wholesale power markets. Before joining the NYISO in 2011, Gallagher served as Director of Energy Policy for the City of New York, and he was the lead energy advisor to the Office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Prior to working with the City, he was Director of the Office of Electricity and Environment for the New York Public Service Commission, where he enjoyed a 21 year career, and held senior energy policy positions at Northeast Utilities, the Pennsylvania Governor’s Energy Council, and in the late 1970’s, the Tennessee Valley Authority. At TVA he developed and led the organization’s pioneering “Solar Homes for the Valley” program.

Gallagher is a member of the Advisory Board of Grid4EU, the largest smart grid project funded by the European Commission. Through this effort, Gallagher collaborates with international energy and technology experts to learn and create best practices and technological solutions for grid modernization. Gallagher also serves on the EPRI Grid Modernization Advisory Group and sits on the Board of Directors for the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center. He is on the Executive Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Energy’s State and Local Energy Efficiency Action Network.

He earned a B.S. in Business and Economics from Lehigh University, and an M.S. in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania.

James L. Kirtley Jr. is of Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has also worked for General Electric, Large Steam Turbine Generator Department, as an Electrical Engineer, for Satcon Technology Corporation as Vice President and General Manager of the Tech Center and as Chief Scientist, and was Gastdozent at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He continues as a Director for Satcon. Dr. Kirtley attended MIT as an undergraduate and received the degree of Ph.D. from MIT in 1971. Dr. Kirtley is a specialist in electric machinery and electric power systems. He served as Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion from 1998 to 2006 and continues to serve as Editor for that journal and as a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Electric Power Components and Systems. Dr. Kirtley was made a Fellow of IEEE in 1990. He was awarded the IEEE Third Millenium medal in 2000 and the Nikola Tesla prize in 2002. Dr. Kirtley was elected to the United States National Academy of Engineering in 2007. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Massachusetts.

Marija Ilic is a Visiting Professor at the new MIT Institute for Data, Systems and Society. Prof. Ilic is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, with a joint appointment in the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy Departments. She is also the Honorary Chaired Professor for Control of Future Electricity Network Operations at Delft University of Technology in Delft, The Netherlands. She was an Assistant Professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and tenured Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was then a Senior Research Scientist in Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, from 1987 to 2002. She has 30 years of experience in teaching and research in the area of electrical power system modeling and control. Her main interest is in the systems aspects of operations, planning, and economics of the electric power industry. She is Director of the Electric Energy Systems Group at Carnegie Mellon University whose main objective is mathematical modeling, analysis and decision making for the future energy systems. She is leading the quest for transforming today’s electric power grid into an enabler of efficient, reliable, secure and sustainable integration of many novel energy resources. She has co-authored several books in her field of interest. Prof. Ilic is an IEEE Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer.

Macky McCleary was appointed by the Governor as the new Administrator for the RI Division of Public Utilities and Carriers in September, 2016. He previously served as Director of the RI Department of Business Regulation where he served statutorily as the State Banking Commissioner, Commissioner of Insurance, Real Estate Administrator and State Boxing Commissioner. Macky was previously on the Board of Commissioners for RI Housing. He previously served as Deputy Commissioner for Environmental Quality (EQ) at the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) for four years.

Prior to joining DEEP Macky was with McKinsey & Co., a global management consulting firm, for 5 years. At McKinsey he worked on a wide variety of strategy and operations projects for clients around the globe.

Before his work at McKinsey, Macky was the co-founder and president of EmPower CES, a start-up clean energy and green building development company. Macky built EmPower around a commitment to energy independence and environmental stewardship. The company remains in business marketing clean energy products and services to homeowners, businesses and institutions.
Macky holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Masters of Architecture from the Yale School of Architecture and earlier in his career worked as an architect and urban designer.

Paul is the founder and President of Businovation, LLC, a grid modernization and clean energy innovation consulting firm. He currently supports a number of client initiatives in the area of EVSE, Renewable DER, and Microgrid infrastructure development. He also provides thought leadership for the advanced standards frameworks that will leverage IEEE 1547 certified interconnections to support transactive energy services through grid-edge interoperation, and serves as the Working Group chair for the IEEE Power and Energy Society P825 Transactive Energy initiative.

Rich Shandross is an Associate Director in the Energy Practice, working in the Energy Efficiency Policy and Analysis group. He brings more than 25 years of engineering, project management, and research and development experience in industry, consulting, government, and academia.

Rich supports clients in the areas of energy efficiency, technology and market evaluation, and emerging technologies.

Immediately prior to joining Navigant, Rich worked in and then led the Advanced Power Sources program at General Dynamics C4 Systems, managing projects sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory and Army CERDEC, as well as internal development projects.

Rich worked in the Technology and Innovation practice at Arthur D. Little and TIAX LLC consulting firms, first as a consultant and then as a manager. There he worked on and led projects in manufacturing technology; commercial food equipment and processes; HVAC technologies; alternative fuel technologies and manufacturing processes; well-to-wheels analyses of energy and emissions; and fuel cell technology development and analysis.

Rich also worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in the Chicago (Region V) office, in their Hazardous Waste Management Program. He was the EPA’s State Implementation Officer for Indiana.

Ron is a senior technical executive and scientist with a focus on technology, business, and policy issues related to energy transformation in the electricity industry. He has over 40 years of software engineering experience in distributed, real-time systems and their interoperability with enterprise computing environments, and over 20 years of experience specifically in the energy transformation space.

He was a Co-Founder and retired Chief Scientist of Utopus Insights, Inc., a company that specialized in advanced utility analytics for renewable generation, asset health, and forecasting. Prior to this Ron was an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technology Officer of IBM’s world-wide Smarter Energy Research program.

In 2000 Ron began working with the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), NIST, and FERC on future energy system requirements and architecture, interoperability, distributed energy resource management including transactive energy, and related business, policy, and regulatory issues. He was a core planning team member for the launch of both the GridWise® Alliance industry consortium in 2003 and the Industrial Internet Consortium in 2014. In 2004 was selected by the DoE to sit on the 13-member GridWise® Architecture Council, serving as Chairman in 2009-2010 and continuing today as a member. He also served as Chairman of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) Architecture Committee for its first five years, which later merged with SEPA where he continues as a member of the Grid Architecture Working Group.

Raymond Kaiser is the Director of Energy Management Systems for Amzur Technologies, a 200-person software development firm based in Tampa Florida. Amzur is developing a suite of open source DER Communication and Control services based on industry standard protocols. For the past 15 years, Raymond has provided energy and environmental consulting to local, state and federal agencies, major developers, engineering firms, and national and international architectural firms. Prior to his work in energy and the environment, Mr. Kaiser had a 20-year history in the IT industry that included sales and marketing, technical support for Large Accounts, and software development. In his last assignment, he was Business Products Manager in Corporate Strategy and Worldwide Business Development for Lexmark International, an IBM spinoff.

Mr. Bernstein is CEO of RBCG, an engineering and business consulting company. He has over 30 years’ experience with control automation design, specification development, educational program development, and facility master planning. His is a co-author of the latest ASHRAE BMS Guidespec, training developer/instructor, co-author of texts on Control Networking and Building Automation, author/advisor of control standards for the US DOD, healthcare, retail giants, and the oil/gas industry. He is an elected member of the US DOE Gridwise Architecture Council and a partner of the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium. He is the Executive Director of LonMark International a non-profit standards development association. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from CMU, a Masters in Psychology, and a Masters in Philosophy.

Mr. Knapp is Power Analytics’ Vice President of Quality Assurance & Energy Markets, overseeing and managing the company’s microgrid and DER systems design and integration solutions. Additionally, Mr. Knapp oversees and manages the company’s Quality Assurance Program related to the ISO 9001:2008 Standards and NUPIC ASME NQA-1–2008 Standards. Mr. Knapp has been an electrical engineer and compliance officer in the energy sector for over 40 years. Prior to his position at Power Analytics, Mr. Knapp was employed with Power Generation Services, Inc., (PoGens) as Chief Compliance Officer in the Law, Compliance, and Business Ethics unit responsible for overseeing the company’s national compliance organization and the company’s national business ethics efforts. Additionally, Mr. Knapp served as PoGens Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, where he was responsible for managing compliance programs for the federal, state, and local EPA environmental RICE Rule initiatives, as well as FERC, NERC, and RTO/ISO market rules and oversight enforcement programs.

Prior to his work at PoGens, Mr. Knapp was employed with Constellation Energy Group, as the Director of Operations. While at Constellation, Mr. Knapp oversaw, and was responsible for, transmission and generation operations, Wholesale and Retail market design and stakeholder operations, FERC and NERC regulatory and compliance oversight and program development, and DER and DR compliance oversight and market development. Mr. Knapp’s primary responsibility focused on compliance oversight and enforcement related interactions with NERC and the regional RTOs/ISOs.

Mr. Knapp is a member of the GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC). His membership is from January 2015 to December 2018.

Mr. Knapp received the 2015 Lifetime Honor Award from the National Association of Distinguished Professionals.

Mr. Knapp received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a M.S.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Steve Widergren contributes to new solutions for reliable operation of electric power systems. Common throughout his career is the application of information technology to power engineering problems including, simulation, control, and system integration. He is a principal engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory where he directs electric power projects and supports the U.S. Department of Energy. He is a past member of the board and Plenary Chair for the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel and was also the founding administrator for the GridWise® Architecture Council – both groups formed with the mission to enable interoperability of automated systems related to the electric system. Prior to joining the Laboratory, Mr. Widergren worked in industry for an electricity control center supplier, and electric utility service providers. In these positions, he engineered and managed energy management systems products for electric power operations and supported power system computer applications, including information modeling, SCADA systems, and power system reliability assessment tools. He received his BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and is actively involved in the IEEE Power & Energy Society and participates in standards efforts that bridge power engineering with information technology.

Sharon serves as the Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer providing leadership and strategic direction for the organization. She is an executive known for business transformation and growth and has advised corporate boards, Fortune 100 companies, venture & private equity companies, as well as the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Institute of Standards & Technology, and many U.S. National Laboratories on their efforts to address the transformation of the energy sector.

Prior to joining SEPA, Sharon has driven double-digit growth in both small and large global companies. She has held roles as the CEO of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, managing director/partner, Accenture, president, Elster Integrated Solutions as well as executive roles at ABB. During her time as CEO of SGIP and president of Elster, she executed M&A, launched new software, hardware & service offerings and worked with the respective boards to drive the strategy and growth of the business . At Accenture, she advised top power companies around the world in the areas of innovation, transformation, and new technology

She currently sits on the advisory board of Enertech Capital.

Sharon holds a Bachelor of Science degree (Hons) in electrical engineering from the University of Florida and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Duke University Fuqua Business School.

Phone: 919.414.2173     Email: [email protected]

Scott Kessler is the Director of Business Development for LO3 Energy in Brooklyn NY. He is responsible for educating utilities and retailers on how transactive energy and distributed energy marketplaces are creating new opportunities and business. He previously lived in San Francisco and worked for TRC Energy Services as a consultant, primarily focused on working with west coast utilities to implement energy efficiency programs, integrate renewables, and assess their impact across the grid. Prior to his time in the Bay Area, Scott lived in NYC working at NYSERDA and Connecticut Light and Power. He received his Bachelor’s degree in physics from Middlebury College in Vermont and has a Master’s in Engineering from the University of Maryland.

Tony is the founder and chairman of the Energy Blockchain Consortium and is a serial entrepreneur with 20+ years in high tech. Earlier, as CEO of Bridge Energy Group, he grew the company to achieve the INC list 3 yrs in a row with market leadership position as a SmartGrid leader. He was also the Chief Architect of industry’s first Smart Grid Demand Response project at NV Energy in Las Vegas. He has received numerous awards in the energy industry as a visionary and as an innovator. He’s an emeritus member of US Department of Energy’s GridWise Architecture Council, US National Institute of Standards and Technology’s First Smart Grid Council & former Board member of OASIS.

Tony is an avid speaker at conferences and has authored numerous white papers and articles in trade magazines. He’s the holder of five USPTO technical patents. Tony received Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and Masters of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Massachusetts.

Tanya’s management experience spans a wide variety of innovative and traditional energy applications including; coal and gas fired power plant operations, planning, maintenance, and uptime management for clients such as Salt River Project, Tucson Electric Power and Colorado Springs Utilities. She worked on geospatial management of ISO 140001 for Shell Petroleum Distribution in Iceland. Tanya also has helped develop energy efficiency and renewable energy startups including: scaling a nascent AirCarePlus HVAC tune-up technology and savings aggregation program that has delivered 350 trillion BTU savings to small to medium commercial buildings on behalf of investor owned utilities; and building the Solar 4R Schools renewable energy education startup that now serves over 200 schools nationwide and delivers over 1 MW of solar energy.Tanya’s management experience spans a wide variety of innovative and traditional energy applications including; coal and gas fired power plant operations, planning, maintenance, and uptime management for clients such as Salt River Project, Tucson Electric Power and Colorado Springs Utilities. She worked on geospatial management of ISO 140001 for Shell Petroleum Distribution in Iceland. Tanya also has helped develop energy efficiency and renewable energy startups including: scaling a nascent AirCarePlus HVAC tune-up technology and savings aggregation program that has delivered 350 trillion BTU savings to small to medium commercial buildings on behalf of investor owned utilities; and building the Solar 4R Schools renewable energy education startup that now serves over 200 schools nationwide and delivers over 1 MW of solar energy.