2021 SEPA Power Players Award Winners

DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION POWER PLAYER OF THE YEAR

This award recognizes organizations, project teams and/or individuals who have demonstrated unique leadership in efforts to advance DEI principles and programs – either at their own organizations or with their customers.

Nancy Harvey
Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, New York Power Authority
Since her appointment last fall, Nancy has moved the largest state public power organization in the nation forward toward a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce. She is responsible for designing and implementing initiatives to ignite and rejuvenate diversity, equity and inclusion at NYPA. Under Nancy’s leadership, NYPA was the first public power utility to launch a comprehensive DEI plan. This industry-leading plan will expand customer energy products and services in underserved and environmental justice communities to help customers lower utility costs and meet their environmental and sustainability goals in alignment with Governor Cuomo’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

INDIVIDUAL POWER PLAYER OF THE YEAR

This award recognizes an individual who, while working in the energy industry, has demonstrated leadership and innovation to significantly accelerate the transformation to a clean and modern energy system. The individual’s ‘body of work’ can span a longer period of time, but should include activity and accomplishments during the nomination period.

Emeka Anyanwu
Energy Innovation & Resources Officer, Seattle City Light
Emeka has led efforts at Seattle City Light to evolve the utility as it pivots to equitably meet customer and community needs and expectations in the new energy marketplace. Emeka has overseen the implementation of a new Transportation Electrification Strategic Investment Plan, development of City Light’s long-term Grid Modernization Roadmap, the creation of a portfolio of ambitious job-creating projects to leverage Federal stimulus funds, and Seattle City Light’s successful entry into the Energy Imbalance Market. Emeka is a visionary utility leader who has doubled down on the energy transition, allowing Seattle City Light and its partners to lead investments in electrification, decarbonization, grid modernization, market innovations and utility technology with a primary focus on equity.

UTILITY OF THE YEAR

INVESTOR-OWNED

This IOU demonstrates industry leadership through unique innovation in an effort to significantly accelerate the transformation to a clean and modern energy system.

Consumers Energy
Consumers Energy’s Clean Energy Plan is an industry-leading, 20-year strategic roadmap to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. The plan will end coal as a fuel source for electricity, dramatically boost clean energy resources and optimize demand by reducing usage and waste. Consumers Energy plans to support employees and communities affected by early coal plant retirements by finding new roles for workers who want to stay, fulfilling environmental responsibilities at the sites and helping local leaders pursue new economic possibilities. In addition, Consumers Energy is offering customers innovative energy efficiency and demand response programs, creating statewide infrastructure for electric vehicles and supplying more electricity from clean, renewable sources.

PUBLIC POWER

This Public Power Utility demonstrates industry leadership through unique innovation in an effort to significantly accelerate the transformation to a clean and modern energy system.

Los Angeles Department of Water & Power
LADWP has set aggressive goals of 80% renewable energy and 97% carbon-free power by 2030; and 100% carbon-free by 2035. LADWP recently signed onto the Eland Solar Storage project, a 400 MW solar, and 300 MW—4 hour battery system, one of the largest and cheapest solar plus storage hybrid projects in the U.S. LADWP has spearheaded an effort to expand the existing Feed-in Tariff (FiT) program by an additional 300 MW, increasing the program total to 450 MW. LADWP recently launched the FiT+ Pilot program to provide non-wire alternative solutions in key regions of Los Angeles. LADWP has also developed the Green Access Program that allows large customers to obtain bulk renewable energy resources. Through arrangements with large-scale renewable power purchase agreements that LADWP has acquired, customers like UCLA can claim a higher renewable portfolio mix and meet their mandates.

ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE

This Electric Cooperative demonstrates industry leadership through unique innovation in an effort to significantly accelerate the transformation to a clean and modern energy system.

Kauai Island Utility Cooperative
Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) is unique in the world in achieving 100% renewable on nearly a daily basis. Recent achievements include a new 14 MW solar-plus-storage project on the grounds of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility. This project, built and operated by AES, can be “islanded” if necessary to ensure stable and continuous power supply to the Navy base. In December 2020 KIUC filed a power purchase agreement with the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission for the West Kauai Energy Project (WKEP), an innovative pumped storage hydro facility powered with solar. WKEP will also deliver significant community benefits, including the rehabilitation of three former plantation reservoirs and the accompanying ditch system, enabling irrigation water to be delivered to hundreds of acres of currently fallow agricultural lands. KIUC’s transition to renewables has resulted in more stable and lower rates, as members are increasingly buffered from the financial impacts of volatile oil pricing and benefit from a majority of their power being supplied via long-term power purchase agreements that are competitively- or lower-priced compared to fossil fuel.

REGULATORY AND BUSINESS INNOVATION POWER PLAYER OF THE YEAR

This award recognizes organizations, project teams and/or individuals who have demonstrated unique innovation and leadership in efforts to facilitate sustainable utility business models and the state regulatory processes needed to achieve a carbon-free energy future.

Tampa Electric & Emera Technologies – BlockEnergy
BlockEnergy, developed by Emera Technologies, is a scalable, neighborhood-level microgrid that gives utilities a rate-based alternative to centralized generation. This allows utilities to participate in the distributed market by building state-of-the-art rate-based assets with flexible technology and embedded intelligence that better match a neighborhood’s energy requirements and integrate seamlessly into the existing grid. In a BlockEnergy microgrid, homes are sited with rooftop solar and a BlockBox containing battery storage and power electronics connecting it to the neighborhood distribution network. The BlockBoxes communicate with each other and share energy as needed within the system. The system also incorporates a central energy park that contains supplemental batteries, optional additional generation, smart protection architecture and a connection to the local utility power grid. The Florida PSC recently approved a four-year pilot project for the Tampa Electric Company to demonstrate the BlockEnergy system in 37 homes in Hillsborough County, Florida. TECO will provide annual reports to the PSC on the pilot’s successes and failures.

GRID INTEGRATION POWER PLAYER OF THE YEAR

This award recognizes organizations, project teams and/or individuals who have demonstrated unique innovation and leadership in efforts to integrate clean energy and distributed energy resources (DERs) into the grid to help achieve carbon reduction and clean energy goals, and meet the needs of their electricity consumers.

Green Mountain Power – DER Programs
Green Mountain Power has pioneered several groundbreaking DER programs, including the first utility-managed residential storage aggregation that has provided thousands of hours of backup power and saved customers over $3M, an electric vehicle charging program with over 1,000 vehicles under management, a smart panel pilot in partnership with Span, and a solar+storage microgrid capable of backing up a portion of a distribution feeder. They also recently became the first utility to provide frequency regulation through an aggregated battery fleet.

ELECTRIFICATION POWER PLAYER OF THE YEAR

This award recognizes organizations, project teams and/or individuals who have demonstrated unique innovation and leadership in efforts to advance electrification in the electric utility domain, especially vehicle-grid-integration (VGI) or building electrification efforts.

DTE Energy – Bring Your Own Charger® Program
DTE Energy launched the Bring Your Own Charger® (BYOC) program to fill in the gaps of its existing EV programs and reach as many EV drivers as possible while reducing program costs. BYOC leverages DTE’s advanced meter infrastructure to monitor customer charging behavior, identify unknown EVs in the residential meter base, and ensure EV load occurs off-peak. Because BYOC is vehicle and charging equipment agnostic, and because it does not require any load control hardware, any EV driver with a Level 2 charger is eligible to enroll. EV drivers use their EV’s onboard charging timer to schedule their EV to charge overnight, take a photo of the schedule, and complete a 10-minute application. In exchange for charging off-peak, drivers receive an incentive worth 2,100 miles of free driving each year. From program launch in mid-July 2020 through the end of March 2021, enrolled drivers have accumulated over 65,000 hours of charging, at more than 90% off-peak hours.