SEPA’s 2019 Power Player Award Winners

2019  Winners Project Descriptions

CHANGE AGENT OF THE YEAR
An individual or group of catalyst(s) for transformation; whether through developing standards, business development, regulation, or research. This individual or group should have significantly impacted the future of clean energy.

Powerley

Powerley is the first Home Energy Management platform on the market bridging the smart grid to the smart home to create a unified, real-time home and energy solution that benefits both the utility and consumers, with their smart home energy management solution providing energy savings of 10+%.

VISIONARY OF THE YEAR
Dynamic and prominent groups or individuals that are imagining and inspiring how the electric industry envisions the future of clean energy. This can include products, programs, plans, or white papers that are not yet implemented but have promising potential to change the energy world view.

PECI

In March 2018, the City of Tenino and TSD signed a Memorandum of Understanding appointing PECI as the project manager. PECI’s team conducted an energy inventory for renewable and smart grid hosting capacity in Tenino and analyzed electrical meter data for the community to assess which projects would be most beneficial. PECI moved early stakeholders toward coalescing around a vision, strategies, objectives, and a work plan for the project.

INNOVATIVE PARTNER OF THE YEAR
A non-utility partner that has partnered with at least one utility in 2018, for a product or service that has significantly advanced clean energy, DER, grid modernization and its value as a resource to help meet the needs of the electricity consumer.

EnergyHub & Arizona Public Service (APS)

In 2018, utilizing EnergyHub’s services and platform, APS launched Cool Rewards and began operating smart thermostats to strategically lower peak demand during summer demand response (DR) events. The program is designed with pre-cooling in the mix, to provide customers with greater comfort during DR events and to shift load outside of the peak window, to the time of day when solar energy is abundant on our system.

ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE OF THE YEAR
This cooperative should demonstrate industry leadership through unique innovation in an effort to significantly advance clean energy, DER, grid modernization and its value as a resource to help meet the needs of their electricity consumers.

Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative

Throughout 2018, SMECO continued to advance several initiatives to promote clean energy, evolve their grid, reduce costs, and increase the satisfaction of 140,000 customers. Through these efforts, SMECO has been able to reduce distribution rates (saving customer-members $10 million per year), reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 46,364 metric tons (equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from 5,552 homes’ energy use for one year), and provide customer-members with leading-edge opportunities to manage and reduce energy use in their homes.

PUBLIC POWER UTILITY OF THE YEAR
This Public Power Utility should demonstrate industry leadership through unique innovation in an effort to significantly advance clean energy, DER, grid modernization and its value as a resource to help meet the needs of their electricity consumers.

Sacramento Municipal Utility District

SMUD has displayed excellence in the expansion of their Marketplace reach beyond industry norms. They’ve utilized their Marketplace to provide energy-efficient products to low-income communities at free or reduced prices and have expanded their rebate offerings to include partnerships with multiple water utilities to deliver rebates on smart sprinkler systems for consumers. A consumer can purchase a smart sprinkler and apply the water rebate from their local water utility on the SMUD Energy Store.

INVESTOR-OWNED UTILITY OF THE YEAR
This IOU should demonstrate industry leadership through unique innovation in an effort to significantly advance clean energy, DER, grid modernization and its value as a resource to help meet the needs of their electricity consumers.

PPL Electric Utilities

PPL intends to be ready for the electric utility future through the creation of the next generation of advanced DMS functionalities through its Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS). This system dynamically manages DER connected to PPL’s grid to optimize power quality, while encouraging the adoption of DER like solar. The DERMS enables PPL to host more interconnected DER because it leverages these resources to counteract some of the negative impacts that DER can have in high penetrations (such as causing high line voltage or over-operation of capacitor banks).

POWER PLAYER OF THE YEAR

An individual who, while working in the energy industry, has demonstrated leadership and innovation to significantly advance an integrative perspective of clean energy, DER, grid modernization and its value as a resource to help meet the needs of their electricity consumers. The individual’s ‘body of work’ can span a longer period of time, but should include activity and accomplishments during the 2018 calendar year.

Ron Nichols

President, SCE – Southern California Edison

As president of Southern California Edison (SCE), Ronald O. Nichols (Ron) was a tireless champion and industry leader for clean energy and the policies and technologies that are needed to transform the clean energy economy for the benefit of consumers, distributed energy resource (DER) providers and the grid.

A few days after learning that he was named the “Power Player of the Year,” Ron Nichols passed away after waging a courageous battle against cancer. SEPA and Southern California Edison are heartened to know he learned of this prestigious honor beforehand.

As president of Southern California Edison, Ron was instrumental in SCE doubling down on our commitment as an industry leader in clean energy and efficient electrification through the Clean Power and Electrification Pathway. His leadership led to collaboration among many sectors that helped achieve unprecedented momentum for transformative energy policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change.

Ron’s legacy is cleaning our air and making clean energy a reality. Nowhere is this more evident than in environmentally impacted communities where Ron tirelessly advocated for the development of programs that benefitted these residents. His efforts will be felt for years and generations to come.