Tuesday,
March 24
Room
7:00L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerRegistration opens
8:15L'Enfant Ballroom A-CConference opening by Summer Ferreira, Conference Chair
8:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CAdvanced Nuclear

Speaker: Dr. Rian Bahran, DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Reactors

Speaker: Jason Remer, Nuclear Policy Advisor, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
9:00L'Enfant Ballroom A-CRole of SMRs in Future Energy Security and Independence

Moderator: Ritesh Kumar Singh, Senior Director, Tetra Tech

Panelists:
Bradley Justin Williams, Senior Policy Advisor and Lead for Energy Policy and Strategic Analysis, Idaho National Laboratory
Stewart Forbes, Counsel at Hogan Lovells
William Newton, Partner at Hunton Andrews Kurth
Mark Browne, Director of Nuclear Engineering, Tetra Tech
10:00L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
10:15L'Enfant Ballroom A-CBig Loads, Small Bills: Navigating Utility Affordability in an Era of Large Load Growth

Moderator: Peter Cappers, Strategic Advisor, Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory

Panelists:
Molly Knoll, Senior Advisor, Align Energy Advisors
Ryan Wiser, Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Sherry Stout, Program Manager, National Laboratory of the Rockies
Jason Stanek, Executive Director for Governmental Services, PJM Interconnection
11:15L'Enfant Ballroom A-CBreak and chat with panelists
11:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CHarnessing Geothermal Potential: Bridging Policy, Technology, and Energy Integration

Moderator: Giorgia Bettin, Geothermal Research Manager, Sandia National Laboratories

Panelists:
Lauren Boyd, DOE Geothermal Technologies Office
Vanessa Robertson, Geothermal Rising
Ben Brenner, Director of Federal Affairs, Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals Inc.
Tom Erb, Government Affairs and Policy Manager, Fervo Energy Co.
12:30Break for lunch
1:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CMeeting Emerging Demands Keynote

Maria Robinson, VP of North America Region, Hitachi Energy


2:15L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
2:30Delivering speed to power in a capacity-constrained grid: The role of flexible interconnections

Moderator: Guillermo Pereira, Policy Researcher, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Panelists:
Hugo Bashualdo, Director, Danovo Energy
Farzam Nejabatkhah, Lead Engineer, Eversource Energy
Brian Lydic, Chief Regulatory Engineer, IREC
3:30L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
3:45L'Enfant Ballroom A-COrchestrating the Digital Grid: Managing Load Growth

Moderator: Poorani Ramachandran, Director, Technical & Regulatory Analysis, DC Public Service Commission

Panelists:
Emile C. Thompson, Chairman, DC Public Service Commission
Lesley Jantarasami, VP Research and Strategy, SEPA
Richard Caperton, VP Public Policy, SPAN
Divesh Gupta, Director of Clean Energy Solutions, BGE
5:30-7:30L'Enfant Ballroom Foyer & SolariumResearch and Innovation Poster Showcase Reception (Light snacks provided), sponsored by Battery Council International (BCI)
Wednesday,
March 25
Room
7:30L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerRegistration opens
8:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CLarge Loads

Speaker: Catherine (Katie) Jereza, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity (OE)
9:00L'Enfant Ballroom A-CLarge Load Growth Market Development and Utility Perspectives

Moderator: Huiyi Jackson, Edison Electric Institute (EEI)

Panelists:
Aftab Khan, Chief Strategy Officer, PJM
Tianna Raby, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Entergy Mississippi
Matt Pawlowski, Vice President of Development, NextEra Energy Transmission
LaMont Durr, Manager of Op-Co Planning, ITC Holdings Corp
Nekabari Goka, Regional Lead, Global Infrastructure and Energy at Google
10:00L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
10:15L'Enfant Ballroom A-CLarge Load Interconnection Challenges

Moderator: Julia Matevosyan, Associate Director and Chief Engineer at ESIG

Panelists:
Eric Meier, Supervisor - Planning Model Administration, ERCOT
Rahul Anilkumar, Vice President, Danovo Energy
Kyle Thomas, Vice President, Elevate Energy Consulting
Khundmir Syed, Director, Power and Grid Strategy, Diode Ventures
11:15L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
11:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CEnabling Large Loads with Energy Storage

Moderator: Ray Byrne, Grid Energy Storage Manager, Sandia National Laboratories

Panelists:
Richard Baxter, President, Mustang Prairie Energy
Russ Weed, President, CleanTech Strategies
William McNamara, Sandia National Laboratories
Jeremy Twitchell, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
12:30Gallery Ballroom I-IIILunch provided, Sponsored by CleanTech Strategies, Platinum Plus sponsor
1:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CEvolving Electric Loads and Rapid Interconnection

Moderator: Arvind Tiwari, Mission Leader – Electrification, GE Vernova Advanced Research

Panelists:
Julia Matevosyan, Associate Director and Chief Engineer at ESIG
David G Hart, Senior Vice President Protection, Control and Automation at Quanta Technology,
Michael Caravaggio, Vice President, Energy Supply, Fleet Reliability, EPRI
Vandan Divatia, Vice President, Transmission Policy, Interconnections and Compliance, Eversource Energy
Sunish Mathew, Transmission Planning General Manager, Southern Co
2:30L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
2:45L'Enfant Ballroom A-CResource Planning for Flexible Capacity: Aligning Customer Load, Generation, and Innovative Modernization Methods in Grid Planning

Moderator: Tala Goudarzi, Partner, The Torridon Group

Panelists:
Jess Miley, ComEd
Karan Patel, Rappahannock Electric Cooperative
Natalie Mims Frick, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Shaun Moran, Grid Co Partners
Monish Mukherjee, PNNL
3:45L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
4:00L'Enfant Ballroom A-CBuilding a Big Data Economy in the Electric Sector

Moderator: Chris Irwin, U.S. Department of Energy

Panelists:
Supriya Chinthavali, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Venkat Banunarayanan, Vice President, Integrated Grid, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
Young Ngo, Chief Technology Officer, Survalent and President, Themis Intelligence
Scott Hinson, CTO, Pecan Street Inc.
Thursday,
March 26
Room
7:30L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerRegistration opens
8:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CFireside Chat - Capacity Expansion and Load Growth

Moderator: Summer Ferreira, Chair of the 2026 PES Energy & Policy Forum, and Manager at Sandia National Laboratories

Speakers:
James Robb, Chief Executive Officer, North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)
Branden Sudduth, Vice President, Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC)
Masood Parvania, Chair of the Inaugural (2025) PES Energy & Policy Forum, and Professor at the University of Utah
Kal Ayoub, Director, Office of Electric Reliability, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
9:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CMoney Talks: Smart Policies to Attract Investment

Moderator: Annika Moman, Summa Equity

Panelists:
Andrew Marino, Summa Equity
Steve Burns, Institute for Security and Technology
Jim Kapsis, The Ad Hoc Group
10:15L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
10:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CSupporting Congress on Energy and Policy:
New Insights from the U.S. Government Accountability Office


Panelists:
Sterling Thomas, Chief Scientist, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Anna Maria Ortiz, Director, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Franklin Rusco, Director, U.S. Government Accountability Office
11:15L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
11:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CGrid Resilience in Practice

Moderator: Ryan Burg, Group Manager, Resilient Infrastructure Science and Applications, National Laboratory of the Rockies

Panelists:
Alexandre Nassif, Senior power systems research engineer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Holly Eagleston, CEO and Founder, Firescape
Michael Levy, Partner, Baringa
Shaun Moran, GridCo
Richard Hartman, Chief Innovation Officer (CINO), Air Force Office of Energy Assurance (OEA)
12:30Break for lunch
1:30L'Enfant Ballroom A-CResilience as a Strategic Imperative: Bridging Advanced Solutions with Investment Frameworks

Moderator: Sandra Jenkins, U.S. Department of Energy

Panelists:
Gina Yi, Senior Resilience Strategist, Hawaiian Electric
Monish Mukherjee, PNNL
Roshi Nateghi, Georgetown University
Myles Collins, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory
2:30L'Enfant Ballroom FoyerBreak and chat with panelists
2:45L'Enfant Ballroom A-CInterconnected Grids at a Crossroads: Policy Pathways for Reliability, Safety, Economic Efficiency and the Young Practitioner

Moderator: Sajith Wijesuriya, National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR)

Panelists:
Kristine Madden, Past President, International Youth Nuclear Congress (IYNC)
Avery Barnett, Princeton University
Chiranjeevi Kotharu, Burns & McDonnell
Gabriela Carrasco, DatacenterDynamics
Jigar Shah, Director of Energy Services, Electrify America
3:45L'Enfant Ballroom A-CBest poster award announcement and closing
3:55L'Enfant Ballroom A-CConference Adjourns