energy storage summit 2019

Alice K. Jackson is President of Xcel Energy – Colorado, a company serving 1.4 million electric customers and 1.3 million natural gas customers. The company is a recognized industry leader in delivering affordable and reliable service, providing clean energy choices, and in reducing carbon and other emissions. Since joining Xcel Energy in 2011, Ms. Jackson has held various positions of increasing responsibility. Most recently Ms. Jackson was Vice President of Strategic Revenue Initiatives, where she built a team to generate new revenues through exploring and integrating new technologies and economic development initiatives in addition to looking at new options for Xcel Energy’s unregulated businesses.  Prior to her corporate strategic role, Alice held the lead regulatory position with Xcel Energy—Texas/New Mexico and then with Xcel Energy—Colorado.

Before her time with Xcel Energy, Alice spent close to 10 years with Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy) managing the energy needs of this large consumer across the country. Through her involvement in the federal and state electric markets, multiple rate cases, and interaction with customers large and small, Alice developed a unique respect for utilities and their contributions to society.

Because having a full-time career, being married to her high school sweetheart and having four sons is not enough of an adventure in life, Alice recently took on the challenge of advancing her business acumen.  In 2017 Alice completed the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard University.  Before her professional experience, Alice obtained a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in Management Information Systems from Texas A&M University.

Audrey deploys and aggregates home solar, batteries, and other energy services to serve residential customers, utilities, and grid operators in creating a more affordable, clean, reliable electricity grid. Audrey also serves on the NIST Smart Grid Advisory Committee. Previously, Audrey was VP of Analytics & Design at Advanced Microgrid Solutions, where she built the analytics and operations platform to optimize a 50 MW fleet of customer-sited batteries as a virtual power plant in Southern California after the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. This resulted in Series A and B corporate funding and a $200 million project finance raise – the largest dedicated energy storage finance vehicle at the time. Prior to that, Audrey led policy and analysis at the CA Public Utilities Commission President’s office, Harvard University, U.S. Department of Energy and the International Energy Agency. She holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University. At home she builds forts and Snap Circuits with her two children.

Ted Vatnsdal serves as Executive Director, Business Adoption and Transition, Strategy and Business Development at Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), focusing on the role of technology innovation in expanding MISO’s value proposition.  MISO is an independent, not-for-profit organization that delivers safe, cost-effective electric power across 15 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba. MISO operates one of the world’s largest energy markets with more than $29 billion in annual gross market energy transactions. 
Prior to joining MISO in 2018, Ted held various roles with ACES Power Marketing, a national energy trading and risk management company owned by and providing services primarily to rural electric cooperative.  At ACES, Ted held roles in portfolio analytics, marketing, and strategy roles, and finally as Chief Operating Officer where he had responsibility for ACES’ trading and advisory functions, overseeing $4 billion in energy trading and $2 billion in advisory work annually.  Prior to ACES, Ted worked in finance and advisory for companies in the marketing industry.
Ted has an undergraduate degree in Finance from the University of Nebraska- Omaha, and an MBA with specializations in Strategy and Economics from the University of Chicago.

Paul Suskie serves SPP as executive vice president of regulatory policy and general counsel. He is responsible for managing the organization’s legal and regulatory policy groups and serves as corporate secretary.

Prior to joining SPP, he was appointed by Gov. Mike Beebe as chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Commission and a member of the Governor’s cabinet — positions in which he served from 2007-2010. At the time of his appointment to the Commission, he was in his third elected term as North Little Rock’s city attorney. Prior to joining the city attorney’s office, Paul worked for former United States Sen. David Pryor and for Arkansas Attorney General Winston Bryant. Paul is a colonel in the Army Reserve where he serves in the JAG Corps. He has served as a military judge for the Arkansas Army National Guard and is a veteran of both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Morgan is the CEO of Energy Storage for GE Renewable Energy, joining the company in early 2018.  He has over 30 years of experience in global energy markets. During a 15- year career with the AES Corporation, he led electric power plant and integrated utility businesses as CEO/GM in Kazakhstan, Chile and El Salvador.  Mr. Morgan then co-founded and led corporate strategy and project development activities at Agile Energy, Inc. and Ausra, Inc. He most recently spent 4 years at RES Americas as Chief Strategy Officer and EVP for New Business where he was responsible for new commercial activities, including building the company’s energy storage portfolio as leader of strategy, corporate communication and market development.Mr. Morgan has closed more than 8 GW of project transactions worldwide representing more than $5 billion in project value. He was instrumental in building companies by successfully developing, acquiring and operating utility-scale renewable and conventional power generating assets.Mr. Morgan holds a BA in Economics and MS in Engineering from Stanford University.  He currently serves on the board of Grid-Net, Inc. a software company powering advanced metering and infrastructure networks around the globe.

Melisa Johns is vice president of Business and Product Development for Duke Energy’s Distributed Technology team.  She is responsible for leading the development, origination, execution and implementation of investment opportunities and customer offers related to distributed assets for the regulated companies which includes solar, wind, energy storage, CHP and micro grids.

Previously, Melisa was responsible for developing strategy for the Emerging Technology team and directing Duke Energy’s technology demonstration projects which provide lessons learned regarding the technology application, operational implications, and technology transfer within the business.

During her tenure with Duke Energy,  she also served as director of wholesale origination and was responsible for leading the wholesale origination team in the execution of long-term sales contracts from the regulated generation portfolios of Duke Energy Carolinas and Indiana and for the procurement of supply side resources for the company. In addition, she has operational experience in system, planning and operating, and power delivery, as well as experience in regulatory affairs and business planning.

Melisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree and Master of Science degree, in Electrical Engineering, from Clemson University. She has also completed the Strategic Leadership Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jackie Sargent rejoined the Austin Energy team as General Manager in August 2016. She brings almost 30 years of utility experience, as well as the focus and passion to continue the utility’s cutting edge reputation while providing tremendous community benefits.
From 2010 to 2012, Sargent served as Senior Vice President of Power Supply and Market Operations at Austin Energy before joining Platte River Power Authority in Fort Collins, Colorado, as General Manager and CEO. Sargent also served as Vice President of Power Supply and Renewables Integration for Black Hills Corporation in South Dakota.

Throughout her career, Sargent has demonstrated leadership by working with teams to accomplish goals and plan for the future. Some notable accomplishments include managing major construction projects, developing resource plans, supporting acquisitions and mergers, leading utility rate cases, negotiating power purchase and sale agreements, developing and growing energy marketing departments, integrating renewable resources, and creating collaborative energy efficiency programs.

Sargent believes Austin Energy can be a great value to its customers by focusing on these five core values: safety, financial integrity, operational excellence and reliability, exceptional customer service, and engaged employees. A strong financial base along with operational excellence allows a publicly owned utility to be competitive while creating value for the community. By continuing Austin Energy’s standard of exceptional reliability and advancements in grid technology, the utility will be able to offer new levels of communication and collaboration with its customers. But these achievements can only happen with engaged employees in a safe environment that extends to the customers the utility serves.

Sargent is a licensed professional engineer and holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science in Technology Management from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Kate McGinnis is Managing Director for North America at Fluence, a joint venture between Siemens and AES Corporation and a leading global provider of energy storage systems and services. In this role, she leads sales to utilities, IPPs, and developers in the region. Prior to joining Fluence, she spent three years working with AES Energy Storage, resulting in nearly 200MW of contracted projects in the western US. Her start in storage was with Chevron Technology Ventures, where she led development of stationary storage projects co-located with oil & gas infrastructure globally. She has nearly two decades of experience in the energy space, and has worked in areas including energy efficiency, carbon markets, and a variety of renewables. Kate is a board member and past chair of the California Energy Storage Alliance. She holds a BS in Environmental Science from George Washington University and an MBA from Cornell.

Kevin Vannoy is MISO’s Director of Market Design.  He has over twenty three years of Management and Consulting experience in the electric utility industry, including Regional Transmission Organizations, and regulated and deregulated markets.  He has been with the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) since 2005. 

He was MISO’s Director of Forward Operations Planning from June 2015 to September 2017, his responsibilities included; Transmission and Generation Outage Coordination, Tariff Administration and Scheduling, Forecast Engineering and Seams Administration.

He was MISO’s Director of Market Administration from 2010 to June 2015, responsible for administering Auction Revenue Rights (“ARRs”), the Financial Transmission Rights (“FTR”) Markets, the Day-Ahead Energy and Operating Reserves Markets, Resource Adequacy Administration, Forecast Engineering, the Forward Reliability Assessment Commitment and Real-Time Ex-post Locational Marginal Pricing functions. 

Kevin managed Market Services starting in 2005 following the launch of the Midwest Energy Markets.  He led Market Quality and Dispute Resolution, Market Settlements, Tariff Pricing and Transmission Settlements until 2010. 

Kevin has been involved with numerous Market development and improvement initiatives at MISO, including the Ancillary Services Markets implementation, Revenue Sufficiency Guarantee Allocation Redesign, Financial Transmission Rights Funding efforts, Transmission Multi-Value Project Auction Revenue Rights Allocation, Annual Resource Adequacy Auctions, and Extended Locational Marginal Pricing.

Kevin holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida.  Prior to joining MISO, he held management roles with both the Structure Consulting Group LLC in their Regional Transmission Organization Consulting Practice, and Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) in their Utilities Industry Practice.  Prior to joining Andersen Consulting in 1995, he served as a Commissioned Officer in the United States Navy.

Lara Pierpoint joined Exelon in October 2016, focusing on energy technology innovation. She leads the Corporate Strategy technical team from her post in Danville, California, advising the company on energy technology trends and running Exelon’s partnership R&D program. Prior to joining Exelon, she directed the Office of Energy Supply Security in the U.S. DOE Office of Policy and Systems Analysis, where she was responsible for policy and analysis related to coal, gas, and nuclear power and energy cyber and physical security. Before her work at DOE she served as an AAAS Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, focusing on nuclear power and waste issues, energy finance, and electricity storage. She received her PhD in 2011 from MIT in Engineering Systems, studying deployment of advanced technologies for nuclear waste recycling, and she holds dual masters degrees from MIT in nuclear engineering and technology policy. She is a native Californian, and completed her B.S. in physics at UCLA in 2004.

Brandon currently leads Distributed Energy innovation & integration for Microsoft's Energy Strategy & Research team. Her background combines renewable energy asset management and project finance experience with political risk consulting and environmental policy. Prior to joining Microsoft, she has held senior positions at SunEdison, Bloom Energy and Albright Stonebridge Group. Brandon holds a BA, Environmental Studies and a MESc Environmental Science from Yale University; and an MBA from Stanford University.