Perspectives on Future Power Grids - SWC50 Follow Up Webinar

Summer Ferreira is the Manager for the Renewable and Distributed Systems Integration program at SANDIA National Laboratories, which promotes the research and development of technologies that enable grid modernization and resiliency, along with the large-scale deployment of renewable and distributed energy sources. Prior to her role at RDSI, beginning in 2011, Summer led the Energy Storage Analysis Laboratory at Sandia in support of the DOE Office of Electricity program, after spending the two previous years here as a postdoctoral researcher in hybrid organic/inorganic photovoltaics.

Summer will provide perspectives on equity and placement of resilient nodes for reducing societal burden in power outages among others.

Jessica Lau is the Group Manager of the Grid Systems Group within the Grid Planning and Analysis Center at NREL, which spearheads a variety of efforts and projects on modelling and informing power system reliability, resilience, and economics. She holds previous experience as a bulk and distribution system planner and currently leads a team to support communities in their energy systems transition through decision support, modelling & analysis, and technology validation.

Scott is Group Manager for New Market Services at AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator. Scott has over twenty years experience in utilities, business and banking across Europe, Asia, New Zealand and Australia. He has held a broad range of roles across the utility sector including strategy, M&A, regulatory affairs, energy trading, generation and metering. More recently Scott’s focus is on increasing and improving the role distributed energy resources play in the Australian market.

Scott will be speaking on integrating distributed energy resources in Australia.

Debbie is the Associate Director of ESIG and has a background in wind, solar and distributed energy resource integration with a focus on 100% clean energy. She was previously a consultant, a senior technical director at GE Energy Consulting, and held a variety of roles during her 16-year tenure at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, including secondment to the Hawaiian Electric Company. She is the Immediate Past Chair of the IEEE Power & Energy Society’s Wind and Solar Power Coordinating Committee. She holds a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University and a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Physics from MIT.

Geoff Stapleton specialized in solar (PV) energy in the final year of his electrical engineering degree in 1981. He has worked in the solar industry since 1987. In 1998, he was one of the co-founders of Global Sustainable Energy Solutions Pty Ltd (GSES). GSES is a multi-disciplinary organization specializing in professional engineering and training services across the Renewable Energies sector. In 2010 through funding from REEEP, GSES acted as project manager and helped the industry in the Pacific create their own industry association known as Sustainable Energy Industry Association of Pacific Islands (SEIAPI).

Geoff is a Member of the ISES Board of Director, ISES Treasurer and Congress Chair for SWC50.