Intro to Electric Utilities for the Solar Sector

Gain strategic intelligence on working with your company's most important partner - electric utilities.

SEPA is partnering with leading energy education specialist Enerdynamics to offer Intro to Electric Utilities for the Solar Sector. This interactive two-day seminar will provide a comprehensive understanding of the electric utility industry and how your company’s solar products and services fit into the utility business model. For those who are new to working with utilities, or even veterans needing a refresher on how the pieces fit together, Intro to Electric Utilities for the Solar Sector was designed to help you make sense out of this complex and rapidly changing industry. You will learn about the physical electrical system and how it's operated, why the industry is regulated and what electric deregulation changes, what types of risk energy companies encounter and how they mitigate them, how electric markets work and prices are set, how you can more strategically work with utilities, and much more.

This course was designed with your participation in mind! Questions and discussion among attendees are highly encouraged. Our instructor is an electric industry veteran who engages the audience with lively examples and a real-world perspective of the utility industry. Whether you work in the distributed or centralized solar markets, you will leave this information-packed seminar with relevant and current information that can be applied immediately to your work!

Prerequisites: None

Registration:

$850 SEPA Members
$1,500 Non-Members

Registration fee includes coffee, lunch and materials for the two day course.

Target Audience:

• Solar Industry Companies, including:
  • Manufacturers
  • Project Developers
  • EPC Contractors
• Legal, Financial, and Business Services Companies
• Related Government and Non-Profit Organizations

Is Intro to Electric Utilities for the Solar Sector the right seminar for me?

If a big picture perspective of the utility industry could help you succeed in your job and give your company a competitive edge, this seminar is for you! Whether it's your first day on the job or you’re an industry veteran, you will benefit from this comprehensive utility industry overview. While anyone with a connection to the electric power business should consider this fundamental seminar, targeted employees include:

• Any employee that needs to understand electric utilities in order to drive their company’s long-term solar strategy
• Employees seeking to develop strong relationships or improved efficiencies with electric utilities or their customers on distributed projects
• Employees responsible for selling to and building relationships with electric utilities for centralized project development
• Technical employees involved with the interconnection of solar to the grid who need to understand how the business of electricity actually works
• Employees responsible for policy or regulatory affairs who need to understand the environment in which electric utilities are required to operate

How will Intro to Electric Utilities for the Solar Sector help me?

If you are new to the solar business or to interacting with the utility industry, this seminar will help you gain a big picture perspective. The electric utility industry is unlike any other industry you may have experienced in the past - highly regulated in some areas for some utility types, while completely deregulated in others. Understanding the differences and how best to work with utilities will give you a strategic advantage in the competitive distributed or centralized solar markets. Many participants tell us that what they learned in two days could have taken years in on-the-job training!

If you are a solar industry veteran, you probably know that it’s common for employees to gain specific expertise in their area of work, yet after years on the job have very little idea how what they do affects the energy industry as a whole. Utility Industry Basics was designed to not only provide the big picture perspective you are missing, but also to help you understand how what you do affects the rest of the energy industry. Whether it’s getting a grip on industry acronyms or finally understanding how an electric utility makes money, this knowledge will make you more comfortable communicating with your peers, potential utility customers, and regulators.

What You Will Learn 

In just two information-packed days, this dynamic course will provide you with a solid understanding of:

• A big picture perspective of how the utility industry operates
• The various types of electric customers, their specific needs, and how services are designed to meet them
• How electricity is generated and travels through the transmission and distribution systems to a customer site
• How system operators decide what types of generation to schedule and when, and why this process can result in huge swings in electricity prices
• Which segments of the industry are regulated and why, and how the regulatory process really works
• How a utility's rates are determined
• The various types of market structures and how they differ
• How electricity deregulation has changed the business and what to look for in the future
• Who the key industry participants are and the strategies they employ to be successful
• How physical and financial strategies are used to make money and manage risk
• The key forces likely to drive future evolution in the electric business
• A history of solar's development in the utility industry
• Strategically important context and solutions for distributed and centralized solar projects
• How you can be a better business partner with utilities and gain strategic advantage in project development and execution
• Utility perspectives on the short- and long-term impact of solar and its potential

Course Topics

• What is electricity and how does it work?
• Why is electricity so important to our society?
• Electric units and additional concepts that you need to know

Electric Customers

• Daily and annual load shapes and why this is so important to understand
• Costs of service
• Services available to end-use customers
• How end users buy electricity in regulated and competitive markets

The Physical System

• How utilities and ISOs develop long-term planning for system resources
• The various types of generation, the capital and variable costs for each, and how this affects which units run when
• How demand side management can be used as a resource
• What is a transmission system and what are its costs and characteristics?
• What is a distribution system and what are its costs and characteristics?
• 3 distribution system designs and when each is used
• What are the roles of an electric system operator?
• How operators handle short-term planning of their system
• How electricity is scheduled and why certain units are run and others are not
• How are supply and demand balanced on a second-by-second basis?
• 7 ancillary services, what they do, and why we need them
• An explanation of locational marginal pricing

Solar & Utilities - Historical Market Context

• Impact of PURPA
• Rise of Grid-Connected PV

How Solar Impacts the Electric Utility

• Solar-Utility Paradox
• How do utilities evaluate solar today?
• How the utility view of solar is changing
• Why some solar benefits are difficult to monetize

Distributed, Net Metered Solar - Utility Challenges and Solutions

• Lost revenue and cross-customer subsidization
• Third party competition
• Incentives
• Interconnection
• Utility staff resource impacts
• High penetration issues

Regulation

• What does regulation do? Why is it so important in the electric industry?
• Who the regulators are, and who regulates what
• The regulatory process and what happens during each step
• How utility rates are set: revenue requirement, forecasting, cost allocation, balancing accounts
• What is incentive regulation and why would some energy companies and even regulators prefer this to more traditional forms of regulation?

Market Restructuring

• Restructuring an electric market
• In which areas of the electric industry does it make sense to allow competition?
• Electric market structures and the advantages/disadvantages of each
• What are trading arrangements?
• Electric supply choice in the U.S. today - which states have it and which do not? Will this change?
• A look at the ideal outcome of deregulation, and then a look at what really happens

Electric Market Dynamics

• Business models for 2011
• Trends in generation - will we see more competitive gencos?
• Reserve margins throughout the U.S. and what this means for our future
• How renewable energy programs are changing what is built where, and how future regulation of carbon could change this picture
• Trends in transmission - where are the expansions, will the IOUs continue to dominate?
• Trends in wholesale trading - who's in the market and who has left? Will this change?
• Trends in distribution and retail marketing - who are the retail marketers to watch?

Making Money and Managing Risk

• How different market participants make money and how it's different for regulated and unregulated companies
• 7 risk factors in the electric business and what a company can do to minimize its exposure
• Why are electric prices so volatile?
• The physical and financial tools used in electric risk management and who provides them
• Using Value at Risk
• Creditworthiness and the need for capital

Centralized Solar - Utility Challenges and Solutions

• Costs
• Grid integration
• Regulatory issues
• Procurement and solar business opportunities
• Solar and the RTO/ISO market

The Future of the Electric Industry

• What you might expect in regulation, technology and markets
• Delivery of services via the Internet
• New technologies and competitors
• New paradigms for the new century
• How a changing workforce might affect the industry's future