[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 84 (Tuesday, May 4, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 23713-23715]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-09358]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Docket No. AD21-12-000]


Electrification and the Grid of the Future; Supplemental Notice 
of Technical Conference

    As first announced in the Notice of Technical Conference issued in 
this proceeding on March 2, 2021, the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission (Commission) will convene a Commissioner-led technical 
conference in the above-referenced proceeding on Thursday, April 29, 
2021, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The conference will be 
held electronically. Attached to this Supplemental Notice is an agenda 
for the technical conference, which includes the final conference 
program.
    Discussions at the conference may involve issues raised in 
proceedings that are currently pending before the Commission. These 
proceedings include, but are not limited to:

Michigan Electric Transmission Company, LLC, Docket No. ER21-424; 
Participation of Distributed Energy Resource Aggregations in Markets 
Operated by Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System 
Operators, Docket No. RM18-9.

    The conference will be open for the public to attend 
electronically. There is no fee for attendance. Registration for the 
conference is not required. Information on this technical conference, 
including a link to the webcast, will be posted on the conference's 
event page on the Commission's website, https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/events/technical-conference-discuss-electrification-and-grid-future-04292021, prior to the event.
    The conference will be transcribed. Transcripts of the conference 
will be

[[Page 23714]]

available for a fee from Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. (202) 347-3700.
    Commission conferences are accessible under section 508 of the 
Rehabilitation Act of 1973. For accessibility accommodations, please 
send an email to [email protected], call toll free (866) 208-3372 
(voice) or (202) 208-8659 (TTY) or send a fax to (202) 208-2106 with 
the required accommodations.
    For more information about this technical conference, please 
contact:

Michael Hill (Technical Information), Office of Energy Policy and 
Innovation, (202) 502-8703, [email protected]
Sarah Greenberg (Legal Information), Office of General Counsel, (202) 
502-6230, [email protected]
Sarah McKinley (Logistical Information), Office of External Affairs, 
(202) 502-8004, [email protected]

    Dated: April 29, 2021.
Kimberly D. Bose,
Secretary.

Technical Conference on Electrification and the Grid of the Future

Docket No. AD21-12-000

April 29, 2021

Agenda and Speakers

10:00 a.m.-10:15 a.m.: Welcome and Opening Remarks

10:15 a.m.-11:45 a.m.: Panel 1: Projections, Drivers, and Risks of 
Electrification

    This panel will explore the future and current state of 
electrification in the United States. Panelists will discuss how 
electrification could unfold, including the major drivers of 
electrification, the sectors and key technologies implicated, and the 
likelihood and magnitude of change to electricity demand under various 
electrification scenarios. Panelists will also discuss the 
environmental justice considerations and cybersecurity risks associated 
with electrification. The panel may include a discussion of the 
following questions:
    1. What are the main drivers of electrification? Is the shift from 
using non-electric sources of energy to using electricity more 
pronounced in certain sectors or industries? How might public policy, 
energy costs, and technology drive electrification in the future?
    2. What technologies are commercially available and currently being 
deployed to electrify different sectors or industries? What sectors and 
industries are driving the implementation of these technologies and how 
are they implementing them? How quickly are these technologies being 
deployed, and are there regional differences in the scope and rate of 
deployment?
    3. How is electrification expected to affect electricity demand 
growth in the short term and the long term? How might electrification 
change electricity demand in the future in terms of daily and seasonal 
demand patterns, absolute magnitude of electricity demand on average, 
and during peak periods?
    4. How might electrification affect marginalized communities? What 
are the environmental justice considerations associated with 
electrification?
    5. What are the cybersecurity, reliability, and operational risks 
and/or benefits associated with specific technologies and industrial 
processes solely dependent on electricity and the corresponding change 
in electricity demand?
Panelists
 Rob Chapman, Senior Vice President for Energy Delivery and 
Customer Solutions, Electric Power Research Institute
 Katherine Hamilton, Chair, 38 North Solutions; Executive 
Director, Advanced Energy Management Alliance; and Co-Chair, World 
Economic Forum Global Future Council on Clean Electrification
 Jeff Dennis, General Counsel and Managing Director, Advanced 
Energy Economy
 Matthew Tisdale, Executive Director, Gridworks
 Adrienne Mouton-Henderson, Deputy Director, Renewable Energy 
Buyers Alliance (REBA)
 Carlos Casablanca, Managing Director, Distribution Planning 
and Analysis, American Electric Power
 Ella Zhou, Senior Modeling Engineer, National Renewable Energy 
Laboratory (NREL)
 Glenn Blackmon, Manager, Energy Policy Office, Washington 
State Department of Commerce

11:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: Break

12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.: Panel 2: Infrastructure Requirements of 
Electrification

    This panel will focus on how transmission owners and system 
operators in both regional transmission organization (RTO) and 
independent system operator (ISO) regions and non-RTO/ISO regions are 
planning to cost-effectively and reliably integrate changes in 
electricity demand due to electrification and whether there are any 
existing challenges in transmission, interconnection, and resource 
adequacy planning processes that need to be addressed. Beyond planning, 
the panel will explore the types of infrastructure investments 
electrification may require, including additional generation; local, 
regional, and interregional transmission; and distribution investments. 
The panel may include a discussion of the following questions:
    1. What type of infrastructure investments are required to address 
the respective challenges of electrification (i.e., additional 
generation, local, regional or interregional transmission, and 
distribution investments)?
    2. What approaches are transmission owners and system operators 
taking to cost-effectively meet the infrastructure requirements of 
projected electrification in the current transmission, interconnection, 
and resource adequacy planning processes? How do these approaches 
consider reliability, and what impacts do those considerations have on 
the need for infrastructure investment for electrification?
    3. What measures are being taken to identify and align the costs of 
investments needed for electrification with the beneficiaries?
    4. What, if any, existing regulatory and/or tariff requirements act 
as barriers to, or otherwise do not consider, electrification and its 
associated growth in demand? For example, does the scenario modeling in 
current regional transmission planning processes reflect increased 
demand due to electrification driven by market trends and public 
policies?
Panelists
 Pedro Pizarro, Vice Chairman, Edison Electric Institute; 
President and CEO, Edison International
 Jordan Bakke, Senior Manager of Policy Studies, Midcontinent 
Independent System Operator, Inc.
 Rachel Huang, Director of Energy Strategy, Research & 
Development, Sacramento Municipal Utility District
 Dr. Asa Hopkins, Vice President, Synapse Energy Economics
 Ric O'Connell, Executive Director, Gridlab
 Larry Gasteiger, Executive Director, WIRES
 Gary Rackliffe, Vice President of Market Development and 
Innovation, Hitachi ABB Power Grids
 Roger Kranenburg, Vice President of Energy Strategy & Policy, 
Eversource Energy

[[Page 23715]]

1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m.: Lunch

2:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m.: Panel 3: Transmission and Distribution System 
Services Provided by Flexible Demand

    This panel will explore transmission and distribution grid services 
that can be provided by newly electrified resources (e.g., electric 
vehicles, smart thermostats, heat pumps, etc.) and the technology 
required for these resources to provide grid services. It will also 
discuss whether any barriers exist to these resources providing grid 
services they are technically capable of providing. The panel may 
include a discussion of the following questions:
    1. What grid services can newly electrified resources provide or 
otherwise facilitate?
    a. For example, what grid services can consumer electric vehicles 
or electric vehicle fleets most effectively provide today? What is the 
current state of development for vehicle-to-grid technologies, and will 
further advancements enable consumer electric vehicles or electric 
vehicle fleets to provide additional grid services in the future?
    b. What other types of newly electrified resources can currently 
provide grid services, and what grid services can they most effectively 
provide? For example, can grid-interactive buildings be meaningful 
sources of flexible demand?
    c. What, if any, newly electrified resources cannot currently 
provide grid services, but may be able to in the future? What barriers 
must be overcome for that to occur?
    2. What technological capabilities (e.g., interoperability) \1\ are 
required for newly electrified resources to provide grid services? What 
is the current state of development for these capabilities? What could 
speed up or slow down such development?
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    \1\ Interoperability refers to ``the capability of two or more 
networks, systems, devices, applications, or components to work 
together, and to exchange and readily use information--securely, 
effectively, and with little or no inconvenience to the user.'' See 
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Natl. Inst. Stand. 
Technol. Spec. Publ. 1108r4, at 3 (2021).
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    3. What challenges exist to deploying newly electrified resources 
to provide grid services in the RTO/ISO and non-RTO/ISO regions?
    4. What barriers, if any, exist to newly electrified resources 
providing grid services in wholesale or retail markets?
Panelists
 Adrianne Collins, Senior Vice President of Power Delivery, 
Southern Company
 Pamela MacDougall, Senior Manager of Grid Modernization, 
Environmental Defense Fund
 Maria Bocanegra, Commissioner, Illinois Commerce Commission; 
Chair, NARUC EV Working Group
 Garrett Fitzgerald, Principal of Electrification, Smart 
Electric Power Alliance
 Peter Klauer, Senior Advisor Smart Grid Technology, California 
Independent System Operator Corporation
 Anne Smart, Vice President of Public Policy, ChargePoint
 Jeff Deason, Program Manager in Electricity Markets and Policy 
Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
 David Nemtzow, Director of the Building Technologies Office, 
U.S. Department of Energy

4:00 p.m.-4:15 p.m.: Break

4:15 p.m.-5:45 p.m.: Panel 4: Local, State, and Federal Coordination

    This panel will explore the roles of local, state, and federal 
governmental entities, with regard to electrification moving forward. 
This panel will focus on how local, state, and federal governmental 
entities can coordinate to ensure the grid is prepared to handle 
additional load from electrification and to ensure that newly 
electrified sources of energy demand provide the grid services they are 
technically capable of providing. The panel may include a discussion of 
the following questions:
    1. What role can coordination among local, state, and federal 
governmental entities play with regard to electrification?
    2. What planning and coordination among local, state, and federal 
governmental entities is necessary to facilitate the provision of grid 
services by newly electrified resources in a way that maximizes 
benefits to the grid while decreasing the potential reliability, 
operational, and cybersecurity risks that electrification could pose?
    3. Regional initiatives and multi-state cooperation efforts have 
formed in recent years to coordinate EV charging infrastructure 
deployment. What can we learn from those efforts and what role, if any, 
does the federal government play in supporting those efforts?
    4. How can interoperability protocols and standards be coordinated 
across local, state, and federal jurisdictions?
    5. What coordination efforts among local, state, and federal 
governmental entities have been most effective in addressing 
electrification? How could those coordination efforts be improved?
Panelists
 Norman C. Bay, Partner, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP
 Ann Rendahl, Commissioner, Washington Utilities and 
Transportation Commission; Chair, NARUC Committee on Electricity
 Bob Ethier, Vice President of System Planning, ISO-New England 
Inc.
 John Williams, Vice President of Policy and Regulatory 
Affairs, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority 
(NYSERDA)
 Emeka Anyanwu, Officer, Energy Innovation & Resources Business 
Unit, Seattle City Light
 Phil Jones, Executive Director, Alliance for Transportation 
Electrification
 Sara Baldwin, Director of Electrification Policy, Energy 
Innovation
 Abigail Anthony, Commissioner, Rhode Island Public Utility 
Commission

5:45 p.m.-6:00 p.m.: Closing Remarks

[FR Doc. 2021-09358 Filed 5-3-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6717-01-P