At our 39th Annual Fall Conference, Beth Garza, GCPA board president and R Street Institute senior fellow, welcomed more than 800 attendees. Along with event co-chairs Julia Harvey of Texas Electric Cooperatives, Lindsey Hughes of ENGIE and their committee, she thanked sponsors, the board of directors & 152 corporate members.
Speakers included:
As opening keynotes, Rep. Todd Hunter, State Affairs Committee, Texas House of Representatives and Pablo Vegas, CEO ERCOT, talked about the unique challenges and opportunities of managing a reliable electric grid with facilitator Barbara Clemenhagen, GCPA executive director.
Among their remarks, Vegas said: We operate in the most competitive market in the world. We need to operate on our resources and reserves. Texas is the largest wind and solar operator and soon to also be the largest in storage. Hunter pointed out that he believed the Legislature will continue to support and grow the Texas Energy Fund.
In her keynote Perspectives from an ERCOT Participant: Customer’s Version, Deborah Merril of bp Energy Retail Company looked back at her 28 years in deregulated markets. “I’ve seen a lot.” Her observations: ERCOT remains the best competitive power market; customers are feeling the impacts of the volatile energy environments; to remain the best we need to support customer needs in a rapidly changing environment.
Tracie Tolle, PMP of Public Utility Commission of Texas delivered a Vignette on the Texas Energy Fund, a $10 billion program of grants & loans to finance the construction, maintenance, modernization & operation of electric facilities in Texas.
The session AI Gets Real in ERCOT featured Theo F Piletski, EPAM Systems;
Dr. Erin Boyd, AES; Scott Hublou, Splight; Michael Kirschner, Habitat Energy; Venkat Tirupati, P.E., ERCOT. Boyd point out: This may be controversial to say, but I think AI is going to get us to net zero.
Dean Foreman, Ph.D., Texas Oil & Gas Association, reviewed Oil & Gas Perspective on the Permian Basin Load.
Garza moderated a panel of energy reporters who explained how energy pros could be helpful in telling the industry’s story & how news outlets have evolved. In the session were Russell Gold, Texas Monthly; Claire Hao, Houston Chronicle; Jennifer Hiller, The Wall Street Journal; Tom Kleckner, RTO Insider LLC.
John Padalino of Bandera Electric Cooperative chronicled the unique programs of its 29,000-member co-op, including being among the state’s first regions in the PUCT’s Aggregate Distributed Energy Resource Pilot Project.
Keynote Glenn Hegar, Comptroller, State of Texas, described Texas’ economic growth: We know 1,000 to 1,200 people are moving to Texas everyday, businesses are moving to Texas and Texas is going to continue to grow. “Texas is the eighth largest economy in the world,” he said, adding that Texas has an expected $20 billion cash carry over balance for 2025.
Fall Conference sessions conclude Tuesday. Join us at the ATT Conference Center, Austin.
