DRAFT

PEAK LOAD MANAGEMENT ALLIANCE

AND

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL

IN COOPERATION WITH

HUSCH BLACKWELL LLP

ANNOUNCE

THE SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON THE LAW OF DEMAND RESPONSE

Washington, D. C. October 26-27, 2011

“Demand response” or “DR” is the immediate or long-term customer (energy consumers) response to price or reliability signals from utilities, regional transmission organizations, or curtailment service providers. Managing energy loads through sophisticated two-way communications lends flexibility and stability to the electric power system and effectively creates a new potential source of electricity supply. The projected benefits of DR will also include as much as $66 Billion in avoided energy costs and avoided investment in electric generation and other infrastructure over 20 years. In this specialized area of energy efficiency, technological innovation and national policy are nevertheless racing ahead of legal developments. Utilities, entrepreneurs, and policymakers will ultimately require a range of laws, commercial practices, and regulations that bring certainty and stability to this emerging part of the energy industry.

The Peak Load Management Alliance ("PLMA") and The George Washington University Law School ("GWLS") will once again sponsor a national legal conference to develop ideas and proposals that promise to enhance the understanding of DR and the regulatory and transactional challenges being confronted by investors, DR providers, utilities, and customers in the current energy market environment. The objective of the meeting is to assist the energy industry and policy makers at various levels of government in laying a solid legal foundation for promoting DR. As during the first conference, the 2011 meeting will bring legal and policy experts together to focus on specific legal challenges and needs that are arising as DR becomes a more prominent -- and often more controversial -- component of energy markets, both as a source of supply and a technique for integrating all uses of the grid. Those challenges generally fall into three categories: regulatory (including legislation and enforcement issues), transactional (including intellectual property and the development of property rights flowing from DR contracts and obligations), and a range of consumer and technology issues. As the industry matures, the legal community must inevitably confront novel issues about the regulated status of DR providers, the nature of the DR markets and derivative financial markets, cyber security and reliability standards, consumer protections, and regulatory support for deployment of new technologies.

This conference is the principal forum for advancing the law of DR through discussion of these issues. It is designed principally to provide information to attorneys practicing in the areas of public utility and regulatory law, intellectual property, laws governing digital communications technologies, and privacy and consumer protection. The conference sponsors envision follow-up research, published proceedings, and consensus-building efforts flowing from this conference, in part fulfilling through private action some of the objectives of FERC’s National Action Plan. The proceedings of the 2010 First Annual conference may be ordered at www.PeakLMA.org

October 26 -- 8:30 a.m.

Welcome and Introductions

Paul Tyno, President PLMA

Dean Lee Paddock, GWLS

Opening Keynote

Legislative/Regulatory Sessions

Panel 1: Must Utilities Provide Advanced DR Opportunities as Part of Their Obligation To Serve?

Panel 2: FERC's Order No. 745 and LMP Pricing: Is It Good Policy, Law, or Economics?

Lunch – At the Law School

Transactional Sessions

Panel 3: The Status of Demand Response Contract Development and The Potential Impacts on Them of Securities and Derivatives Laws

Panel 4: DR and RTO Capacity Auctions

Reception -- George Washington University

Law School

October 27 -- 8:30 a.m.

International Panel

Panel 5: Cross-Atlantic Influences: Comparing DR Legal Developments in the European Union and the U.S.

Consumer & Technology Issues Sessions

Panel 6: Cyber Security: Using the Law to Address the Cyber Risks of DR

Panel 7: DR and New Reliability Standards: Should DR Providers Have The Same Obligations As Other Suppliers?

Noon Concluding Observations

To register, click here