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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 The Peak Load Management Alliance ("PLMA") and The George Washington University Law School ("GWLS") will once again sponsor a national legal conference to explore the most important ideas and proposals that promise to enhance the understanding of demand response or "DR" -- the immediate or long-term response of energy consumers and market participants to price or reliability signals from utilities, regional transmission organizations, or curtailment service providers. DR represents important new economic opportunities, a new operational challenges for the grid, and emerging regulatory issues. This year’s conference will focus on near-term issues of emerging regulatory standards and proceedings, comparative analysis of DR laws on both sides of the Atlantic, and the transactions and practices that will characterize and sustain DR long-term. It 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 achieving efficiency and integrating all uses of the grid. New sessions for 2011 reflect the difficulties in setting regulated rates for DR in wholesale and retail markets, government concerns about market manipulation and reliability, constraints imposed by cyber security threats that may impact data and communications practices and technology, and the emergence of new entities and commercial transactions for which there is little precedent. DR continues to pose basic questions about the relationship of DR to traditional utility obligations and consumer interests. This conference is designed to advance the law of DR through provocative debate and discussion. It provides attorneys practicing in the areas of public utility and regulatory law, intellectual property, laws governing digital communications technologies, and privacy and consumer protection with an in-depth introduction to some of the key issues. The conference sponsors will follow-up with 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 Utility Law Panel 1: Must Utilities Provide Advanced DR Opportunities as Part of Their Obligation To Serve? The “regulatory compact” imposes on energy suppliers such as public utilities an obligation to provide goods and services on a reasonable, non-discriminatory, and usually cost-related basis in exchange for a grant of monopoly. For retail energy providers, historically dedicated to selling more MWs or more MMBtus of energy, the idea of curbing energy consumption is often alien. It can nevertheless be an opportunity as well as challenge. To what extent should the energy efficiency, optionality, and resource diversity that comes from DR be more than policy goals, and instead be part of that regulatory compact? As industry and regulators work to balance the benefits of DR against the costs of metering technologies and reliability challenges, a larger question exists: is demand response opportunities integral to utility services and therefore essential to maintain a competitive market and just and reasonable rates for consumers? This panel addresses whether utilities should be obligated to provide demand response opportunities to consumers and third party providers? Do trends in state and federal regulatory policy suggest an answer? Moderator: Hon. Philip Moeller, Commissioner, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Panel: Hon. Paul Centollela, Commissioner, Public Utility Commission of Ohio Nancy Brockway, Consumer Advocate, former Commissioner, Public Service Commission of New Hampshire Jay Morrison, Regulatory Counsel , National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Stephen Sunderhauf, Manager of Program Evaluations, PEPCO Day One Keynote Richard Pierce, Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law, George Washington University School of Law New Transactional Opportunities Panel 2: Load Participation As A Resource In Energy Markets: A Solution to a Utility Problem DR is generally regarded as a capacity resource to be called up during periods of peak demand when the power system is strained, to ensure reliability and defer investments in generation plant. In states without retail competition, the ability of commercial and industrial load to participate as a demand responsive energy resource is particularly restricted. This panel explores a cutting-edge issue: can DR be called upon as a resource and integrated into the normal dispatch of integrated electric systems, and what regulatory approaches could be developed to facilitate this use of DR? Is fuel clause-type treatment feasible? How would large retail customers benefit from DR being dispatched first as an energy resource or for ancillary support? How would other customers benefit? Are regulators in markets that lack RTOs or retail competition prepared to explore such an approach? Moderator: James J. Hoecker, Senior Counsel, Husch Blackwell LLP Panel: Allen Freifeld, Senior Vice President, Viridity Energy Mary Tighe, Economic Advisor, Office of the Chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Joe Bowring, Monitoring Analytics Olivia Samad, Attorney, Southern California Edison* Lunch – At the Law School Federal Rate Regulation Panel 3: Demand Response, LMP Pricing, and the Organized Markets Federal regulators have made no secret of their determination to ensure that DR is not competitively disadvantaged in the wholesale power market. In 2011, that pro-DR stance manifested itself in Order No. 745, which departed from the historical practice of regional transmission organizations of subtracting generation and transmission tariffs from avoided energy locational marginal price (LMP) payments to DR resources. Order No. 745 mandated DR compensation based on full LMP. Is this "affirmative action" for DR providers, or just a manufactured controversy that does not affect the greater proportion of DR revenues from capacity markets? What does the PJM “double counting” case augur for possible enforcement actions by FERC in the realm of DR? Will competition and customer demands place downward pressure on the margins enjoyed by curtailment service providers in organized markets? Moderator: Douglas Nazarian, Chairman, Maryland Public Service Commission Panel: David Morenoff, Deputy General Counsel, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission William Smith, Executive Director, Organization of MISO States Kevin Evans, CEO, EnergyConnect, Johnson Controls Grid Operations Panel 4: The Law of Standard-Setting: NERC, NAESB, And Other Business Police The work of industry organizations that have been formed to ensure stability and common practices in the power markets have become increasingly important. Congress laid the groundwork for reliability standard-setting to move from a voluntary industry collaborative to a mandatory system with hefty financial penalties for non-compliance. The voluntary model persists in a variety of contexts, notwithstanding the increased complexity and interconnectedness of power markets, vertically and horizontally. Is the era of utility industry self-regulation on the wane? How is the regulation of industry by the government accommodating standard-setting by non-governmental organizations and how will these entities impact the future of demand response, which began with interruptible and curtailment rates for industrial and large commercial customers that volunteered to be curtailed for a credit or payment, and has progressed to elaborate and technology-driven programs involving onsite generation, manual and automatic load reductions, and extensive metering of residential load under the watchful eye of retail regulators. DR has become dynamic and it consequently raises many operational challenges. How will reliability and good utility practices be ensured, and by whom? Should DR providers have the same reliability obligations under NERC standards as other suppliers to the power markets? Moderator: Paul Tyno, President, PLMA, Viridity Energy Panel: David Cook, General Counsel, North American Electric Reliability Corporation Cory Galik Cummings, Counsel, North American Electric Standards Board Henry Wixon, General Counsel, National Institute for Standards and Technology* Reception -- George Washington University Law School OCTOBER 27 – 8:30 a.m. Second Day Keynote Congressman Ed Markey (Schedule permitting) Comparative Analysis Panel 5: How Will Differing EU and US Demand Response Laws and Legal Developments Affect the Pace of Demand Response Implementation? Despite common assumptions about the need to upgrade the grid technologically as well as the benefits to customers of greater participation in the market, efficiency, and higher power quality, Smart Grid is understood and implemented differently on the two sides of the Atlantic. It has been said that the EU focuses more on research and deployment, while the US has focused more on laws and regulations. DR has been the beneficiary of top-down visions and substantial funding for technology deployment in both cases but in both cases DR is developing under different standards and assumptions jurisdiction by jurisdiction, or market by market. Does the policy and legal framework adopted by Congress, the FERC, and state regulators -- not to mention the outcome of the stakeholder-driven National Action Plan -- portend a national expansion of DR opportunities, or will the EU's vision for DR ultimately help create a more attractive power market? Moderator: Marvin Griff, Husch Blackwell LLP Panel: LeRoy Paddock, Associate Dean, George Washington University Law School Ross Malme, Skipping Stone Consulting Protecting Proprietary Data Panel 6: Law, Security, and Technology: Can the Law Help Reduce the Cyber Risks of Demand Response? Concerns about the security of the bulk power system have increased with the introduction of digital and Internet-based technologies to the operations of the grid. This is no longer your father’s electric system and the technologies that enable DR and make the grid more flexible, customer-responsive, and efficient also make it potentially vulnerable to attack. However, new institutions, standards, and protocols are developing in response. Pursuant to the 2005 Energy Policy Act, the National Electricity Reliability Corporation undertook responsibility for devising mandatory reliability standards. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working on interoperability standards. Smart Grid collaboratives abound. However, the power system is subject to multiple regulatory bodies and various states and regions may be as focused on protecting their jurisdiction as they are to ward off cyber intrusions. Is national legislation needed in order to create a more uniform approach to security? How can all regulators and market participants contribute to devising protections that are efficient and responsive without compromising the usefulness of new technology? What is the role of FERC and the courts in ensuring that new standards are enforced? This panel will discuss the range of challenges facing the industry as electronic media makes transactions and events move more quickly but possibly opening the door for some very expensive, even life-threatening, mischief. Moderator: Daphne Vayos, Senior Counsel, Northeast Utilities Panel: Scott Aronson, Director, Government Relations, Edison Electric Institute Patrick Currier, Counsel, Committee on Energy & Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives Edward Franks, Director, Division of Logistics & Security, Office of Electric Reliability, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Annabelle Lee, Electric Power Research Institute Pat McCormick, Senior Energy Policy Advisor to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, U.S. Senate Noon -- Wrap-Up *Invited, not confirmed To register, click here
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