Vice President of Commercial Analytics

Invenergy

With more than twenty years of electric power industry experience, Ken Parkhill heads Invenergy’s Commercial Analytics group which forecasts economic operations at Invenergy existing and future clean power projects, including generation and transmission. Previously, Mr. Parkhill was a Supervisor of Portfolio Analytics for Ameren Energy Marketing and Founder of Thornwood Management Company, a FTR portfolio management company. Mr. Parkhill is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin; he has an MS and PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Director, Transmission Analytics & Policy

EDF Renewables North America

In her role as Director, Transmission Analytics and Policy, Alexandra Miller forecasts future transmission congestion and basis in support of development and operation of utility scale renewable energy projects for EDF Renewables North America. Alexandra is also an active participant in the ERCOT stakeholder process, where she represents independent generators on key stakeholder groups including ERCOT Reliability and Operations Subcommittee. She has a thorough understanding of electricity markets, system optimization, production cost modeling, and power system operations. Ms. Miller is also knowledgeable in risk management, retail marketing, rate design, and forecasting of energy demand and fuel prices. Alex has over twenty-five years of electric utility experience in generation planning and marketing organizations with Southern Company, as a transmission consultant providing basis risk assessments for renewable energy projects, and as an analytics director in renewable energy development.

Ms. Miller has a B.S., with Honors, in Mechanical Engineering from Auburn University. Prior to joining the utility industry, she gained five years of experience in materials engineering research, developing carbon fiber tubes and panels for space and transportation applications.

Director of Product Management – Energy Analytics

Hitachi Energy

Bret began his career as a regulatory analyst for Goldman Sachs. He then started working for ABB Power Grids (now Hitachi Energy) in 2012. Through his career he has worked with customers in energy regulation, renewable generation, transmission planning, grid operations, market pricing and fossil generation. In his current role, Bret works with customers and Hitachi Energy teams to produce best-of-breed solutions focused on market analysis, grid simulation and forecasting to enable better operational and investment decisions. Bret has a Master of Science degree in Business Analytics from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Industry Solutions Executive

Hitachi Energy

Ms. Cavaliere is an Industry Solutions Executive at Hitachi Energy and specializes in product support, development, technical sales and innovation on Hitachi’s decision support tools including, PROMOD, Gridview, Velocity Suite and Capacity Expansion. In this role, Ms. Cavaliere has in depth experience with data modeling across a broad range of markets including Japan, Europe, WECC, ERCOT, MISO, PJM and SPP. Ms. Cavaliere has been with Hitachi Energy for over 17 years and has been a speaker at multiple energy conferences and events.  Her previous roles at Hitachi Energy include managing product support and training and product management. Ms. Cavaliere holds a B.S. degree from THE Georgia Institute of Technology in Industrial Engineering. Go Jackets!

Ms. Cavaliere has two children, 4 and 6, and enjoys rap music, Judge Judy and beer festivals.

Director, Energy Markets

ICF

Dr. Shankar Chandramowli is an energy market consultant with over five years of experience in energy policy research, transmission and distribution planning in ISO/RTO markets, economic analysis of energy systems, optimization modeling, drafting policy memos and public stakeholder engagement for research inputs. He has published several peer-reviewed articles and presented at technical conferences. He holds a Ph.D. and a M.P.P in Public Policy from Rutgers University, New Jersey and a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from SASTRA University, India. Dr. Chandramowli has more than ten years of experience, and has supported climate change assessment modeling, energy policy research and analysis and production cost modeling and analysis. In addition to his project management experience, Dr. Chandramowli has a deep knowledge of planning, operations, and monitoring in the U.S. power markets. He has successfully managed congestion/curtailment assessment of solar and wind projects in major ISO/RTOs across the U.S (ERCOT, SPP, MISO, CAISO, PJM and NYISO). In addition, he is also spearheading the EnergyInsite product line business at ICF.

Director, Transmission Services

ACES

Jacob Justice is Director of Transmission Services at ACES in Carmel, Indiana. In his role, Jacob manages a team of four that recommend congestion mitigation strategies through participation in the Financial Transmission Rights (FTR), Transmission Congestion Rights (TCR), and Congestion Revenue Rights (CRR) markets. Jacob and his team utilize Hitachi’s PROMOD software to forecast future LMPs for FTR valuations, resource siting support, and constraint analysis. Additionally, he provides physical transmission support in the Eastern Interconnect and ERCOT.

Jacob has followed and presented at the ISO working groups in order to provide insight and offer actionable recommendations to ACES Clients. These recommendations included SPP M1 market enhancements, MISO underfunding fixes, and MISO South Long-Term Transmission Rights uplift treatment.

Director, Simulation Ready Data

Hitachi Energy

Keith Smith is an energy professional who has over 25 years of experience working in the electric energy industry.  During his career, Keith has worked on projects ranging from analyzing coal deliveries to renewable energy siting studies. He currently serves as the Director of Global Simulation Ready Data at Hitachi Energy.  Other roles in which Keith has served include PROMOD Customer Representative, advisory consultant, and Nodal Advisory team lead.

Senior Engineer, Transmission Planning Development Team

SPP

Spencer recently celebrated his 5th anniversary with SPP and is part of the Planning Policy and Research team.  He graduated from Arkansas State University in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

In his off time, he loves going on camping trips, tabletop games, and spending time with his family.

Vice President, Transmission

Leeward Renewable Energy

Jason Schmidt is the Vice President of Transmission at Leeward Renewable Energy, bringing over 30 years of experience in the power industry. In this role, Jason leads the generation interconnection and market analysis functions at LRE. Prior to this, he held senior positions at NextEra Energy Resources, Xcel Energy, ABB, and MISO. Jason began his career at Nodak Electric Cooperative in distribution, served as an engineering instructor at Northwest Technical College, and even had a brief stint in real estate appraisal.

Jason holds a Master’s degree in Economic Development and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Geography from the University of North Dakota, as well as a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. He is also a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in the state of Minnesota.