6.1. ERMUSR 03-20-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• Tuesday, June i 9 1:30-2:3Q p.m. Avoiding the Sale of Your Utility: Maintaining and Demonstrating the Value of aCommunity-(awned Electric Utility Once a sellout attempt gains traction, it is often more difficult to change the direction of the movement than it is to pre- vent the effort in the first place. Identify signals to monitor to reduce the likelihood of a takeover attempt. Financial policies (rates, payments in lieu of taxes, reserves), operational issues (reliability, making sufficient investments in the infrastructure), and having an effective communications campaign will be discussed. Educating Customers About the Benefits of Advanced Grid Technology As members of the communities they serve, municipal utilities understand the importance of engaging customers when deploying advanced technologies, such as smart meters, in-house devices, energy management portals, mobile ap- • plications, and more. Hear about best practices for educating customers to help you avoid the misinformation and backlash that can plague utility efforts to introduce new technologies. Integrating Renewable Generation: What Will Be Required and Who Will Pay? In the last year, the strain on transmission operators of integrating renewable resources has begun to show in both transmission operations and economics. Speakers will discuss the proper balance of supporting the growth and integra- tion of renewables-especially utility-scale variable resources like wind and solar-and operating the system in a way that neither unduly discriminates against one resource, nor requires subsidization across customer classes and resource types. The Future of Hydro Power While most agree that new, large hydro power projects are unlikely, there is a high degree of interest and activity around opportunities to develop new hydro power capacity at existing dams and hydro facilities, and on canals and conduits. Learn about some of these approaches and the legislative and regu- latory efforts under way to facilitate them. Mysteries of the EPA Mercury Rule The Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule direct- ing as many as 1,000 U.S. coal- and oil-fired power plants to retrofit with scrubbers, activated carbon, and baghouses to re- duce emission of mercury, acid gases and particulate matter. Many public power utilities will need longer than the Clean Air Act's standard three years to add pollution control equipment or switch to natural gas. This means utilities must copy with the rule by spring 2015. Speakers will discuss the EPA regula- tion and the process for obtaining case-by-case determina- tions for a fourth and fifth year for compliance. The Business Case for Implementing Energy Efficiency Now Although it may be tempting to wait until the economy recov- ers before focusing on energy efficiency, this time of flat load growth actually presents a strategic opportunity to invest in energy efficiency programs, enabling utilities to defer costly future investments in energy resources, while generating goodwill from customers already facing their own financial challenges. Learn about the business case for making energy efficiency and conservation programs a priority now. anaging Dodd-Frank Requirements; The Future of Hedging, Swaps and Derivatives for the Electric Industry The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protec- tion Act expanded the Commodity Futures Trading Commis- sion'sjurisdiction over derivative transactions based on energy commodities. The CFTC has extended the statutory one-year deadline to implement the law and continues to issue both final and proposed rules. This session will focus on the status and interpretation of CFTC rules and procedures and how they may affect public power utilities. Is Your Utility's Website the Best It Can Be? Websites are increasingly becoming the primary way that customers interact with electric utilities. Whether it's to pay a bill, get information on utility programs, or check on an outage from a mobile device, customers expect utility websites to be informative, intuitive, and convenient. This session will show- case some of the industry's top websites and the people that developed them. Participants will learn tactics to help make their websites effective tools. •