 So good morning, everyone. My name is Paul Flanagan. I am the Director of Corporate Communications here at CPS Energy and I want to welcome everyone here to the beautiful Our Lady of the Lake University campus. Today is a really exciting day for us as we take the next step in the evolution of our new energy economy initiative and just a couple hours will unveil our future plans to transform the former Mission Road power plant into what we're calling the Energy Partnerships Innovation Center or EPIS Center. But I'd like to welcome some of our esteemed guests who are going to be with us today actually. We are in, many of you know that we are in District 5 and that is Councilwoman Shirley Gonzalez's district and she will be here momentarily for the big unveiling and so she'll definitely be here. Also we have members of our CPS Energy Citizens Advisory Committee and I wanted to recognize them as well. Also we have members of our founding partners, our new energy economy founding partners. I wanted to recognize S.H. Yoon who is President and CEO of O.C.I. Solar Power. We have Gina Gardner from Landis & Gear and she is the West Regional Manager and we have Raj Viswani with us as well from Silver Spring Networks and he is their Chief Technology Officer. And I wanted to welcome everyone, senior leadership at CPS Energy. Welcome to our event today. I want to get into a few housekeeping notes as well. Coffee and refreshments will be available in the back of the room throughout the morning. After this panel we'll take a short break and then we'll come back for the second panel and the unveiling. So please enjoy the refreshments. The restrooms are outside by the stairs where you entered and there's additional restrooms to the right down the hall. Okay, let's get on with our presentation. I don't think it's any surprise that Texas is at the epicenter and pun is intended there of clean energy generation and consumption. We have with us today a panel of industry leaders who will showcase the role our state is playing in energy innovation. Innovation that will have an impact for generations to come. We are very fortunate to have with us today Evan Smith, Editor-in-Chief, CEO and co-founder of the Texas Tribune as our moderator for this first panel. The Texas Tribune is a non-profit, non-partisan digital news organization that was recently called one of the non-profit news sector's runaway success stories. The Tribune's deep coverage of Texas politics and public policy can be found at its website at TexasTribune.org. Evan spent, previous to the Texas Tribune, Evan spent nearly 18 years at Texas Monthly, including eight years as editor and a year as president and editor-in-chief. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Evan Smith and our first panel. Good morning. Nice to see all of you. Appreciate the invitation to be here and of course appreciate especially the opportunity to be with our distinguished panelists. Let me introduce them and I'll tell you how we're going to do this conversation. It's actually going to be part presentation, part conversation. It'll be an opportunity for people in the audience to ask questions toward the back end of this as well. I'm pleased to be joined first by Lynn Abramson, who is a senior associate for clean energy at the Pew Charitable Trust. She joined Pew's Clean Energy Initiative in June 2013. She coordinates the Clean Energy Business Network, a group of business leaders working in all sectors of clean energy. Manages research projects, educational opportunities and advocacy tools to inform and engage individuals and policy issues affecting the industry. She has a bachelor's degree in biology from Boston University and a doctoral degree in marine and atmospheric sciences from Stony Brook University. On her left is Chris Uxter, who is group executive vice president and chief generation and strategy, well actually Andrew is in the middle. Well, I've already screwed this up. I wanted to do it alphabetically, so I'm just going to go with the way I intended to do it. All the way on my left is Chris Uxter, who is group executive vice president, chief generation and strategy officer for CPS Energy, responsible for overall operations, dispatch and evolution of CPS Energy's generation capabilities, including 6,500 megawatts of traditional power plants and 1,100 megawatts of renewables. Also responsible for corporate strategy, including integration of new technologies and development of new products and services. In the middle, and it's appropriate that he be in the middle because he may fall over from exhaustion having traveled as far as he has, so he can hit either Chris or Lynn on either side, is Andrew Oh, who is vice president for global solar at OCI. In his current role he leads global solar power development here in the U.S. as well as China, South Africa, North Africa and India. He also leads new business development in the energy storage field as well as working on the difficult task of structuring finance for global solar assets. He received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Korea University and his MBA in 2006 from Duke University. Please join me in welcoming our panelists. So we're going to talk about the great topic of Texas and its role in the day's subject. And we've asked each of our panelists to prepare about five minutes of presentation. I gather that both Lynn and Chris have presentations that will be up on screen. Andrew tells me that he'll be just talking to us for about five minutes, is that right? So let me ask Lynn to move over to the podium first and she'll do her presentation. Then we'll have Chris second. We'll finish with Andrew. Then we'll visit up here for a little while and then we'll open it up to questions from the audience. So Lynn, take it away. Thank you so much for having, is this working? Okay, perfect. Well, thank you so much for inviting me to participate today. I really appreciate the invitation from CPS Energy. I'm really honored to be here on such a distinguished panel and I'm very excited to learn more about what the epicenter's plans are. As I'm going to talk about, we've seen in our research that Texas really has emerged as a leader in the clean energy economy. And I feel like it's very impressive that CPS Energy is taking this step in partnership with all of these great partners here in the room today to really try to accelerate the local clean energy economy here and make this a center for innovation. So I'm here to discuss some research that the Pew Charitable Trust completed last fall. As Evan mentioned, I'm Lynn Abramsen and I work for our Clean Energy Initiative, which works to promote clean energy for its economic, national security, and environmental benefits. And we do this through a combination of research and public policy advocacy. And beginning last fall, in the fall of 2014 and concluding this January, we released a series of eight research reports looking at states with emerging clean energy economies. And we selected those states, which included Texas, because we saw that there was some leadership in their policies, the amount of private investment they were attracting, or other metrics that made them interesting case studies. And in some cases, these are states that are at a crossroads where they could either continue to emerge as leaders or might actually take a downward decline. And what we found very interesting about Texas is that it is obviously known as a leader in the oil and gas industry. But it really is a leader in the clean energy economy as well in renewables and industrial energy efficiency. And to give you a sense of what we found this means for the state's economy, we looked at the amount of private investment that development projects such as solar projects, wind projects, biomass efficiency projects have attracted to the state. And we found that over the five-year period that we examined, which was 2009 through 2013, there were 5.6 gigawatts of new clean energy projects added, and that attracted about $10.6 billion in private investment. Looking forward, our projections are that over the next decade we're going to see about $42 billion of private investment in this field. Again, that's just from the development projects alone. It doesn't even include some of the ancillary benefits such as investments in new technologies, mergers and acquisitions, things like that. So this is a very impressive figure and it is actually the highest of the eight states that we chose to examine. And our research examined three sectors where we saw there was particular promise for Texas clean energy economy. So first, the wind sector, the state has the highest installed capacity of wind power in the nation at 12.8 gigawatts, and it generates about a quarter of the nation's wind electricity. It also ranks first in the nation for industrial energy efficiency technologies, which include cogeneration. So when you generate heat and power simultaneously and it roughly doubles the efficiency compared to traditional power generation, as well as waste heat to power, which is the recovery of waste heat from industrial processes to generate electricity. So that can be used on natural gas pipelines and manufacturing facilities. And because of the state's large industrial energy use, it ranks first in the nation with 17 gigawatts of capacity in those technologies. And Texas also has the greatest solar potential in the nation and has only recently started harnessing this resource. So we see that as a growth opportunity. So in the year we picked to examine 2013, it ranked 13th nationwide in solar capacity at 213 megawatts. And we do project that to increase in coming years. And one thing that's interesting for San Antonio in the solar sector is that the cities of San Antonio and Austin combined have about 85% of the state's solar capacity. And partly that is due to the demand here, but it's also partly due to progressive policies. So CPS Energy, for example, has a goal of installing 20% capacity from clean energy by 2020. The city of Austin has a 25% goal. Those goals really do make a difference in driving investment in these sectors. And as I mentioned, one of the drivers of Texas's clean energy economy is simply its enormous resource potential. It has the highest wind and solar resource in the nation. I mentioned the large industrial energy use that creates opportunities for that sector. But we have found that also policy makes an important difference as well in setting the stage to really harness those resources. And so as many of you know, Texas has a renewable portfolio standard that required the installation of 10 gigawatts of clean energy by 2025, a goal that was surpassed 15 years ahead of schedule. The state also has an energy efficiency resource standard that requires 30% of annual growth and electricity to come from energy savings. And then we also found that the competitive electricity market in the state, the right to distributed generation, the right to sell power for a non-utility to sell power directly to consumers, some of those competitive aspects of the state's market have also encouraged the growth of the clean energy industry. If consumers want it, they can put solar panels on their house. If they want to purchase solar or wind or industrial efficiency directly from someone else, they have the option to do so. So that's actually been an important factor as well. Federal policy has also played an important role. So the federal tax credit, such as the production tax credit for wind, the investment tax credit for solar, and as well as coupled with state investments have really made a difference as well in financing some of these clean energy projects and bringing the costs down so that they're becoming increasingly cost competitive throughout the state with conventional electricity. So that's just a brief overview of what some of our research has found. I'm happy to talk a little bit more in depth about the benefits of clean energy as well as our findings on particular industries in the Q&A. So thank you. Lynn, thank you very much. Chris? Okay, first of all, I'd like to thank everyone for being out here today. This is a very special day for CPS Energy and for San Antonio. So again, thank you for being here. I'm going to echo a lot of the comments that Lynn made. Texas is absolutely a leader in clean energy. It's made significant investments in infrastructure, the Cres lines. I think the state spent about $6.8 billion to be able to bring renewable resources, whether it be wind or solar, from West Texas, from the Panhandle, to load centers like San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Austin. And so significant investments have been made. In fact, the state is expecting to have about 18,000 megawatts of renewables by 2020, and that's about a quarter of the state's generation capacity. So that's a big deal. In fact, even today we're seeing days where half of the state, half of our city is powered by renewables, mostly wind at this time, but it will be solar here shortly with some of the things that we're doing. So renewables is a very real story here in Texas. As Lynn said, we have vast amounts of renewables, whether it be solar, wind, or other types of renewables. And so that positions us well to continue to be a leader here in the country. We have a very efficient market with ERCOT. It's an energy-only market. So if you build a plant, whether it be a solar plant or wind farm, you can basically connect it to the grid and sell that power. It's truly a free market here. In fact, a lot of the most recent plants have been merchant plants where they are not requiring an off-taker. They're basically just selling it directly into the market as renewable prices have come down. So we have a very efficient market, wonderful solar and wind resources here. We have the transmission capacity to get it to load centers, and then we have a very strong economy. So Texas is very well positioned to continue its leadership role in clean energy. And CPS energy is really at the forefront of this. I mean, we have had five years of significant transformation. These are a couple of charts. In 2011, we had 14 megawatts of solar. That was a record amount for Texas at the time. Now we are talking about in 2016 having 444 megawatts of solar. So, you know, we've significantly ramped that up. We're number one in Texas for the amount of wind that we have in our portfolio, the amount of solar. We've got the most significant demand response energy efficiency program. So we truly are a leader in Texas when it comes to clean energy. The other thing that makes it special, and that's kind of what ties in today, is, and this is under the leadership of our CEO, Doyle Benaby, is really to create a new energy economy around this ecosystem. And so we are looking at having a thousand plus jobs here by 2016 to basically support these activities. And we're already well over 700 jobs with our partners. So these are San Antonio citizens that are basically employed in these industries and are part of this vision and executing this vision. So we believe new energy economy impact will reach $1.6 billion by 2018. So those are some big numbers. This is a picture of all of our partners. This picture was blank five years ago. So you can see over five years we have a significant amount of investments in capital and employees around clean energy here in San Antonio. And some of these partners will be talking here today. And then finally, just to wrap it up, we've received national accolades for what we're doing here, whether it be kind of from the EPA administrator, whether it be our CEO, Doyle Benaby, receiving the CEO of the year award from CEPA, the Solar Energy Power Organization, CPS ranked number seven in the country from the amount of solar deployed. So we're starting to get that national recognition for some of the great things we're doing here in Texas and in San Antonio. With that, turn it over to Andrew. Terrific, Chris. Thanks very much. Actually, I don't need this. The first invitation came from CPS Energy like two weeks ago that participated in this panel and didn't expect to have some presentation and five-minute talk. I just thought that I'd sit down and receive a question and answer. Yesterday I had a time to bring some presentation up to the screen but decided not to do, to just focus on me, my face. Good choice. Thank you very much for inviting OCI as a panel and personally I'm very honored to be in this panel to start this event today. It was since 2006 that OCI started to be in this industry. We are like 50, one of the 50 years old chemical company located in Korea. We happen to produce the polysilicon. Also the chemical material that is used for the solar panel is a key material to generate the power from the sunlight. Our company in Korea decided what we could do with this polysilicon can we expand our business area from chemical to clean energy. There was a solution out there that we could do either panel manufacturing, cell manufacturing, doing of development or being an investor to the renewable energy projects out there. Finally we decided to be a developer in the United States because the United States was the booming up industry region in 2011 but we started very small in the east of the Mississippi. We didn't expect that we are going to be a large player in this area in the United States within one or two years but thanks for CPS Energy. CPS Energy show RSPA with the concept that we really liked. It was not only a PPA, the power purchase agreement but it offered like let's grow together in one area like building a hub of the energy, the renewable energy and that aligned with our own strategy. So it was not easy negotiation like eight months of negotiation to sign the contract but I believe those eight months of time was very valuable to create the common interest of one contract. There are two sides of the contract but usually there is one wins one loses but this contract wins both. OCI is very much happy to establish our footprint in San Antonio in Texas and we are about to grow from San Antonio to the world. So we are not only a developer in San Antonio but we have our partners who can manufacture inverters who can manufacture trackers who could build a power plant like a construction firm in San Antonio and also we have panel manufacturers in San Antonio as well. So we have all sort of key equipment in San Antonio to bring to the other regions to be more competitive. Now I'm back in Korea. SA Hyun is the CEO of OCI Solar Power right now focusing on the North and South Central America here. OCI will use this initiative in San Antonio to expand our business globally as Evan mentioned that we're trying to be in China, Africa, India, Southeast Asia to do a similar kind of strategy structure that we have done in San Antonio. So OCI is very happy to partner with CPS Energy and hope that we could expand our partnership furthermore not only for the solar development side but also the energy solution side. The next step I think there should be some question about what would be the next area of renewable energy but there will be, there's a bunch of the new technology out there but OCI believe solar renewable energy plus the energy storage system will be the trend next five years. So I'll stop here. If you have any questions maybe we have some time for the Q&A. We'll definitely have some time for questions. Thank you very much for inviting us. So let me ask our panelists some questions to get us started here. All interesting and in many ways you've answered a lot of questions I had but you've raised others beginning with this idea that somehow Austin and San Antonio disproportionately represent the renewable market in the state of Texas. It's a very big state growing very quickly and for Austin and San Antonio that's great but it's pretty terrible for the rest of the state that they're so late to the party here. Why Austin and San Antonio? What are the conditions particular Chris? Let me start with you. What are the conditions particular to those two markets or to San Antonio specifically since we're in San Antonio today that separate them from other parts of the state? I think that's a great question. I think part of it is we have a longer term view on how do we serve this community. I mean in the IOU world you may have kind of a shorter term for view. You've got sort of quarterly earnings that you've got to think about. We really have a long term view. We can make the right investments to position us very well over the long term. I think the other thing about San Antonio is we've got the right leadership in place both at the utility as well as at the city, at the county to make this stuff happen so we can not only put this vision in place but we can actually execute on it. Lynn, Chris is right. Leadership matters and the corporate environment, the investment mindset matters but at the end of the day if the community doesn't buy in none of that stuff matters. What is it about the San Antonio community and the Austin community similar in some ways different in very specific ways that makes those communities so receptive to moving over to the renewable space? Well I think having long term market signals is very important in attracting investment and so one of the factors I mentioned was that you do have this 20% by 2020 renewable goal here in San Antonio that sends a signal that this is a place that wants to do business and clean energy and the CPS also offered a variety of rebates to encourage consumer adoption of clean energy entered into these power purchase agreements with OCI Solar so I think that long term vision that Chris was just speaking about it sends a signal that OCI Solar, other developers this is the place to do business. And Andrew I want to ask you a version of that question but from a different side of it so what about Texas or what about San Antonio makes this an appropriate or attractive market from OCI's perspective? There are a lot of places you could go a lot of places you could do business but why here, what about this market? Very good question. When we first decided to move into San Antonio, Texas there was a kind of risk that we have to take because there's a perception that Texas is not friendly for renewable energy and there was not many solar power development in Texas compared to California or New Jersey at that time but CPS energy has a different vision and I believe CPS energy has a different vision with all other utilities in Texas so let me talk about two things very short one is CPS energy's leadership and their vision they're investing into this renewable energy so developers like us is looking for a project that could make money for us and there was a risk, there was a return but OCI believed that not only the one time investment building a plan and just walk away we want to use this as a stepping stone to do more business in Texas and we saw the opportunities in Texas because it's different from California there was not many competitions here grid lines was clean and very nice compared to the other states because there was a win but not many solar power development in Texas so there are two aspects one was the environment of the industry was good not harsh competition in here very good infrastructure second was CPS energy's leadership but you make a great point that I need to push down the path a little bit and that is Texas's reputation this is an oil and gas state we still produce the most crude oil of any state in the country and our economic health over the last couple of years relative to other states economic health has been largely the result of the strength of the energy sector by which I really mean oil and gas I don't really mean renewables so coming here to do this kind of work is in some ways pushing against the conventional stereotype or narrative of Texas I think the flip side of it is Texas is also a market driven state so if it makes business sense they're going to do it and so I think the way we've approached renewables is a little bit different we've run the economics over a longer period of time not just what is the payback this year and so if you take that longer term view I mean it is market driven our decisions to kind of move into this space and I think Texas is starting to see that we're starting to see merchant plants getting stood up in Texas but the economic footprint that you talked about the amount of money you're talking about in attracting an investment the business you're going to do and the jobs you've created are relatively small compared to what the oil and gas industry has produced over the last couple of years how do you gross that up to people and make them believe that renewables are really going to be a major contributor to the economy of the state what do you do about that, Chris? We've got a thousand employees here I know you've got to start somewhere but I think both can coexist oil and gas as well as renewables can coexist oil is primarily a transportation fuel versus a utility power fuel gas obviously has overlap on both but I certainly think both can coexist and I think Texas is very much getting on board with renewables and it seems to me based on the downturn in the oil and gas economy that we've seen over the last few months events that we don't control are much more likely to impact the degree to which oil and gas does well or does poorly by Texas renewables may not be as susceptible to that I was interested, Lynn, to see you put up the slide about state policy of course I lived my entire life these 140 days of a Texas legislative session thinking about state policy and the degree to which it impacts in a favorable way and often in an unfavorable way life out here in the state the conditions that come from the capital in Austin the stuff that you cited does matter it is from a business perspective an attractive set of attributes can you talk a little bit about that compared to other places? Well, as I mentioned I think it's really what kind of long-term signal are you sending to the markets and so what we found in the eight states we examined was really diverse in this particular sets of policies that they had in place like for example we looked at Georgia which doesn't have a renewable portfolio standard but it has this goal that adopted in 2013 of deploying 525 megawatts of solar by 2016 we looked at North Carolina which has had renewable portfolio standards in place since 2007 those kinds of concrete predictable long-term goals that sends a signal to the market that okay there is some certainty here that we have a high interest in investment in this field and so having predictable stable policies in place we found that across the states we looked at that was a common ingredient that was very important in attracting investors So this was Rick Perry's mantra for all those years low taxes, predictable regulation tort reform which may not be quite as much of a factor in the renewable industry as it is in others but certainly low taxes and predictable regulation is probably something that is useful because if investors are going to be cut significantly that can't hurt in terms of a business climate probably for investment in the state Andrew what is federal so state policy matters obviously in terms of attracting this business does federal policy matter talk about federal policy US federal policy as it relates to this how is the US government and its approach to this stuff helpful or not helpful in the space in which you occupy it was helpful for that investment tax credit 30% which you expect to higher end of 2016 that's a somewhat controversial issue but it's a supply and demand market and it's a return and risk market that we have this is capital intensive projects building a power plant is very much capital intensive so we have to find the right investors to partner with and they are all looking into the return figures and we are not just competing by state by state by facility but we are competing with globally like for example India when you go to India the project we could build is less than a dollar per watt return is 17% but there is a country risk and currency risk out there so we have to the investment tax credit 30% is very very important but it's not only that federal incentive but we have to look over all globally we can compete with the other countries and one of I think I mentioned about the energy storage system that could help to be more competitive market US could be a more competitive market if the federal or state government could support to install the energy storage system so that is one thing that the federal government could do that they are not doing now but that would help to what degree are incentives offered by places you might seek to do business important to you in Texas we've had many many years of offering business incentives and it's actually become kind of controversial it's turned around on us because we've discovered that a lot of the people to whom we gave incentives to locate their businesses here didn't create the jobs they promised that they would create it's just become kind of a hot potato politically how important are incentives to the kind of work that you do yes it is very important like region by region there is a different and our power plan has to pay taxes property tax for example in Texas other taxes are very favorable in Texas but the property tax is very high and we're using a large size of the property it's like 900 acres, 1000 acres of the land but the school district are very favorable to build the renewable energy so they are giving us a lot of incentive and favors that helps a lot so I think those kind of incentives like regional incentives, state incentives it does matter Chris another hot potato politically has been eminent domain and property rights and the question of whether people in communities may want to resist Cresline so they may want to resist some of the stuff that would be necessary infrastructure for renewable for renewable energy can you talk a little bit about that you may have that experience here but you've also worked in Houston to understand across the state this is a thorny issue sometimes it is a thorny issue but I would say that the good news is the Cresline is pretty much in place so a lot of those issues are behind us and for the most part we've seen very little resistance a lot of enthusiasm for citing a community solar project or a solar farm next to a school or even a wind farm so I think the eminent domain issue is less of an issue in terms of citing those facilities there's a lot of positive feelings about having renewable resources as part of our mix so Andrew did a good thing as we wrap up this portion of it and go to the audience he cited something that in a perfect world he'd like to see happen that would make it easier for business to be done and for this renewable energy world to expand beyond what it is right now Chris at the federal level or the state level what's something that you would like to see happen either a hurdle eliminated or something that is not in place now that you'd like to see be in place that's a tough question you know in my view I think we've passed that tipping point where the renewable market is more policy driven versus market driven I think we're moving to more of a market driven system here with renewables I mean I think we still need support like the ITC tax credit if we could instead of having it go away immediately maybe it can be ramped down over some period of time maybe we could give some transition some certainty to projects that are still in the works and Lynn same for you either at the federal level or the state level what hurdle would you like to see taken down or what opportunity that we're not leveraging can we be leveraging I would definitely echo what Chris said I think we are getting close to cost competitiveness on a lot of clean energy technologies but I do think that having a little bit longer term certainty with some of these incentives will really accelerate that and allow that to happen more quickly so way Congress has in the past renewed the production tax credit retroactively at the end of the session for one year it doesn't really provide a lot of certainty for investors to plan if we could have few more years multi-year extension potentially with ramp down that would be helpful I think the same thing with the ITC if it didn't go off a cliff in 2016 then one thing I mentioned earlier these technologies that improve efficiency like cogeneration and waste heat to power we've been advocating that they get more parity in the tax code as well right now cogeneration only gets 10% tax credit as opposed to 30% for solar waste heat to power is not included and these are really no bringers for taxes because you do have so much industrial energy use saves money reduces energy consumption helps with demand response and also can provide a resilient source of sunlight power that's independent from the grid so if there's a disruption to the power grid university or manufacturing facility or hospital can stay up and running so I think that that could be further improved as well so I do think on the incentive side there could be a lot more certainty a lot of work to be done we've got a few minutes now to do questions Paul you'll keep an eye on the time and give me a Heidi when it's time to wrap up but let me ask for questions repeat the question if we have to sir it's a great question there's disruption in every industry and technology is going to save us we're told that over and over I think the big one for us and Andrew mentioned is energy storage that could be a true game changer for renewables allows us to kind of firm up those resources and some of the breakthroughs and innovation that they're having on that front are pretty exciting so that could be a very positive for the utility business we're also trying to be very active in more distributed renewable markets rooftop solar those type of markets electric vehicles and how they might charge back into the grid in the network and so we're trying to figure out what is our model so that we can really add value to our customers with that this is a DIY world everybody in their own individual space wants to control what they do and how they do it in the realm of how consumers interact with utilities that might be on the horizon that might be a part of this conversation absolutely I think a lot of utilities around the nation are struggling with the challenge and opportunity of distributed generation in some ways it's really a threat to the existing revenue models for a lot of utilities which is the more power you sell the more money you make I think more progressive utilities like CPS are saying this is coming consumers want this we need to embrace this head on and figure out a way to integrate our system and increasingly looking at ways of offering services that are kind of decoupled from just the power sales we're actually going to be later this year releasing a report that is looking at this issue of what does distributed generation mean and what are some of the barriers to it and looking at this utility question Andrew you know one of the knocks on this country is that we think we know everything so help me understand from the standpoint of disruptive technologies and innovations what's happening outside of the United States that we may see inside the United States over the next couple of years that may ultimately change this conversation it's related to the storage there is not only a distributed generation market but there is also the microgrid market which also exists in the United States as well like military bases so lots of islands in Southeast Asia they have to have their own power generation they have to consume by themselves lots of them are using diesel generators which is very expensive so the technology that many companies are trying to develop is to make a universal system that could combine with the inverter PV diesel generators other source of the power that control over a microgrid like a remote area the enclosed roof in the one region and if we can do that if we can find a right solution at the right cost it will be market changers that many of the developing countries need this technology of course you've hit on the thing, it's expensive to do it it is expensive right now but there is a lot of companies technology companies to drive down the cost that might be the disruption other questions for our great panelists ma'am can you tell me a little bit about what you talk about the feasibility about that and what that might mean for the citizens of San Antonio it's a great question, the city of Georgetown just north of Austin has announced plans to go to 100% renewable, I think even in Austin which tends to think of itself as a very progressive city a bunch of eyebrows raised at that well in Georgetown it's a little bit smaller and there are ways of going to 100% renewables and still rely on the broader ERCOT market I think until we address this intermittency issue while you can maybe get there from a goal standpoint, you still from a physical delivery of that power there are still some challenges that have to be worked out energy storage is kind of one of those things that has to be worked out but we are continuing to look to raise a bar for CPS Energy and San Antonio so we are going to meet our 2020 goals in 2016 with the big OCI deal and so we are looking at potentially the bar for how much renewables we have got here in San Antonio and CPS of course Georgetown as you point out is a small community San Antonio is second largest city in the state seventh largest in the country, Austin is growing we know by leaps and bounds very quickly interesting that Houston and Dallas are not part of this conversation you were formerly the sustainability director under Mayor Bill White in Houston you know Houston well probably know Dallas a little bit less well where are Houston and Dallas in this conversation I think they are coming I think like you said earlier you are being nice still have some ties loyalty to Houston it's okay just tell us I think again the thing that makes unique San Antonio and Austin somewhat unique is the longer term view that leadership that cohesive leadership Houston Dallas those are mega cities those are very much business driven and so they are going to be looking out for the bottom line but the good news in all this is I think to Lynn's point renewables clean energy is becoming the bottom line so I fully expect those cities to move pretty fast and when they move fast it will be in their economic interest to do it other questions sir right how do you hit the strip in the center of those cheaper but dirtier is at least the theory but for a lot of people Lynn or Andrew this is true from the perspective this is kind of a boutiquey thing and the cost curve has not bent down in their direction yet or at least that's the perception Andrew what do you do about that so we have to look into Germany market, Japan market Hawaii, California to how they implement a lot of solar power generation on top of the household so for example Hawaii they like more than 20% of house so 2 out of 10 houses has the renewable energy still is very expensive I don't have any clear answer right now but there's a lot of studies out there how we can build more like small size residential rooftops so that at the cost at the competitive cost for sure to make it like feasible for the homeowners Lynn you understand that even if the reality is that the inexpensive energy is not as polluting as they think or as people say and if it's true that the renewable portfolio is not as expensive perception is everything right how do you change the perception I think the vast majority of people that are installing clean energy systems on their homes are not necessarily doing it for environmental benefits at all they actually are for cost saving benefits and I think one of the game changers has been the advent of the lease model because you can install a solar system now in some places with zero down and you're actually repaying the cost over time but you actually see savings in the long run you see savings quicker than exactly and then if you're owning it and so I think that has been a real game changer in making these systems affordable but I do think that the municipal utilities or state or local governments and the federal government do play a role in thinking about what does this community need and helping consumers get there because over the long run clean energy will be cheaper than the ups and downs of commodities like natural gas over the long run we do see this as inevitable so if you do have policies and incentives in place to help make these things affordable for consumers that drives the market they say I can get this tax credit or this rebate I like the idea of generating my own power on site I like being independent of my utility these are attractive things to customers Chris you want to get in on this affordability is very important to us whenever we look at any potential deal or investment we look at what's the impact of the customer bill and so that is very key to us we've got some of the lowest rates among the top 20 cities in the country in a sense a kilowatt hour that is a big part of our equation the other thing I'd say on that Evan that perception is changing with younger generations coming in play it's an expectation to have clean energy I'm going to pay a premium it's an expectation that's it Paul's telling me we're out of time great conversation with our panelists please thank Lynn Andrew and Chris thank you all very much thank you Evan, Andrew, Chris and Lynn thank you very much great conversation Chris mentioned our partnerships with the community and how far we've come because of our close ties to the community so we'd be very remiss if we didn't recognize a few folks who are here today from the greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce Mr. Richard Perez is here we also have Al Ariola South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce is here as well and then last but certainly not least Mr. Mario Hernandez from the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation I want to thank you for being here today thank you sir well thank you very much we're going to take a short ten minute break and we'll be back for our second panel and our unveiling so thank you alright so welcome back our second panel is just about ready to start you know we talk quite a bit here at CPS Energy about being customer obsessed which translates into ensuring that all interactions with our customers whether they're online or in person are positive and very impactful and you know our customers leave feeling that they have their energy company is a trusted partner and that's very important to us so with us today our panelists that are at the forefront of innovative customer centric ideas moderating this panel is our very own Greg Sarich Senior Vice President of Enterprise Support and Chief Information Officer here at CPS Energy Greg oversees our corporate support services functions including supply chain procurement, vehicle fleet and information technology and prior to joining CPS Energy in 2013 Greg served as Vice President of Information Technology for TXU Energy in Irving, Texas he also served in leadership positions at Hewlett Packard and EDS Greg take it away Good morning everybody thank you for joining us we're going to call this discussion customers and the utility evolution so the rise of the consumer is upon us you may have heard terms called prosumers and consumerizations and how has that all transpired over the last several years well I will tell you, eight years ago just over eight years ago there was a little device that was connected and this device has really changed industry not only across the US and in the utility industry but across the globe and so this has served as a catalyst of information to our consumers so as we talk about that that is part of what our panel discussion is all about and we've got three distinguished gentlemen who are very smart and have bios that are so long I actually have to read them so bear with me the distinguished gentlemen at first David Hellowell he's the vice president of utility solutions for Internock as vice president of utility solutions David is responsible for Internock's business with great operators utilities and retailers prior to Internock David was founder and CEO of Vancouver based Pulse Energy until it was acquired in December of 2015 it's going to be acquired in December of 2015 okay got it sorry my fault on that one before starting Pulse Energy in 2006 David was an exploration geophysicist for a Paris based consultant and director of policy for cabinet minister in the Canadian federal government well with the Canadian government David was responsible for reducing costs and improving environmental performance David is an action Canada fellow a member of the selection committee for the Canadian Merit Scholarship a member of the BC Clean Tech CEO Alliance and is on the Imagine BC Advisory Board welcome David Raj Vaswani he's the chief technology officer for Silver Springs Network one of our core partners Raj has been with Silver Springs since 2003 and brings more than 15 years of innovation product and experience to internet software and networking industries into the company prior to Silver Springs Raj was an entrepreneur in residence with foundation capital prior to foundation capital he served as vice president of engineering for opinions.com now shopping.com a consumer oriented website Raj was also a senior scientist and director of engineering for at home network later excited home and he holds an MS in computer science from the University of Washington and a BS from the University of California at Berkeley welcome Raj last Jayk Lavine director of strategy and chief of staff for OPOWER again one of our partners as the director of chief of staff of OPOWER OPOWER's mission is to give everyone the information and motivation they need to take control of their energy use from 2009 to 2010 Lavine served on the staff of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change we worked on a host of innovative and energy policies Jayk also served as a member of President Obama's delegation to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen and on 2009 he served on the inaugural committee for President Obama OPOWER's business development in emerging markets with the focus on China and Brazil is also part of Jayk's responsibilities Jayk graduated cum laude from Harvard College and received his law degree from Harvard Law School and is now in technology interesting so we'll talk a little bit more about that we'll first give a San Antonio welcome to our three panelists and if you'll join me up on stage we'd ask David to go ahead and step up and talk to us a little bit about what his role is at EnterKnock there you go so EnterKnock you're using the same slide deck for this for this presentation you may prefer to look at his face if you want it so my name is David Helliwell I'm with EnterKnock so split this five minutes into a couple pieces one to tell you a little thank you and then the second is how we see the importance of innovation and particularly situations like this of bringing together the people in this room and the organizations that we represent to really do something special so EnterKnock is a software company Energy Intelligence for all the non-residential customers that utilities have so from the smallest pizzeria or shoe shop to the largest industrial facility EnterKnock is largely known as a demand response company we've got about 9,000 megawatts of load that we can be dispatched at any time for demand response we're also very active with helping for Energy Intelligence for small commercial programs of helping utility to segment their customer base so down to about 120 different customer types to know which messages work with which customers at which times whether you're sending a demand response signal energy efficiency these other programs might be interesting work with about 55 utilities in a dozen countries and something sort of as a segue that the importance of the innovation is the added complexity that's happening solar as an example some mentioning of storage distributed generation from my perspective the more complicated that whole system gets the more fun things become because one things are changing quickly so that means that we need to find new ways of dealing with it and two it's inherently complicated so we need to come up with new ways of figuring out how to make things work together we've just launched partnerships both with Tesla and with SunPower for example to decide when things turn on, when things turn off send power to the batteries, when you pull it back you know every company is going to be finding their ways of making this happen and here at CPS I think it's really exciting to have such strong leadership to really make these things make these things happen in terms of the innovation we have a mantra so we now means InterNock as we were mentioning I sold my company Pulse Energy we had about 70 people to InterNock in December and the whole company was built on an idea of start fast and iterate and to see a utility and a large utility like CPS taking that sort of approach to get something started faster than utilities usually do I think makes it extra exciting for companies like us and the other partners to really get involved here and then in terms of the two elements of innovation that are important external and internal customers are expecting things that are different from their providers Greg you're showing your cell phone they expect things to be easy they expect the utility interactions to be as simple as their bank interactions or their cell phone provider interactions or better so all these things are changing pretty quickly something that's another interesting element on the innovation front is just the engagement of the team and it's something that we found has been a great way to attract and retain the smartest people the best people you can find is this combination of doing something that's meaningful on the one hand but also challenging and pushing the frontiers so we've got dozens of data scientists for example who had been working with particle accelerators working at NASA all these things where they could spend 20 years and find something that was just a tiny tiny bit ahead of what had been done before that certainly their mothers wouldn't be able to tell to their friends over dinner but now you can come into this space where there's so much green field opportunity and you can take that level of brain power and really in a year or two really move the needle on something that's never been done before and I think that's a really exciting opportunity that we have before us so that should be about the five minutes thank you very much thank you so please welcome Raj Vaswani from Silver Springs Network morning everyone it's an honor to be here let me tell you a couple of quick things about Silver Springs Network since not everyone may be familiar with us and then we'll talk a little bit about how it ties into what we're talking about today so Silver Springs was founded about 12 years ago on a couple of ideas the first was that at the time we were talking a lot about how we were going to transform energy and that there was going to be this magic thing called the smart grid that was going to allow us to integrate renewables to deal with the electric vehicles to deal with our reliability issues all of these kinds of things and it sounded like a really interesting problem to solve a planetary scale problem to solve that if we didn't solve that problem there wasn't going to be a planet so it sounded very interesting except unfortunately that we were not power engineers or electrical engineers or material scientists or physicists we were networking and software people so we sort of said well I wonder if there's going to be this thing called a smart grid with all these devices and applications talking to each other whether anyone's building kind of the networking and software platform that makes that possible so in the same way that in your home your wifi network supports your printers and your TVs and your computers is anyone building that kind of thing to allow all these devices and applications to speak to each other and the answer back then was absolutely not and that's what we set out to do our second observation was that if you built something like that it was something that actually provided value outside of just energy that what you were really doing was building a network across a geography across all of San Antonio for example and so surely once you had that network you could actually connect some other things to it and increase the value of that infrastructure and so what I think we really were talking about was that you'd start with something like smart grid and smart energy infrastructure and allow all these things to communicate and modernize that infrastructure but that moves on very quickly to smart city generalized smart infrastructure and what today people are calling kind of the internet of things and the internet of everything so this idea of all these things going on but very importantly we don't build the devices we don't build meters we don't build switches and those kinds of things and we also for the most part don't build the applications we're neither smart nor distinguished enough to actually do that what we do is we enable those things and so what we find very interesting about epicenter is a couple of things this notion that what it's really about is bringing together smartest people around lots of great ideas and incubating those and driving those forward not just for energy by the way but also in this more generalized smart way because what's happening now is a great deal of innovation around new kinds of devices and applications and all of that can kind of live in this infrastructure I think that's really the answer to a question asked on the earlier panel which is well you know Chris how are you going to scale up your job creation well it's because there are a few targets and a few things that we can see today that might create jobs or be interesting things but what's very difficult to predict is what's going to come next but it's probably going to be something I guess I've been doing networking for a long time and I think there's actually only one thing I know about networking it's that I don't know how the network is going to be used basically you know that once you can hook up a red thing and a yellow thing someone a lot smarter than me realizes that you can now build an orange thing and so the point is that that's going to create a whole bunch of different sort of innovation that I think will expand what even the current targets are and so that also sounds good and I think maybe many labs around the world have that kind of vision so why this one well that has everything to do with I think our respect and I think our alignment with CPS Energy's perspective on this and I think there are a few key sort of aspects to that the first I think is this intrinsic notion and Chris talked about this at the beginning this intrinsic notion about an ecosystem and the notion that you have to bring in it does take a village and it's not just sort of a simple vertical set of things that need to happen but you try to bring in and bring together the smartest people around and and something good will happen the second I think is a notion of sort of stewardship a notion that what we're trying to do is to actually improve the lives of the community to solve these problems in a sustainable way etc and and I think the third really has to do with that notion of community I think what we've noticed is that even the term consumers may not be quite right for the way CPS Energy thinks about this I think it really is about community and there's an inclusiveness and a sort of need to deliver the notion of delivering those kinds of benefits that I think is very intrinsic matches up very well with the way we think about things and so we're very proud to be a part of this. Thank you Raj. Jake. Thank you. So you don't have to look at my face because I brought a presentation. Let me just start quickly. Sorry. First of all thank you for inviting Opower. It's an honor to be here. I wanted to quickly pull the audience on a quick question before we begin. Raise your hand if you checked your email in the last day. Okay so that's basically everybody. What about Facebook? How about your bank statement? Have you guys checked finances recently? When was the last time that you checked your energy consumption? One hand. Two hands. Well that is pathetic because this is a room full of people who care about energy. Um we think about this kind of question how do people interact with their energy consumption? And we think about it in the context of these sorts of transformations that other panelists have raised questions of technological change and disruption that are happening now. And we see an industry in the midst of huge transformation. The old normal was a couple of priorities for utilities, keeping the lights on and delivering an accurate bill. And that was basically it. The utilities wouldn't really hear from their clients if those two things were going well. One of our clients likes to say that he's in the toilet paper business and we ask, what are you talking about? He said, well electricity is like toilet paper. People only notice it when it's not there. The industry is changing though and in addition to keeping the lights on in addition to delivering a bill, people are expecting better services, more services, more enhanced information that actually adds value to their lives. And we see this sort of taking shape against the backdrop of declining demand for electricity in many parts of the United States. Not the case so much internationally. Increased competition from folks like the distributed generators, the solar cities, the sunruns of the world. And regulation that is increasingly requiring utilities to provide this type of information and services to their consumers. And what this all points to is a change that puts the focus on the consumer. But as we know, and I think Raj hit on this a little bit, some of the expectations that are changing that are driven not necessarily by the utility industry but by other industries. You use Uber and all of a sudden you expect a frictionless experience in your transportation but in all the other services that you use. But as we just learned, nobody really is paying attention to their own energy consumption. So how do we change this? And Opower has developed a philosophy that we like to call moments that matter, where we've learned that people spend a very limited amount of time thinking about their energy consumption. And so if you want to increase their awareness, their interaction, their engagement, then it's important to identify what are the moments that people actually are paying attention and create better experiences during those moments. And I just wanted to show you one moment in particular. We've identified a number but I think that here at CPS we're excited to start thinking about some of the demand side management applications in particular demand response where we can engage consumers every day, mass market, residential and business consumers to help reduce peak load during the hottest days of the summer. So I'm going to show you a quick animation of a pilot that we are running now in four different utilities. This shows you the legacy based, the hardware based legacy demand response program in Baltimore. Those yellow switches represented air conditioning switches that the utility could turn off during a peak event. And the green represents all consumers connected by a smart phone or email or phone call. And what our program does is it sends people notifications over email, SMS or phone, asking them to participate in a peak reduction event during the hottest days of the summer. And what you can see here is that with very broad engagement we get very broad participation. And this red area represents the savings that we saw over the course of this peak event. And then importantly the next day we send a follow-up communication which tells people, hey thanks for participating. Here's how much you saved. And please stay on the lookout for another peak event this summer. This is a moment that people care about. They see it as an opportunity to save some money. They see it as an opportunity in their utilities programs and with their community. And it's a moment that we can take advantage of as technology providers to help create a better experience. There are many more moments and we're looking forward to participating with CPS in those. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to open up and have a little discussion with the panelists. I wanted to talk a little bit about the consumer experience in the sense of when I worked in the deregulated market, sales and marketing and you're working for a customer's business every day. At CPS Energy we have a defined market. But we are actually taking a much more progressive approach at how we work with our consumers. Most of the country still is in a traditional market where they don't have to basically fight for their customers every day. In your experience and we'll start with Jake, why is it important that utilities get in front of this now? As opposed to we're just there to turn on the electricity. It's really not about the customer. Why is that important? Especially since you all see a broader sense of customer base. Sure. It's a great question and I think CPS is a great example. Your experience at TXU informing some of the work that you're doing here, Greg, is really emblematic of the answer. Utilities in particular IOUs and regulated monopolies that have been around really since the early days of the grid have often had the luxury to enjoy a captive market. Traditionally in the United States you saw increasing demand for electricity, so an increasing demand is that demand financed capital expenditures by these utilities which then allowed utilities to receive a higher rate of return on their investments. And also really the captive audience was comprised of somewhat of a homogenous customer base electricity consumers. Today all of that is changing. We're seeing flat demand in some places decreasing demand. We're seeing increased competition not a maintained monopoly distributed generation with Tesla's announcement of this home battery storage is going to enhance the degree to which competition enters the market even in monopoly environments. And we see a heterogeneous customer base that expects services from its utility. When you take American Airlines to Dallas or go on vacation you get a text message from American if your flight is late. That's a helpful text message. You can stay at home a little bit longer spend some time with your family you don't have to rush to the airport you don't get angry at the gate agent when you learn at the airport suddenly that your flight is delayed. Utilities are totally ubiquitous now in the world in which we're living and the utilities are catching up to the other industries transportation telecommunications banking that really paved the way for those types of services and now utility customers are increasingly expecting those services as well. Let me ask David to kind of comment because when we talk about this consumerization a lot of times we're just thinking about the residential consumer out there but there is a whole other market out there and that's the commercial side. I'd like to get that perspective because sometimes that gets left out in the conversation. Sure absolutely and particularly the small medium business segment referred to as the frozen middle and just forgotten even though it can be a third of revenues who are not residential or large industrial maybe to link that into your original question about why even care about these customers if you're a monopolist we see a bunch of different reasons why utility companies will take that approach. Some are more defensive and protecting themselves some of them are more offensive. On the defensive side you never know whether regulators are going to end your monopoly so you'd better be in a strong position with your customers meeting with executives in Portugal where they had to win back every single one of their customers so all of a sudden overnight they had half of their customer base gone and they were pretty happy with that the same thing could be happening in France for the commercial customers with electricity data France so you never know state by state too there could be another wave of that coming keep your customers happy the other thing is just running your business better so British Gas a very competitive utility one of the biggest of the big six in the UK so they use our platform for all their business customers and what we find is that the lessons learned there because they need to do these things or they'll lose their customers are very applicable to regulated monopolist utilities just for understanding how to promote this program to these customers how do we know the right time how do we know the right message how do we know anything about this customer beyond their rate class and their customer number these are things that are just needed for running a business and are extra important for the commercial segment where everybody's so different comparing a small restaurant in a shopping mall to a large standalone restaurant simply a bigger difference than you'll find between any two households and that's just restaurant so there are so many different variables to account for just to run your business better and know your customers better Raj I wanted to ask you Silver Springs is being one of our core partners you are an enabler for our overall network as we get data from our consumers from the meters what's your experience and what are you seeing in the industry and what we're doing at CPS Energy why is that such a key component for us as we think about consumer and consumer data and creating this kind of customer obsessed focus not only at CPS but across the industry right so I think in the end the data is what is producing the value of the thing so the device is job is to perhaps provide some control but mostly there are lots of these things that are producing the data and how that data is used is what's going to characterize the value extracted there's something called Metcalf's law which basically says that the value of a network is the square of the devices that are attached to it so if you have end devices attached to the network the value of the network is n squared because each of these devices can talk to each other in various ways that can produce data and so on so what's happening with the data is what's creating the value I think that's a little bit related to your earlier question though about kind of why now and why should we care about the way consumers view us and I think the reason is that right now I think is actually a time of both unprecedented threat and unprecedented opportunity for the industry the threat of course is what everyone has talked about which is a threat of disintermediation via distributed energy resources provided by somebody else etc but the best weapon against disintermediation is almost always sort of either incumbency and having that existing customer relationship that one can improve and therefore hold on to the customer and scale which utilities already have but what those two things also give you is the opportunity then to say if I do establish this new relationship with the customer or the community what other services can I now provide them in a world where they're expecting to learn more of their services to be networked and analyzed using data and so on so if I can provide them energy services but I can also allow them to let me know that their local street light is broken in an easy way does that help if I can help them basically handle waste management does that help so I think unprecedented threat unprecedented opportunity but in the end all of that gets done by using the data that's produced so I want to kind of the underlying theme that I keep hearing here is about data and I think everybody probably has heard whether reading or watching the news big data it's a term maybe even has term fatigue at this point but it really means something to the consumer I guess Jake I'll start with you in the sense of Opower obviously has a lot of data but as you're working with CPS Energy how do you think those data analytics and data analytics as a whole impact the consumer and do they realize it yet? Sure so we do have a lot of data our platform is now managing somewhere on the equivalent of about half of the US energy consumption data it's the largest data set of its kind in the world we manage last year we managed about 400 billion different meter readings that's a lot of data and it is at times overwhelming I think that one of the most interesting implications or applications of this data that we've discovered to date is around pattern recognition and around what we call sort of archetyping of energy consumption users so a smart meter measures data at frequent intervals during the day traditional meters might give you a reading someone would go read the meter once every month to figure out to figure out how much energy you've used starting to smile because some of our clients in Europe actually read their meters on the order of once a year in the US once a month is considered infrequent now we have meters which send us data every 15 minutes so that's a 3,000 times X increase in the amount of data that we're generating from these meters and what we have learned is that people use energy differently over the course of the day so you may have somebody who gets up early in the morning makes breakfast does some household chores and their energy usage spikes in the morning they go to work they don't really use that much energy during the rest of the day there are other folks who do the exact opposite they sleep in they hang out at home for a little bit longer maybe they come back in the afternoon they run the laundry and their energy usage spikes in the afternoon well, do you want to tell the person whose energy spikes in the morning to please turn off their air conditioning in the afternoon during a peak event because that will help the utility to reduce its peak demand not really that would be totally irrelevant it would be a wasted message and only now are we beginning to understand who these consumers are how they actually consume energy and as a result, how should we be communicating with them I think that increasingly consumers at CPS are aware of this we're very proud to now be running a high bill alert program here which allows users to understand whether they're on track for a high bill which is something that is only well, it's increasingly possible with the granularity of data that we're generating through smart meters it's something that you can do in a non AMI world as well but soon even in Brazil as Raj and I were talking about everybody will have a smart meter and will be able to deliver these kinds of communications much more frequently and to much greater effect I'll just open this up to the general panel one last question then we'll let some questions come in basically Chris showed all of the partners that we're working with and a lot of the technologies that are coming in are very disruptive to our model the traditional utility model is definitely changing it's no longer we're just selling kilowatt hours we're also selling energy information services a lot of utilities as I see as I look across the industry are fighting that and it's been our position to not fight it let's look at it, let's embrace it let's partner with folks talk to us about that CPS experience that you're having and why that's so important you think as we go forward to the future and let Raj why don't you start off I think it's the same real general observation I made earlier which is that fighting these things is usually not going to work what I think one has to do is to figure out how am I going to use the strengths I do have and adapt and I think that's what CPS Energy is doing in spades as I said before starting with the notion of community and stewardship and this is our job we're part of this community and we need to work in it but the way that's going to happen is by bringing in the smartest people we can find to try to figure out what are those innovations that we can actually use and leverage rather than spend all our time arguing against it's a little bit like in the technical world where when you start a new thing people basically have a lot of arguments about standards and interoperability and everyone sort of says no no I've got my wonderful mousetrap over here and it's built in this particular way and that's the one you should buy well that's always a losing game it's like when networks start people always say oh it doesn't need to be IP and those kinds of things but inevitably those things win and so again I think in the same way taking the approach a sort of you know the second approach is likely to fail whereas I think this inclusive and more sort of innovative approach not only sort of improves the notion of survival but actually is leading and as I said opens up these additional opportunities longer term that can be prosecuted David your thoughts absolutely just to build on Raj's point about going with your strengths we've done a lot of customer surveys about what business customers expect of their utility and who they want to turn to as their trusted energy advisor and hands down it's always the utility is the first one they want to turn to to get advice so it's this opportunity there the soccer ball rolling slowly in front of the net to be taken advantage of if you capitalize on it there's a real opportunity there if you don't it'll go and someone else will take that role you know I think it's a little like you know the old story of the diggers when the old ones with cables and then the hydraulic ones coming in to replace them the companies that thrive in that say we're not a cable powered digger company we're a digger company and we'll move to the hydraulics to work the ones who didn't just went out of business so I think really the utility companies need to be everything to do with energy you know getting energy managing energy that's where they can really really excel and I think CPS is on the on the right track now okay thank you like that we've got about five minutes I'd like to give the opportunity you can hold on to that to anyone in the audience who might have some questions that they may want to ask the panel yes sir with all this new data going back and forth between all of us what are we doing to make sure that that data is protected I'll just be quick about it so as a software as a service company on the cloud you know O-Power same deal and a lot of Silver Springs it's just not something you can screw up with so our approach is being to hire people who've done it already for the banking industry and following those levels of security and those standards which are very high obviously and just over build it from a security perspective one thing that I think people get more tied up in knots about than they need to is what's actually done with the data and how much analysis can be done with the data before sending it back to customers on the business side we've never had any pushback we've got millions of businesses in the system from having done some value added analysis and send some advice back to a customer but that is something that gets brought up as a privacy concern that's probably another conversation not sure if that's what you meant well I'll just add just from a CPS Energy perspective you know consumer information, consumer data is paramount and that privacy of that information is key and so to ever have that compromise would obviously not be in our best interest we spend a lot of time focused on you know security, cyber security that term being used to focus on how do we make sure we secure that data at all times every day there's a bad guy if you will always trying to not only CPS but all companies trying to figure out how to get in, how to hack, how to do that and so we're focused on that every day we have processes, procedures, we have you know programs and everything else that are focused on how do we protect that data and our assets across CPS Energy every day and the recent you know addition of former chief of San Antonio police chief McManus onto our staff to focus on security because remember security not only of data and is also about assets so it's physical as well and so we look at that as a holistic picture and Bill's got a good program that he's focused on and we're working tightly with our fellow utilities if there's one thing the utilities are all working collectively across the U.S. in the state as well it's on cyber because we all have to protect the assets to grid and so we're all sharing best practices wherever we can and whenever something new comes along you know there's no about it's not about plagiarism it's about how do we implement that new best practice because it's going to help us other questions, Rudy Yep Sure you know there's no there's no silver bullet here and one of the I think really important notions is that customers are busy you know everybody's got everybody's got a life with important things going on and energy consumption is just not the priority the priority is getting your kids to school it's am I late on my mortgage payment you know is my data safe is my family safe and so one of our sort of core philosophies is that we want to meet the consumers where they are and that means being on every channel it means delivering paper messages for people who aren't as technologically apt and constantly on their mobile device but it means for the folks who are on their mobile devices or on their email to have a web app and email and mobile and really to be across every channel so that we can reach consumers wherever they are and I think that focusing on these moments where people are already engaged did they just move into their new home are they looking for an opportunity to think about how they can improve their energy consumption in their home is the weather changing because it's winter and it's getting colder and outage and the power went out now you're thinking about okay how do I get the power back on these are very practical moments when people are already asking how can I reach out to my energy provider this trusted advisor that I believe in that has been providing me with this service and I'm now eager to speak with them and they be the sort of the philosophy that we've developed is that during these moments there's a real opportunity to turn that passive energy user into a real active energy user who can be an asset for CPS who can be a demand side resource and not just a passive user. Just so fully fully agree that you need to capitalize on the windows but something that we've seen as some collateral benefit of even from the people who never become engaged when we pull them afterwards in terms of would you like to continue receiving this or not overwhelmingly they say yes I didn't actually show you any signs of being more engaged but I'm really appreciative that you're doing it and please don't stop so there is that other pretty significant portion of the population that are in that zone. Okay any one last question and then we have to wrap it up yes sir. On the communication side of the preclarity how are you communicating with the clients? You can't send them a letter because you're going to ask them to reduce their energy use you know ten days later. So let me jump in on that I mean you're talking about to a consumer when we have well basically let's talk from the consumer side both commercial residential basically we set up preferences how the consumer wants to be dealt with. Some might want an email someone a phone call some would like a text you know so I think it's important for us as a trusted advisor to know exactly how that customer wants to be communicated with so all those options are available as we work through that process with them on how we communicate with them and when those triggering events you know occur how they want to you know receive that information and then take action. Well we do things through email but we don't want to make the assumption that we know exactly how you want to be communicated because what you might you might like an email other people might want in a text message so it's about understanding you it's important as we understand data and behavior patterns what's the best way but the best way to know is to ask you and so that's what we'll do first. So then we need to do a better job at asking you. Let's go ahead and finish up. I'm glad that you know this is this is one of the areas where where the power of data can really be helpful and understanding what what do we think your preference might be and then you know traditionally the way that we run our programs we do it on an opt out basis so we'll work in partnership with CPS and we'll determine a certain area of the territory to provide communications to and we'll just provide those communications so if you don't like them you can opt out but if you want to tweak them and you say you know what I got this report in the mail and actually it'd be much more convenient for me to get something over email or over SMS you can provide that feedback and so the opt out feature really allows people to engage in a way that's convenient to them. All right we need to wrap it up I want to thank our panelists Dave and Raj and Jake for our discussion on consumers and utilities and how we manage energy and make it beneficial mutually beneficial for our consumers. Thank you very much. All right I want to reiterate thank you Greg and Raj, David and Jake for your insights today. This has been great conversations this morning conversations that truly capture the spirit and direction that our new energy economy has taken us. I want to thank all of our panelists today for participating and for making great discussions and also leading us to this moment. Here to introduce all of you to what is truly the next evolution of our new energy economy is our very own president and CEO Mr. Dole Benabee. Thank you good afternoon everyone. This is really a great day but before I start with my comments I'd like to thank our panelists and all of our guests this is really a special moment and I'll talk a bit about sort of how we got here. As many of you know we sort of dreamed up this new energy economy thing a while back and all along it was designed to be a partnership and it was designed to be something that was hand in hand with the trajectory of San Antonio in our community and so I'm happy to announce in a second an unveiling of what this has become it's really gone from a concept to a design and fairly soon it will become a reality but before that I want to personally thank our some of our partners we have with us SHU from OCI we have with us Raj Raswani from Silver Spring Network we also have with us Warner from Lannison Gear and they have been our really foundation sponsoring partners but as I talked about this concept years ago I really talked to Chairman Lee who's the CEO of OCI the entire company in Korea Greg Beck who's the vice chairman now I talked quite a bit to Scott Lang the Silver Spring Network CEO and also Son of Venkatesen with Lannison Gear and also Richard Mora so they all couldn't be here today but we've had sort of a galaxy of people that have been with us along the way our partners but you know this New England economy sort of concept that I talk about really the big concept is to transition San Antonio in our community to leveraging our push towards renewables and low carbon intense technologies along with commerce and building our community and that was a big part of all along but the second part of it was to try to make a mark in education and what I'm going to talk about in a second our unveiling is really the culmination of that effort this epicenter as we call it will be unique in its focus on trading thought and action around the research and development of new and emerging technologies and we built on the tradition of our public-private partnerships that we forge along this wonderful mission reach area or the mission reach area where the epicenter will be and we again are leveraging education innovation and so this will be a place where many people in our community can come and commiserate with our partners and look at technologies we also have the concept of including a portion of this design it will house part of a CPS Energy Museum so it's going to also be a place that attracts the legacy of CPS Energy and we have Scott Smith with us here who is representing the entire legacy of all of our CPS Energy employees and so this is special to us for a whole lot of reasons not the least of which it ties generations of CPS Energy and I don't like to miss a moment to say that what we have here and what I've inherited as a leader of this fine organization I stand on the shoulders of many people before me many great CPS employees and leaders who have been in this role who built this company to what it is today and called us to do things like what we're going to talk about today we have some of our Citizens Advisory Council members here we have the entire I think galaxy of CPS interest here today along with our founding sponsors and partners so with that I would like to invite some of our partners up here for the unveiling I'd like to invite Dan Gonzalez please I'd like to invite Scott Raj Gina, SH if you'd all come up and and we'll have the unveiling I don't know is Judge Wolfe here okay also I don't want to miss the opportunity to talk about other new energy economy partners I see Paul Durand here with Green Star so we've had others who have been along with us in this journey but what you're going to see in a second again is a sort of physical manifestation and concept of what this is going to be so I don't know I don't see any drummers in here so there probably won't be there won't be a drum roll but I'd like to right now unveil our brand new concept of an epicenter and I think we have a picture that we'll show in a second of what this used to be but this is our concept and we worked on it with our partners Lake Flato Architects and this is the actual a sky view of the center itself and as you can see it leverages a lot of the original building of the power plant the stack with a beautiful view of the skyline and the background but inside this building and we'll see something you can see on the screen there an auditorium that allows our partners to to brand the bottom floor shows a concept of the CPS Energy Museum and another view of a outside walkway but this is what it is and I couldn't be more delighted to have this in a wonderful district thank you councilwoman for being here and we hope that it lends to the adds to the continued development of the mission reach area and this becomes an anchor for education, innovation and more commerce in that part of our great city so with that I don't know if we're going to take some more pictures with that we'll turn over councilwoman Gonzales for some words then good morning everyone really such an exciting moment for me a couple of it's been years now that Doyle and John and Rudy came to my office to present this concept and I was nearly moved to tears because for those of you who are familiar with our city and with our district in fact this beautiful institution is in district 5 and it is one of the anchors of this community for education and it's something that I'm very proud of I live just a few blocks from here and I'm happy to have our related like host events like this one and so when this concept was presented as an educational opportunity as an opportunity for our community to engage in a brand new technology and that this site in particular was selected as really an innovation center that the whole country would have its eyes on district 5 right in the middle of my neighborhood and right in the middle of the neighborhood where so many people have lived and grown and have been anticipating projects like these and I see Susan Powers here who is our neighborhood association president for the Lone Star neighborhood association who has been such an active member of the community for so many years and so for her to have been able to be a part of this and give her input and give her support is really transformational for a community like ours and this also has spurred then many other attractions to this area so we had the mission reach that extended through here a multi-million dollar project with Bear County, the city, Sarah all partners and earlier in the week there was an announcement for the Lone Star rehab project just across the riverfront here there was a building multi-family that should be under construction here soon enough very close by here we have a couple of other housing that are also transformational old rehab buildings that have been vacant for years up here in the Lone Star area Big Tex and the Blue Star rehab that's all along this mission reach is really transformational for this neighborhood and so I talk about it on a very personal level because this is our neighborhood but what it actually means for the whole country is something that we can all be proud of that I'm especially grateful to CPS Energy and to Doyle for his vision to our partners OCI Solar Silver Springs Network Landis Gear and everyone who else made this episode possible I have my sincere thank you and not just what it does for San Antonio and places this on the map as a center for innovation something that we never thought we would be and I think that San Antonio for those of us who have lived here and worked here and spent our lives here wanting for this to be the best city that it could be are seeing that happen now thanks to the commitment of our partners thanks to the commitment of many of you all sitting here in this room who believed that it could happen and are now seeing the result of that and it's just such an exciting time to be in San Antonio and especially to be in District 5 and just so happy to see everybody here and I had a couple of thoughts as I was listening to the panel because I'm not an expert on data but I do think I'm an expert on people and what the people really want to see when we bring projects like this to our district or our city and so for those of you who noticed this is a lower income area many of the houses here are more than 100 years old I myself live just a few blocks away and I know that in my 100 year old house my energy consumption is very high and it's partly because the houses were not really designed for the kind of infrastructure that we're seeing now and we know that CPS energy is making an incredible effort to rehab some of our homes so that they can be more energy efficient and so my bill in my little house my modest home can be over $250 a month that's really significant for this community it's an incredible burden to continue to pay those bills and so CPS energy can not only do these incredible transformative projects that bring in alternative energies but they can also help our individual community for our own homes to be energy efficient