Speakers

Pablo Vegas joined ERCOT in October 2022 as President and CEO. He has a long history of service in both the electric and gas industries. In his current role, he plays a critical part in ensuring the reliable and efficient operation of the Texas electric grid. Prior to ERCOT, Mr. Vegas was Executive Vice President of NiSource, and Group President of NiSource Utilities, where he oversaw NiSource’s electric and gas business segments and championed outstanding service to NiSource customers. He served as a versatile executive at NiSource for six years, holding numerous roles, including Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President and President of Columbia Gas Group, and Chief Customer Officer. Mr. Vegas had profit and loss accountability for NiSource’s six gas and electric utility companies as well as responsibility for strategy, planning, operations, construction, engineering, regulatory, environmental services, and federal government affairs for NiSource.

Prior to joining NiSource, Mr. Vegas held a variety of senior executive positions with American Electric Power (AEP), including President and Chief Operating Officer of AEP Ohio, President and Chief Operating Officer of AEP Texas, and Vice President and Chief Information Officer of AEP.

Before his career in the regulated utility industry, Mr. Vegas served in senior leadership positions with IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Andersen Consulting.

Mr. Vegas was appointed to the Texas Energy Reliability Council by Governor Abbott in 2022 and also serves as a member of the Texas Advanced Nuclear Working Group. Mr. Vegas currently serves on the board of directors at Northwest Bancshares, Inc.

Mr. Vegas attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School, completed the AEP Strategic Leadership program at the Ohio State University, and graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering.

Dr. Steven Ashby is Director of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he sets PNNL’s strategic direction and oversees its $1.5 billion R&D budget. Under his leadership, PNNL’s nearly 6,100 talented staff members draw on signature capabilities in chemistry, earth sciences, biology, and data science to advance scientific discovery, enable energy sustainability, and enhance national security.  

Dr. Ashby previously served as PNNL’s Deputy Director for Science and Technology. Prior to joining PNNL, he spent nearly 21 years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he founded the Center for Applied Scientific Computing and maintained several leadership positions, ultimately serving as Deputy Principal Associate Director for Science and Technology.

A widely recognized leader in computational science, Dr. Ashby is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics; member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences; national laboratory leadership partner for the U.S. Council on Competitiveness; and serves on advisory committees for local and state organizations, including the Washington Roundtable.

He earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Venkat Tirupati is the Vice President of DevOps and Grid Transformation.

In his role, Mr. Tirupati serves the teams responsible for business technology development and operations and partners with system operations, system planning, commercial operations, cybersecurity, compliance, treasury, human resources, and legal groups to implement the tools and technology needed to meet their mission. He also oversees the technology innovation capabilities to effectively manage the complexities of rapidly transforming electric power grid by guiding staff, systems, and solutions and is responsible for collaboration with external stakeholders such as vendors, academic institutions, research and development institutes, and electric power industry consortiums. He joined ERCOT in 2020 as the Director for Grid and Market Solutions.

Prior to joining ERCOT, Mr. Tirupati was the Director of Line of Business at Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) serving teams responsible for supporting wholesale power and water business units with their business technology needs. He also held Manager of Market Systems and Supervisor of EMS and Advanced Applications roles at LCRA, supporting control room personnel with business technology. Prior to LCRA, Mr. Tirupati worked as a Senior Reliability Engineer in the Reliability Risk Management Group at North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). He started his career at Siemens Power Transmission and Distribution division, where he worked in various power systems applications engineering roles supporting global power utilities with grid automation technology.  

Mr. Tirupati has served on various committees of NERC and has chaired the NERC EMSWG and ERCOT TWG. Mr. Tirupati has a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering with a focus on power systems from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and a Master of Business Administration with a focus on data analytics and sustainability from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Mr. Tirupati earned his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Mumbai (India). He is a registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) in the State of Texas.

Shun Hsien (Fred) Huang is director of System Operations at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). He joined ERCOT in 2006, where he has served different roles in system operations and system planning. His work in ERCOT is focused in the areas of system stability and security, resource integration, interconnection requirements, transmission planning, application advancement, reliability and ancillary service design, and emergent technology development and adoption. Dr. Huang received his doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas, Arlington, in 2006.

Julia Matevosyan is Chief Engineer at Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG) with more than 20 years of experience in the power industry. Prior to joining ESIG, Dr. Matevosyan was the Lead Planning Engineer of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). In her time with ERCOT, she worked on adequacy of system inertial response, system flexibility, frequency control, and performance issues related to high penetration levels of inverter-based generation and ancillary services market design. Currently Dr. Matevosyan also serves as a chair of ERCOT’s Inverter-Based Resource Working Group (IBRWG) and NERC’s Inverter-Based Resource Performance Subcommittee (IRPS). Dr. Matevosyan received her bachelor’s degree from Riga Technical University in Latvia and her master’s and doctorate degrees from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden.

Deepak Ramasubramanian is a Senior Technical Leader at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Dr. Ramasubramanian joined EPRI in 2017, where his work has focused in the areas of modeling, control and stability analysis of the bulk power system with focus on the impacts of large-scale integration of inverter interfaced generation and load. Through his work at EPRI, he engages with various utilities and transmission system operators around the world to study the impact of increase in inverter-based resources in their system. Dr. Ramasubramanian is a recipient of an IEEE PES Chapter Outstanding Engineer Award, Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG) Excellence Award, North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI) Outstanding Graduate Student Award, and the Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO) Power System Award. He received his doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering from the Arizona State University in Tempe in 2017.

Sirajul Chowdhury has been working at California ISO since October 1999 in the Power Systems Technology division. He worked at Landis & Gyr (an EMS vendor) as a Senior Power System Engineer from 1990 to 1999.

Mr. Chowdhury provided a leading contribution in the zonal market to nodal market (MRTU) transition at California ISO and RC integration. His professional interests include control system design, the WEIM energy market, Automatic Generation Control (AGC), network applications, load forecasting, the Operator Training Simulator (OTS), and control room modernization initiatives to improve situational awareness.

His work at California ISO involves designing new control logic for storage, solar and wind resource control using AGC, and Electric Vehicle into Grid (V2G) research. He has been a leading contributor on various innovative pilot projects related to renewable integration and demand response. Mr. Chowdhury represented California ISO in the Performance Work Group (PWG) to enhance and review various NERC and WECC standards. 

Dave Maggio has been with ERCOT since 2007 and is currently a Market Design and Analytics Principal. In this role, he provides subject matter expertise on wholesale market design and operation topics within ERCOT, both in terms of existing market elements and proposed changes that are under consideration.

Prior that role, he served as Sr. Director, Market Design and Analytics, and led a team primarily responsible for evaluating ERCOT wholesale electricity market trends and design changes, supporting delivery of changes to the market design and validating day-to-day wholesale market outcomes. In recent years, he has focused on developing policy and rules for the implementation of real-time co-optimization of energy and ancillary services and the integration of energy storage resources.

His principal duties at ERCOT have also included the evaluation of reserve requirements for the ERCOT region, the integration of intermittent renewable resources, operation and analysis of the congestion revenue rights market, and systems and rules development for the ERCOT nodal market.

He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004 and 2006, respectively.

Michael Lee has worked in the renewable energy industry for more than a decade and currently serves as CEO of Octopus Energy U.S. After earning his MBA degree from Harvard, Mr. Lee quickly unlocked his passion for cleaner and cheaper electricity, working on some of the first battery storage projects and developing solar solutions for global Fortune 500’s. He spent nearly a decade in the IPP industry helping finance some of the earliest batteries, as well as wind and solar projects before the industry matured to its current form. He then launched an energy retailer in Texas called Evolve Energy, with the idea that customers can optimize energy usage to ease grid tensions and save money on their bills through AI and IOT. Through a shared mission to decarbonize energy using tech and smart rates, Evolve Energy was acquired by Octopus Energy in 2020. Octopus Energy U.S. works to enable a more modern, reliable, and resilient grid across the country, starting in Texas. Octopus Energy is currently valued at more than $7.8 billion in 2023 and is backed by some of the largest global energy players, such as Al Gore's Generation Investment Management, Origin Energy, Tokyo Gas, and CPP.

Dr. Xie is a Fellow of IEEE and a Power and Energy Society (PES) Distinguished Lecturer. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Oak Ridge Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award. He was awarded the 2021 IEEE Technical Committee on Cyber-Physical Systems Mid-Career Award and the 2017 IEEE PES Outstanding Young Engineer Award. He was the recipient of the Texas A&M Dean of Engineering Excellence Award, the ECE Outstanding Professor Award, and the TEES Select Young Fellow. He serves or has served on the Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Power Systems (Senior Editor), IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, and IET Transaction on Smart Grid. He is the founding chair of the IEEE PES Subcommittee on Big Data & Analytics for Grid Operations. His team received the IEEE PES Technical Committee Prize Paper award and multiple Best Paper awards at the North American Power Symposium 2012, IEEE SmartGridComm 2013, HICSS 2019 and 2021, IEEE Sustainable Power & Energy Conference 2019, and IEEE PES General Meeting 2020/2023.

Maria Belenky is a Lead Market Design Specialist at PJM Interconnection, where she focuses on the role of flexible demand in wholesale markets and steers efforts to create market participation pathways for distributed energy resources. Prior to PJM, Ms. Belenky was a Manager of Market Development at OhmConnect (now Renew Home), a California-based aggregator, where she led policy development, review, and compliance efforts around the participation of demand response in California’s Resource Adequacy Program and the CAISO market. She also served as the lead technical expert on federal clean energy and energy efficiency policy at Climate Advisers, a Washington DC-based consultancy focused on climate change mitigation. Ms. Belenky holds a master's degree in International Economics and Energy, Resources, and the Environment from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, and a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jesse Aragon de Galvez is a Program Manager at Tesla, leading their pioneering retail electricity program, Tesla Electric. Since joining Tesla, Mr. Aragon de Galvez has played a key role in the launch of the program and customer onboarding, and has been instrumental in developing Texas' first virtual power plant administered by a Retail Electric Provider (REP). This innovative project utilizes residential devices, like the Tesla Powerwall, to provide crucial ancillary grid services. Under his guidance, Tesla launched its first customer-facing electricity plan, offering users credits or bill reductions based on the value of the grid services their batteries provide.

Prior to Tesla, Mr. Aragon de Galvez was integral in establishing and managing Bulb Energy's U.S. operations from its inception until the company's closure. This role gave him a comprehensive view of the residential retail electricity business, from start-up to wind-down.

As a first-time panelist, Mr. Aragon de Galvez is excited to share his insights and learnings at the ERCOT Innovation Summit, bringing a fresh perspective on grid demand flexibility and innovation within customer-facing retail electricity programs.

Kenneth Ragsdale is a Principal at ERCOT and has over 30 years of experience in the electric utility industry, including experience in market design and implementation, energy storage, settlements and billing, market and utility operations, power marketing, resource planning, and alternative energy. He has been at ERCOT since 2000 and was part of the start-up teams for the ERCOT zonal market and the ERCOT nodal market.

Prior to joining ERCOT, Mr. Ragsdale worked at Austin Energy and at the Public Utility Commission of Texas.

Mr. Ragsdale is a Registered Professional Engineer and earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

Erik Ela is a Technical Executive and Program Manager at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). In his role, he provides technical leadership in several areas, including electricity market design and operations, transmission operations and planning, renewable energy and emerging technology integration, bulk power system operations, essential reliability services, and resource adequacy.

At EPRI, Dr. Ela facilitates the R&D collaborative group of technical experts of North America’s Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and EPRI’s utility and ISO/RTO-focused Market Operations and Market Design Advisory Group to discuss research needs in technical areas facing the industry. He leads innovative projects on how utilities and ISOs can operate the power system more efficiently and reliably.

Prior to joining EPRI in 2014, Dr. Ela worked for several years with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) as a senior research engineer and, before that, for the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO).

He has been involved in several working groups as a senior member of the IEEE Power and Energy Society, CIGRE, NERC, and ESIG, including as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, chair of ESIG’s system operations and market design working group, part of NYISO’s Environmental Advisory Council, and chair of the IEEE Power System Economics Subcommittee. Dr. Ela received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees in Electrical Engineering.

Jason Houck is the Senior Manager of Policy Strategy at Form Energy. In this role, he coordinates Form’s policy and regulatory strategy to develop markets for multi-day energy storage.

Prior to joining Form Energy, Mr. Houck was an energy advisor to Commissioner Liane Randolph at the California Public Utilities Commission, where he helped establish and oversee the CPUC’s integrated resource planning process to achieve California’s electric sector greenhouse gas reduction goals. In earlier roles at the CPUC, Mr. Houck led the agency’s efforts to implement California’s greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program in coordination with the California Air Resources Board. At the CPUC, he also worked on issues ranging from reviewing the state's first competitive transmission project under FERC Order 1000 to electric-sector R&D funding and energy storage procurement.

In earlier roles, Mr. Houck worked for the City of San Francisco to develop the private-sector solar market, and he led staff efforts at the Delaware Legislature to establish the state’s Sustainable Energy Utility (now Energize Delaware).

Mr. Houck holds a master’s in energy and environmental policy from the University of Delaware and a bachelor’s in civil engineering with concentrations in architecture and visual art from Princeton University.

Danny Johnson is the Market Design Sector Manager for the California ISO, which he joined in 2012. In this role he is responsible for providing oversight on market design and regulatory policy changes that enhance market efficiency and reliability of the California ISO and Western Energy Imbalance Markets (WEIM). This work includes the expansion of regional markets within the western US, enhancements to the price formation within the CAISO and WEIM markets, integration of storage and variable energy resources and the creation and implementation of uncertainty-based market products. Prior to the CAISO, he served for four years as a staff electrical engineer at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission within the office of electric reliability.

Mr. Johnson holds a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Kansas State University and a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from George Washington University. Mr. Johnson is a licensed professional engineer in the state of California.

Jeff Billo is the Director of Operations Planning at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). In this role he oversees load, wind, and solar forecasting, ancillary services, and grid analysis efforts. Mr. Billo has been at ERCOT for 20 years. Before his current position, he held various roles in transmission planning and was one of the principal planners for the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ) project. Mr. Billo is active in the ERCOT stakeholder process and in various industry forums, including North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) committees and the Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) consortium. He has also coauthored papers on the topics of transmission planning and wind generation. Mr. Billo holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas and a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas.

Garrett Crowson has been with Southwest Power Pool close to 13 years and currently serves as the Manager of the Uncertainty Response Team in System Operations. He received his BSEE from Arkansas Tech University. In previous roles, Mr. Crowson worked on both the Markets and Reliability side of the RTO, helping to develop the Integrated Marketplace and ensured reliable operations of the RTO. Currently, he manages the Uncertainty Response Team, which is charged with identifying capacity risks to the Balancing Authority and helping develop mitigation plans, based on supply and demand uncertainty.

Jason Howard is Director of Operations Risk Management at Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO). He spent 14 years in the market settlements division playing key roles in the design and implementation of MISO’s ancillary services market, ramp capability product, and short-term reserves. In addition, he was part of MISO’s South region integration and the development and implementation of MISO’s current settlement system. Mr. Howard also holds a co-authoring patent on multiple-configuration combined cycle modeling. Mr. Howard has spent the past five years in operations, leading areas such as day-ahead markets, real-time commitment, and pricing, short-term load and renewable forecasting, and operations risk assessment. Mr. Howard is an academic and athletic alumnus of Purdue University with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering Technology.

Guillermo Bautista Alderete is the Director of Market Performance and Advanced Analytics in the California ISO. He has held leadership and technical positions in the divisions of operations, market infrastructure, technology, and renewable integration at the ISO. Dr. Bautista Alderete is the author of multiple technical papers in the area of electricity markets, a book in economics of power systems, and is a contributing author in a book of financial transmission rights. He has served as editor for IEEE transactions on power systems. Dr. Bautista Alderete has served as a subject matter expert to support restructuring of power systems and renewable integration efforts in different countries. Prior to joining the California ISO, he was a faculty member in the department of Management Sciences at the University of Waterloo (Canada).

Prabhu Gnanam is currently in the Grid Planning department, responsible for all aspects of near-term and long-term transmission planning at ERCOT. With 26 years of experience in the industry, Mr. Gnanam has expertise in transmission planning, system operations, generator interconnections, and power system software development. Prior to joining ERCOT, Mr. Gnanam held various positions at American Transmission Company LLC (Wisconsin), CYME International T&D (Canada), and Powertech Labs Inc.-BC Hydro (Canada).

Mr. Gnanam received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Bharathiar University, India, and a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada). He is a registered Professional Engineer in Wisconsin.

Kamran Ali is Vice President of AEP’s Transmission Planning and Analysis organization. He leads and oversees the company’s activities related to expansion and renewal of ~40,000 circuit miles of Transmission across 13 states and four Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs). In addition, his team participates in off-footprint ventures to support AEP’s strategic objectives.

The Transmission Planning and Analysis organization assesses the adequacy of the transmission grid and recommends capital projects and mitigation plans in coordination with RTOs and other stakeholders for the benefit of AEP’s customers. Mr. Ali is responsible for ensuring rationalization and prudence of the Transmission portfolio. He has served as the company’s witness on Transmission topics in various jurisdictions, both on- and off-footprint. His organization also supports the company’s broader strategy to ensure a seamless grid that enables integration of emerging technologies, such as renewables, energy storage, distributed energy resources, etc.

Mr. Ali has held several leadership positions since joining AEP in 2006. Most recently, he served as managing director of Transmission Planning & Asset Renewal. Mr. Ali started his career at AEP in the substation design standards department.

Mr. Ali has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama. He also has a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Kansas State University and a master's degree in business administration (MBA) from Ohio University. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Ohio.

Thomas J. Overbye is a professor and holder of the O’Donnell Foundation Chair III in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Prior to joining TAMU in 2017, he was a Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before starting his academic career, he was employed with Madison Gas and Electric Company.

Dr. Overbye is the original developer of PowerWorld Simulator, a co-founder of PowerWorld Corporation, and an author of a widely used Power System Analysis and Design book. He was also the recipient of the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering Distinguished Achievement Award and the IEEE Power and Energy Society Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award; and he is also a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Dr. Overbye has extensive experience in many aspects of electric power systems, including participating in or leading numerous large-scale electric grid studies.

Casey Cathey is a 20-year veteran of the power industry and a subject matter expert for energy markets, grid operations, and transmission planning. He was a leader in two energy market starts: the SPP Energy Imbalance Services market and the Integrated Marketplace. He has also operated and supported the Balancing Authority, Reliability Coordination, Tariff and Scheduling, Transmission Planning, Modeling, Reliability Assurance & Compliance, Research & Development, and Transmission Operations functions.

Mr. Cathey and his team are currently responsible for Generation Interconnection, Transmission Service, and Resource Adequacy. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Louisiana State University, has a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and has held a Professional Engineering license for 15 years.

Eithar Nashawati is the Senior Director of Asset Planning (Transmission and Distribution) at Oncor Electric Delivery. Dr. Nashawati has over 20 years of experience in transmission and distribution. He has held several engineering and management positions at Oncor Electric Delivery and Duke Energy Carolinas. He is a Professional Engineer in Texas and North Carolina. Dr. Nashawati received his doctorate and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2012 and 2004, respectively.

Ajay Mannepalli is Senior Director of IT Architecture & Strategy at ERCOT. Mr. Mannepalli has over two decades of experience architecting, integrating, and developing various IT systems in the energy industry. He heads up ERCOT’s IT Strategy, Solution Architecture, and Integration and Asset Management teams, whose responsibilities include selecting, implementing, and governing the appropriate technologies for various systems. Mr. Mannepalli is currently focused on the use of cloud, distributed systems, and other modern technology stacks to architect ERCOT’s systems for the years ahead.

Prior to ERCOT, Mr. Mannepalli was Senior Advisor for California ISO and led multiple projects within the grid, market, and IT domains. He was responsible for architecture, integration, and product delivery. 

Mr. Mannepalli earned his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in Nagpur, India.

Dr. Xing Wang is currently Global Leader of Grid Modernization at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Energy and Utilities, responsible for GTM and Solution Strategy of AWS’ grid activities worldwide. He joined AWS in Nov 2021 from Centrica/British Gas, where he had worked for five years as SVP Product Development and CTO of Centrica Business Solutions. Prior to Centrica, Dr. Wang was Sr. Director of R&D and Software Engineering with GE/Alstom Grid Solutions, responsible for Energy Management System, Market Management System, and Distribution Management System development and delivery. From 2001 to 2014, he led the development and delivery of market systems for five RTOs/ISOs in the U.S. He is based in Redmond, WA.

Dag Bøye is an advisor to Microsoft’s top energy customers in the Americas and focuses on how digital technology enables new business models in the energy transition and how existing business can thrive while contributing to a more sustainable future.

Mr. Bøye has over 25 years of experience using digital technology to capitalize on value opportunities across many industries. Working with business and technology leaders in Europe and the Americas during his 16 years at Microsoft, he excels at decomposing the complexities of industry and technology to reveal the opportunity space for transformation.

Mr. Bøye has an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Oslo (Norway) and a Computer Engineering degree from the University of Utah in addition to numerous studies and accreditations including Business Sustainability Management from the University of Cambridge (England).

Achalesh Pandey is the VP for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation at GE Digital. In this role, he has been tasked to drive digital innovation and transformation across GE Vernova business units and GE Digital by defining and executing Industrial AI strategy and use cases. Mr. Pandey is leading strategy and initiatives in GE Digital Innovation Center to help drive innovation in the energy transition area. He is driving several smart grid initiatives to deliver a reliable, resilient, affordable clean energy grid. In addition, Mr. Pandey is working closely with GE Vernova businesses to drive critical strategic LEAN + Digital technology programs to improve service productivity and reduce cost.

Prior to this role, Mr. Pandey was the Executive Technology Director for Artificial Intelligence at GE Research, overseeing six AI research labs across the globe. Mr. Pandey has been with GE for 19 years in various leadership and technology roles across GE businesses. He has extensive research and development experience in machine learning, prognostics health management (PHM), AI-assisted inspection, digital twin, condition-based maintenance (CBM), monitoring & diagnostics, data mining, advanced sensing, and controls. Before joining GE, Mr. Pandey worked for eight years in the power generation industry with various multinational utilities across the globe. He has filed over 50 patents, including 25+ granted patents and has 20+ GE internal and external publications. Mr. Pandey holds a master’s degree in Engineering from Purdue University and a post-graduate diploma in Power Plant Engineering from National Power Training Institute (India).

Ravi Pradhan is Vice President of Technology for Grid Control at Siemens Grid Software in Minneapolis. With over 25 years of experience building and integrating grid control systems, electricity market systems, and other operational IT systems, Mr. Pradhan is part of the Siemens Grid Software’s Grid Control unit and is responsible for selecting and implementing the appropriate technologies and products for Siemens Grid Control software solutions.

Mr. Pradhan is currently focused on the future of EMS systems and handling complexity due to the variability of renewables in the grid.

Mr. Pradhan was principal system architect for the California ISO Market Redesign and Technology Update project, which included a large IT integration component, along with market optimization software. More recently, he has been working with other ISOs to provide systems to better model the electricity grid in their footprints using the cloud for infrastructure. He led the effort to develop microgrid management software that integrated optimization to best make use of available resources. Prior to that, he was the lead on EMS projects at PJM, Pennsylvania; Mexico City; Johannesburg, South Africa; NSP in Minneapolis; and Hydro-Quebec in Montreal.

Mr. Pradhan earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.