Location: Field Club

Domestic supplies of critical minerals are essential for national security and the energy transition. At the same time, water security, clean air, and access to outdoor recreation top the list of priorities for Utahns. What do we need to consider to achieve both goals?

Location: Field Club

Utility companies face a range of well-documented challenges, including sharply rising energy demand projections, shifting regulatory and environmental frameworks, evolving market structures, and rapid deployment of new technologies. How can they continue to meet customer expectations around cost, reliability, and availability in the face of such complexity? In this panel, experts will outline their most pressing near-term delivery challenges and share how they plan to address them.  

Location: Field Club

Opportunity to network between sessions

Breakout Session 1: The Future of Transportation

Vehicles drive our national economy. In the U.S. alone, they transport more than 11 billion tons of freight and travel over 3 trillion miles per year. A decade ago, electrification was a hope and a promise to reduce the cost of moving people and goods and to improve air quality in major urban cities. As recently as last year, infrastructure investments were skyrocketing, and full electrification had strong momentum. Today, with competition on the grid from energy demands of AI and data centers and shifts in federal policy and support, the best path forward is under question.   This panel will highlight the current status of transportation in Utah and discuss the challenges and significant opportunities ahead. Leading experts from the utility and transportation industries, government, academia, and national labs will provide their perspectives. Examples of pilots and infrastructure deployments of new innovations happening today in Utah will be showcased, and future projections and plans looking forward to align with state initiatives including Operation Gigawatt and the Olympics will be discussed.  

Location: Media Room

 

Breakout Session 2: Meeting Local Energy Needs: Efficiency, Affordability, Access, & Reliability

Meeting local energy needs necessitates satisfying the following criteria: efficiency, affordability, access, and reliability. This panel will focus on practical solutions, with an emphasis on timelines, resource availability, challenges, and opportunities. Our goal is to ensure that attendees leave the event equipped with actionable insights and recommendations that will move Utah forward in advancing its energy initiatives.  

Location: VIP Lounge

 

Breakout Session 3: Critical Minerals: Strategies for Domestic Supply to meet Energy and Security Needs

Critical minerals provide the building blocks for many modern technologies and are essential to energy development, national security, and economic prosperity. As a result, it is estimated that the global demand for critical minerals will increase by 400 to 600 percent in the next several decades. Those used in electric vehicles such as lithium, the demand will be even greater. This session will provide an overview presentation of critical minerals, followed by a panel discussion incorporating topics such as workforce development, mining, and policy.  

Location: Field Club

Opportunity to network with Energy Week sponsors and participants.

Location: Suite Lounge

Breakout Session 1: Evolving Renewable Landscape

Solar, wind and batteries are a cornerstone of a near-term, no-regrets, pathway for energy development in Utah and beyond. This panel will explore the historical and current role of renewables in Utah's energy landscape, their economics, how recent federal legislation affected tax credits, supply chain, and resource development considerations. We will also explore how wind and solar contribute to a diverse energy mix that will create an affordable, reliable, and clean energy future.  

Location: Media Room

 

Breakout Session 2: Long Duration Energy Storage

Expanding LDES in Utah—Challenges, Opportunities & Benefits LDES includes a broad scope of energy storage technologies that will become increasingly essential as demands on the electric grid intensify and the energy resource mix continues to diversify. Emerging and established technologies that can provide 10-hours + of duration capability are being tested and deployed in diverse markets across the US. Utah can seek to utilize these technologies to support a variety of use cases, including grid security, resilience and reliability, and the enhanced operations of multiple resource types. In this panel session, led by Will McNamara, Principal Investigator of the DOE-funded LDES National Consortium, an in-depth discussion of the challenges, opportunities and benefits that Utah faces in bringing LDES technologies to broader deployment in the state will be featured. Experts on LDES technologies, economics, utility planning, and regulatory policies will engage in an interactive dialogue, including audience questions, intended to highlight the near- and long-term planning steps that stakeholders in Utah can take to ensure that pathways for LDES technologies are created.

Location: Field Club

Session Sponsored by: Quanta Government Solutions    

Breakout Session 3: Venture Capital and Private Equity

The capital market’s energy investment focus is rapidly changing. This Venture Capital session will provide an overview of how early stage investors are looking at existing and novel technologies that will shape our energy future.    How investors evaluate technology risk while weighing regulatory changes, volatile incentive programs, and policy pivots will be a key discussion point. The session will include several presentations providing overviews of investment thesis, recent early stage investments, market segments of interest, etc. followed by a panel discussion with venture and private equity executives.  

Location: VIP Lounge

 

Opportunity to network between sessions

With the regional energy ecosystem experiencing unprecedented demand growth in the face of limited supply, regional partnership to solve challenges and create regional solutions seems more important than ever.  This panel will explore the criticality of partnerships, how these partnerships are emerging in today’s regional environment, what solutions are emerging to meet today’s challenging environment and ensure energy availability to support our thriving economies, and the benefits to the region’s citizens and stakeholders from finding efficient, collaborative solutions to secure our energy future.

Location: Field Club

4:15 PM - 4:45 PM Operation Gigawatt and Beyond: How Utah is Leading the Energy Transition

Location: Field Club

4:45 PM - 5:00 PM Closing Remarks:

Location: Field Club