Agenda

Terrace + Pre-function Area

Breakfast

Wynkoop Ballroom

Welcome to Uplight Customer Connect


Get oriented to our conference space and learn more about how we'll be spending our time over the next few days.

Wynkoop Ballroom

Customer-Powered Capacity for Reliability and Affordability in an Era of Load Growth

The energy landscape faces unprecedented strain as electrification and climate intensify demands on aging grid infrastructure. New supply alone cannot bridge the gap. This moment requires solutions that leverage the infrastructure that already exists: customers and their distributed energy resources.

Join Uplight CEO Luis D’Acosta as he outlines the central role of the Demand Stack—a coordinated, predictable demand-side resource strategy—to cost-effectively create flexible, predictable, dispatchable capacity. We will explore how customer-centric, device-native enrollment, advanced AI forecasting, and multi-DER optimization convert distributed assets into reliable, gigawatt-scale capacity and pave the pathway to a resilient, affordable, customer-powered and future-ready grid.

Wynkoop Ballroom

Technology State of the Union

Enabling tomorrow’s grid requires predictable, flexible reliability at scale. In this session, CTO Jesse Demmel will share how Uplight is making the Demand Stack a reality: mobilizing mass customer participation, unlocking customer choice, and aggregating and optimizing diverse distributed energy resource portfolios to deliver highly predictable grid flexibility. Learn how Uplight's latest innovations including our Demand Stack Enrollment Engine, AI-powered Predictive Capacity Dispatch, and Flexibility-as-a-Service (FaaS) are enabling our utility and energy ecosystem partners to reimagine their demand-side strategies and maximize flexible capacity with unparalleled precision, at scale.

Baseline Ballroom West

TRACK: SCALING LOAD FLEXIBILITY

Batteries Across the Board: Scaling Residential and C&I Customers

As battery adoption continues to grow—with residential batteries increasing 132% year-over-year—utilities are expanding their battery storage programs, creating new opportunities to deliver flexible capacity when and where the grid needs it most. This session will explore how utilities are integrating batteries into their residential and commercial and industrial (C&I) load flexibility programs—and addressing distinct program design and operational considerations for these two very different customer segments. Learn how your peers are approaching program design and deployment, OEM and third-party owned (TPO) asset mix, customer engagement, incentive structures and more in their recent program implementations.

Baseline Ballroom East

TRACK: SCALING CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

Scaling Demand Flexibility’s Participation Through Enrollment

With only 10% of customers enrolled in energy programs, the greatest untapped capacity isn't in the grid—it's in customer engagement. Increasing customer engagement and participation means identifying and activating customers in the right combination of demand-side programs based on their preferences, propensity, and potential. In this session, panelists will share practical tactics for leveraging business intelligence, including device detection and propensity models, and personalized messaging and channel strategies to drive customer awareness,.engagement and enrollment in DR and VPP programs to deliver load flexibility when, where, and how the grid needs.

Clubhouse

TRACK: SCALING LOAD FLEXIBILITY

Inside the Control Room: Understanding Grid Operator Needs

As distributed energy resources scale rapidly, grid operators face unprecedented complexity managing real-time dispatch across a proliferation of grid-edge assets while maintaining reliability. At the same time, they hold a key role in program implementation. This session brings grid operators and utility leaders together to share firsthand perspectives on DER management realities across ADMS, Grid DERMS, and Edge DERMS platforms. Attendees will gain insight into day-to-day operational challenges, evolving technology stacks for efficiency, and how utilities are building operator-centered solutions that deliver both usability and grid reliability.

Baseline Ballroom West

TRACK: SCALING CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

Beyond Bill Assistance: How Utilities Are Improving Affordability

Energy costs are rising faster than ever, with 40% of North American utility customers struggling to pay their bills. This session will reveal how utilities are leveraging all customer channels to help every customer, and especially low-income households, lower their bills while stacking savings and incentives. Utility speakers will share tactics— including outbound communications, free energy efficiency products, and more—and best practices around how they boost affordability for all customers.

Baseline Ballroom East

TRACK: SCALING LOAD FLEXIBILITY

From Maybe to Megawatts: Making DR a Predictable Grid Resource

Smart thermostat demand response (DR) programs have scaled to millions of participants across the country, yet their inherent variability has undercut both their resilience and economic value in grid planning and operations——until now. Predictive Capacity Dispatch (PCD) uses AI-powered forecasting and intelligent staggered dispatch to deliver 98% day-ahead accuracy for sustained, consistent load reduction that the grid can count on. Learn how utilities are using PCD to achieve firm capacity performance, unlock wholesale market participation, and transform demand response economics.

Clubhouse

TRACK: SCALING LOAD FLEXIBILITY

Unlocking Demand Response in Community-Owned Energy

Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs), municipal utilities, and cooperatives face distinct challenges in launching demand response and virtual power plant programs—from limited budgets and lean staff to governance structures that require board approval. Yet these energy providers also have unique advantages: direct community relationships, mission-driven sustainability goals, and the agility to innovate quickly. In this session, CCA, municipal, and coop leaders will share how they've successfully launched impactful demand response and virtual power plant programs that resonate and provide value to customers––and how this applies to energy providers of all types.

Terrace + Pre-function Area

Lunch

Wynkoop Ballroom

Operationalizing the Demand Stack

The Demand Stack—which revalues demand-side resources and programs to deliver maximum grid and customer impact—is moving from concept to reality.

In this session, the Brattle Group will reveal findings from their quantitative analysis of Demand Stack benefits, illustrating how this strategy can expand and optimize demand-side investments, enabling utilities to capitalize on rapid load growth and address challenges exacerbated by constraints on conventional supply resources. Utilities will share how they're translating these insights into regulatory action, building internal support, and improving the customer experience to maximize customer savings and deliver megawatts when, where and how the grid needs.

Baseline Ballroom West

TRACK: SCALING LOAD FLEXIBILITY

From Enrollment to Settlement: Maximizing Value Across all DERMS Value Streams

Managing distributed energy resources across multiple use cases—from peak shaving to congestion relief to wholesale markets—requires sophisticated orchestration. This session will explore how utilities deploy DERMS platforms to coordinate increasingly complex DER portfolios—including thermostats, batteries, EVs, and C&I assets—as cohesive portfolios serving both distribution and transmission needs while enabling geo-targeted dispatch, ISO market participation, and flexible interconnections that accelerate DER adoption. Learn how integrated DERMS platforms provide sophisticated forecasting, optimize dispatch across value streams, and create a unified operational view—from enrollment to settlement—maximizing cost-effectiveness while meeting diverse grid requirements.

Baseline Ballroom East

TRACK: SCALING LOAD FLEXIBILITY

All Devices on Deck: How To Super-scale Demand Response and VPP Capacity

Traditional demand response programs reach only the fraction of customers willing to enroll, leaving massive capacity untapped during critical grid moments. Utilities need faster, more efficient ways to respond to peak demand and deliver fast, scalable relief when the grid needs it most. Innovative all-hands-on-deck automated and behavioral programs are answering the call, enabling customers to remain in control through opt-out functionality while also providing additional capacity when the grid needs it most. Learn about recent results, best practices for maintaining customer comfort, lessons learned from real-world deployment, and how these programs can serve as a gateway for broader demand response engagement.

Clubhouse

TRACK: SCALING LOAD FLEXIBILITY

How Utilities are Transitioning to DSOs

Distribution System Operators (DSOs) emerge when five elements converge: AMI for granular data, ADMS for situational awareness, edge DERMS for localized DER optimization, effective customer engagement, and value stacking across distribution and wholesale systems.

This session will examine pioneering DSO implementations, exploring debates around distribution-level DER markets, utility-led versus third-party aggregation models, and operational boundaries between distribution companies and wholesale market operators. Learn practical roadmaps for building DSO capabilities —from digital infrastructure investments to piloting DER aggregation programs and aligning regulatory frameworks that enable modern, customer-centric grid operations.

Wynkoop Ballroom

Keynote: Amelia Rose Earhart

Drawing from her 28,000-nautical-mile solo flight around the world, Amelia Rose Earhart delivers powerful insights on navigating complexity—whether it be in the air or in the energy industry. Just as she learned to anticipate headwinds and course-correct through turbulence, utility leaders must guide organizations through unprecedented load growth, regulatory uncertainty, and grid variability.

Through her "flight lessons" framework—forecasting challenges, distributing responsibility under stress, and maintaining confidence while pivoting—she'll inspire utility innovators to embrace building a resilient energy future, recognizing that every obstacle can become an opportunity for breakthrough.

Flight Club

Evening Activity

Enjoy food, drinks, and darts at Denver's iconic Flight Club.

Optional: Meet with Uplight

Connect with your Uplight team before heading home.