Agenda

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

Reimaginging Customers and Assets: Turning Grid Pressure into Grid Opportunity

We have entered a new era of energy. As surging data center demand and rapid electrification redefine the grid, pressure mounts on energy affordability and reliability. For many, load growth has become synonymous with grid stress—but what if it is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for?

Join Uplight’s Hannah Bascom in a visionary conversation with leaders from Octopus Energy and Schneider Electric as they discuss why two of the world’s largest global energy companies have recently bet on the power of the proactive energy customer. They’ll explore a future where distributed energy resources are the primary engine for grid reliability, and discuss how we are bridging the gap between the customer’s home and the utility control room to transform load growth from a risk to our greatest resource for an affordable, resilient energy transition.

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: Best Practices in Residential Program Design

As battery adoption continues to grow, 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 programs—and addressing distinct program design and operational considerations. Learn how your peers are approaching program design and deployment, customer engagement, incentive structures and more in their recent program implementations.

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.

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

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.