ATX Agenda & speakers

Check-in opens and breakfast begins.

Stephanie Badr
Chief Executive Officer, Electric Power Engineers

Reliability in an Era of Exponential Growth: Can Planning Keep Pace?

The electric system is in a new planning era defined not just by rising demand, but by the speed, scale, concentration, and uncertainty of emerging loads. AI, data centers, manufacturing, electrification, and increasingly sophisticated loads are challenging the assumptions, timelines, and tools that have traditionally guided grid planning and operations. As large loads seek faster interconnection and greater certainty, planners, utilities, ISOs, and RTOs must rethink how they approach forecasting, interconnection, standards, and rate impacts. This panel will explore how ISOs and RTOs are adapting their processes, models, and market and interconnection designs to maintain reliability while managing cost, risk, and speed in a system changing faster than legacy frameworks were built to handle.

Tamer Rousan (Moderator)
Executive Vice President, Utilities, Electric Power Engineers

Casey Cathey
Vice President, Engineering, Southwest Power Pool

Jason Connell
Vice President, Planning, PJM

Aubrey Johnson
Vice President, System Planning, MISO

Investment and Managing Risk: Preparing the Grid for the Unexpected

Utilities are under increasing pressure to deliver a more reliable and resilient grid, while navigating resource adequacy concerns, rising customer expectations, regulatory orders and affordability constraints. In that environment, every capital decision carries tradeoffs. 

This panel will examine how utility leaders are assessing risk, prioritizing investments, and evolving planning processes to support portfolio decisions that remain sound across a range of future scenarios. The conversation will explore how integrated planning can move from a technical exercise to a strategic tool for investment discipline, resilience, and long-term value creation. 

Tamer Rousan (Moderator)
Executive Vice President, Utilities, Electric Power Engineers

Kamran Ali
Senior Vice President, Transmission Grid Planning & Engineering, American Electric Power

Sal Salet
Vice President, Engineering & Construction, PPL

Shawn Schukar
Chairman & President, Ameren Transmission Company, Ameren

Networking break.

Affordability Under Pressure: Powering Texas Growth Without Losing Sight of the Customer

Texas is entering a period of extraordinary growth driven by population expansion, industrial development, electrification, and rapidly increasing large-load demand. Supporting that growth will require coordinated decisions across system planning, infrastructure investment, technology, market design, and customer solutions. This panel will explore how Texas can expand and modernize the grid, manage emerging risks, accelerate the connection of new demand and resources, and make disciplined investments that support long-term economic growth while protecting the customers and communities the grid serves.

Rob Gramlich (Moderator)
President, Grid Strategies 

Jim Albright
President & Chief Executive Officer, Texas Reliability Entity

Venkat Tirupati
Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, ERCOT

The EPE Innovation Partner Awards recognize organizations that go beyond adopting new technology to help shape what comes next. These organizations have demonstrated a willingness to collaborate, invest, challenge conventional approaches, and work alongside EPE to develop new capabilities that advance a more reliable, resilient, affordable, and flexible electric grid.

The Affordability Imperative: Balancing Reliability, Growth, and Customer Cost

In this keynote, Paula Glover, President of the Alliance to Save Energy, will explore the growing tension between reliability, resiliency, sustainability, and affordability in the modern energy landscape. She will discuss how utilities, policymakers, regulators, and large energy users can work together to ensure the transition to a more electrified and digitally connected economy does not leave customers behind. 

Paula Glover
President, Alliance to Save Energy

Flexibility at the Point of Connection:  Grid Integration and Operations

As generation, storage, large loads and data centers seek to connect at unprecedented scale and speed, traditional interconnection models are being stretched. Greater flexibility in how resources connect, operate, respond to system conditions and share infrastructure could help unlock capacity while maintaining grid reliability. This panel will explore new approaches to interconnection, engineering and the commercial models needed to bring projects online faster without compromising the system. It will also look at how new resources support grid operations after they connect, including demand response and technical capabilities such as ride-through and voltage support, turning interconnection from a one-time hurdle into an ongoing relationship between resources and the grid. 

Kalyan Chilukuri (Moderator)
Executive Vice President, Energy Resources, Electric Power Engineers

Rodica Donaldson
Vice President, Transmission & Interconnection, EDF Power Solutions

Ali Fenn
President, Lancium

Andrea Hu-Bianco
Senior Vice President, Engineering, RWE Americas

Phillip Sandino
Senior Vice President, Utility Development, Tract

Innovation Through Technology: Building Smarter, Faster Infrastructure

The grid has become dramatically more complex, yet many of the processes used to plan, design, construct, and operate it remain rooted in approaches developed decades ago. Advances in computing, AI, drones, power electronics, automation, and flexible demand are creating opportunities to break down traditional silos and fundamentally change how we build, expand, and operate the grid across planning, design, construction, and operations. This panel will explore how technology providers, infrastructure developers, and large energy users can deploy infrastructure faster, make better use of existing assets, and create greater flexibility across the system—using smarter tools, assets, and operating models to build a grid capable of keeping pace with the demands placed upon it.

Hugo Mena (Moderator)
Chief Growth Officer, Electric Power Engineers

Ted Zalucki
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, Engineered Intelligence

Stephanie Badr
Chief Executive Officer, Electric Power Engineers

Thank you for being part of GridNEXT ATX 2026. We look forward to continuing the conversation and welcoming you back next year.