A comprehensive guide to the Forum 2024 agenda

For nearly 40 years, we’ve created an unforgettable and valuable E Source Forum experience. With that in mind, we’re making some improvements for this year’s event! Based on attendee feedback, we’ve tweaked the format for Forum 2024.

We’ve curated a cumulative track system for this year’s sessions. This change is intended to enhance your learning and networking experience. It also allows you to immerse yourself deeper in a specific topic, with sessions building on each other to expand your learning.

We encourage you to register for your preferred track and remain there throughout the Forum for a more concentrated learning experience. This year’s tracks include:

Affordability and equity
Customer experience
Efficient and flexible decarbonization
Electric transportation
Marketing and communications
Storage and distributed energy resources (DERs)

Below is a guide to this year’s tracks, designed for mid- and senior-level professionals looking to gain new insights to bring back to their teams.

Dive even deeper into this year’s Forum agenda

Affordability and equity

In this track, we’ll address crucial industry issues from the C-suite down. Sessions will have a special focus on making the business case for energy equity at your utility, figuring out how to operationalize it, setting goals and metrics for success, and integrating equity across your operations and your customer-side program portfolio.

Customer experience

Tailored to meet the needs of strategists across customer experience, contact centers, digital channels, and key account teams, these sessions look at customers’ needs in the wake of utility complexities such as higher bills and wildfires.

Efficient and flexible decarbonization

Designed for data-driven decision-makers, these sessions will help shape the utility’s portfolio strategy. They’ll help ensure alignment with regulatory customer-facing portfolio mandates and customer needs for energy efficiency, demand response, and building electrification.

Electric transportation

We created this track to help utility transportation electrification teams redefine their work in a major way. Sessions in this track will share new opportunities and discuss how we can apply all our customer-centric program recommendations to sell more electrons and minimize infrastructure upgrades.

Session spotlight! How do we crack the code on EV managed charging?

Wednesday, October 9 | 4:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. MT

Traditional event-based demand response strategies have yielded smaller-than-expected load impacts when applied to EVs because of limited asset availability, communication complexities, unbalanced program costs, and more. Although passive approaches like time-of-use rates have shown some success, they may prove inadequate as EV adoption surges.

A more promising avenue involves actively managing EV charging based on distribution system needs. But many utilities lack robust frameworks to accurately quantify the benefits of such strategies or to secure buy-in for EV load management in capacity planning. To help navigate these challenges, we’ll explore how leading utilities are approaching these issues and envisioning the next generation of EV managed charging programs.

Marketing and communications

The main theme of this track is using technology and data to reach customers more effectively. The track is designed for marketers who are campaign planning and developing strategies for the next five years.

Storage and DERs

This track caters to those exploring how energy storage is a key piece of a larger portfolio that utilities need to consider if they want to decarbonize, have a more flexible load, and create a more resilient grid.

Session spotlight! Customers DERiving the change in fleet electrification

Thursday, October 10 | 9:00 a.m.–10:15 a.m. MT

Commercial fleet electrification has emerged as a crucial driver in reducing carbon emissions and supporting cleaner transportation. But switching from combustion to electric presents challenges with infrastructure and energy management. Harnessing small- and medium-scale renewable energy and using DERs and energy storage systems can provide a consistent energy supply.

In this panel discussion with commercial customers, you’ll hear real-world examples of how they’re making this work. They’ll offer insights and encourage cooperation between commercial customers and utilities to create fleet electrification strategies that work for everyone.