Energy Thought Summit - Quick Update

I've been in Austin since Monday night, and the last day of the Energy Thought Summit is underway now. The Zpryme folks have built on the momentum from last year's inaugural ETS, and the content has been really solid here right from the start. This is very much a thought leader summit - top people here from across the energy sector, both speaking and in the audience, with lots of good dialog all around.

I'm just going to post some photos here for now, and over the next couple of days, I'll post my takeaways, both here and wearing my ETS Community Advocate hat on the ETS Insights portal, where I've been posting since January.

Now, this is how you open a conference, Austin-style. These guys were great - too bad they just did a couple of tunes and disappeared shortly after. Most conferences I attend have blaring rock music piped in to keep things lively, but I'll take these guys any day.

Newly-minted ETS President, Andrew Johnston wearing his MC hat

Doyle Beneby, Pres/CEO of CPS Energy, giving the opening keynote. Great presentation about the challenges facing utilities. Sobering stuff, but plenty of silver linings.

ETS Chairman Andres Carvallo leads the panel session on IoT and smart cities

Direct Energy CEO Badar Khan sharing what his company is doing to engage customers via technology, to proactively make energy relevant to them. This is the vision utilities need to transform themselves into customer-centric entities, and if a company of this size can do it, there's plenty of hope for the industry.

This was the highlight for me - and perhaps everyone else. Drew Johnston with the amazing Dr. John Goodenough - the father of the lithium-ion battery, still going strong at 92!

Dr. Massoud Amin - another great presentation, this time, his 2020 industry outlook. Congrats as well, for being the recipient of Zpryme's first Thought Leader of the Year Award - and well deserved, for sure.