2027 Coal Users' Group Annual Safety & Technical Forum

Docket 26-035-20 concerns PacifiCorp d/b/a Rocky Mountain Power’s application for approval and report of the sale of the Washington Service Area and an accounting order. Parties must have their witnesses in attendance and prepared to testify. The scheduling order establishes testimony, intervention, and discovery deadlines, and requires parties to supplement discovery responses when new, different, or corrected information becomes available.

The program covers power-generation operations, grid reliability and security, project development, and changing electricity demand. Keynote sessions address supply, demand and the next build cycle; securing the grid amid AI-related threats; and reliability, readiness and the performance gap. Technical sessions include gas-turbine fleet performance and upgrade potential; advanced reactors and TRISO fuel; carbon-capture integration; battery storage and capacity-market accreditation; data-center power demand and flexibility; long-duration storage; nuclear digital modernization; renewable integration; and power-project delivery. Additional program areas include CHP, cybersecurity, grid planning, emissions, and operations and asset reliability.

Topics include electrical safety and high-risk work environments; serious-incident reviews and lessons learned; human performance and error reduction; contractor safety; confined-space, work-at-height, and rescue practices; and emergency response, thermal runaway, and fire preparedness for battery energy storage systems. Operations and asset-performance topics include predictive maintenance, reliability optimization, advanced analytics, major-component reliability for gearboxes, blades, inverters, and BESS, aging fleets, asset-life extension, hybrid wind, solar, and storage operations, and operational readiness and commissioning. Workforce themes include fatigue management, technician readiness, apprenticeships, cross-training, frontline leadership, knowledge transfer, and succession planning. The PowerCast Stage features practical presentations on operational experiences, demonstrations, emerging technologies, and best practices.

The program covers power-generation operations, grid reliability and security, project development, and changing electricity demand. Keynote sessions address supply, demand and the next build cycle; securing the grid amid AI-related threats; and reliability, readiness and the performance gap. Technical sessions include gas-turbine fleet performance and upgrade potential; advanced reactors and TRISO fuel; carbon-capture integration; battery storage and capacity-market accreditation; data-center power demand and flexibility; long-duration storage; nuclear digital modernization; renewable integration; and power-project delivery. Additional program areas include CHP, cybersecurity, grid planning, emissions, and operations and asset reliability.

Public power utility leaders meet with experts in technology, energy, and policy. Attendance is limited to facilitate productive dialogue. Sessions address shifts in the global energy landscape, including the energy transition, energy security, geopolitical and economic competition, and investment in energy infrastructure, renewable technologies, nuclear power, and fossil fuels. Other discussions examine reliability and affordability amid growing demand, rising costs, regulatory pressures, and customer expectations; resource adequacy, infrastructure investment, workforce challenges, supply-chain constraints, and emerging technologies; and leadership through outages, cyber incidents, severe weather, safety emergencies, and public scrutiny. The program also explores AI and other emerging technologies, including their utility applications and questions around governance, cybersecurity, workforce impacts, and risk management. Additional topics include evaluating and integrating significant new loads, generation and infrastructure investments, contracts and rate protections, aligning economic development with the public power mission, and workforce development, succession planning, leadership training, and knowledge transfer.

Sessions examine natural gas market fundamentals for AI data center demand, including basin capabilities, rig activity, storage trends, pipeline bottlenecks, competition with LNG exports and other electricity demand, and commercial strategies for procurement, hedging, and risk management. The program also addresses AI and predictive analytics for pipeline nominations, forecasting, capacity management, and gas-flow optimization, plus integration with ERP, ETRM, CRM, and SCADA systems. Infrastructure discussions cover pipeline capacity, reliability and right-of-way; regional transmission, distribution and generation investment; federal-land development models; and the commercial and regulatory structures needed to advance large-load projects. Utility service challenges include pipeline limitations, public perception, permitting, capital requirements, commercial structuring, cost allocation, reliability obligations, and protecting existing customers. A developers roundtable covers demand forecasts versus speculative projects, developer qualifications, speed-to-power and behind-the-meter strategies, gas procurement, community hurdles, and regulatory and policy issues. Other sessions address mobile gas delivery and virtual pipelines, including CNG/LNG solutions for remote or capacity-constrained markets. The keynote considers AI-driven electricity demand, gas and electric utility bottlenecks, regional load growth, and nuclear energy. A Texas-focused panel examines policy, technology, research, planning, permitting, investment, and cross-sector coordination for large-load development, including data centers and advanced manufacturing.

The forum examines North American power markets across renewables, conventional generation, utilities, data centers, commercial and industrial offtakers, and government. Topics include energy-policy consistency and consequential legislation; the effects of tariffs, tax-credit regulation, geopolitical conflict, interest rates, and industry consolidation on costs and demand; FERC interconnection reform and transmission investment; and whether domestic solar and storage manufacturing can compete under changing trade and incentive rules. The program also addresses data-center and AI-driven load growth, local opposition and project approvals, equipment and workforce constraints, powered land, gas paired with battery storage, battery operations and project economics, and mergers and acquisitions in power development. Other sessions examine hyperscaler nuclear strategies, clean firm and dispatchable power, long-duration storage, geothermal, small modular reactors, gas with CCS, aging renewable assets, behind-the-meter storage, large-load flexibility, and utility–data center collaboration. Roundtable topics include understanding FEOC and tariffs, overcoming local opposition, operations and maintenance, flexibility programs, EPC partnerships, and behind-the-meter projects.

The forum brings together cleantech innovators, investors, corporates, and other ecosystem participants to address grid stability, water scarcity, waste-to-value, critical minerals, and geopolitical pressures on supply chains and energy security. The program includes a closed-door, peer-level executive roundtable and an opening plenary covering cleantech trends, capital flows, innovation, and the 2027 Global Cleantech 100. Agenda topics include nuclear fuel supply and nuclear supply chains; mineral processing, refining, recovery, and the post-mining supply chain; physical AI applications in grid construction, critical minerals, and dual-use; data-center power demand, grid capacity, water use, cooling, and wastewater resource recovery. Other sessions address heat resilience, energy efficiency for AI compute, geopolitical risk across energy and cleantech supply chains, and investor perspectives on cleantech funding. Innovation Showcases feature cleantech companies presenting technologies and business models.

The technical program solicits new, significant work relevant to the nuclear industry, with summaries and abstracts presented orally. Topics include advanced reactors and power systems; energy storage integration with nuclear plants; fusion; nuclear fuel recycling, waste forms, transmutation and disposal; AI applications in nuclear safety and materials research; nuclear nonproliferation; advanced and additive manufacturing; and thermal hydraulics. Embedded topics include Decommissioning Environmental Sciences and Remote Technology, covering robotics and remote systems, decommissioning, environmental remediation, nuclear cleanup, used-fuel management, and related AI, digital-twin and regulatory topics. Accelerator Applications covers accelerator facilities and design, nuclear data, materials science, medical and industrial applications, security and forensics, and environmental studies. Accepted and presented summaries are slated for publication in ANS Transactions.

The program brings together energy, industrial transformation, and advanced manufacturing, with cross-cutting themes of workforce development, standards, finance, AI and digital transformation, policy, and resilience planning. Roundtables, workshops, and demos are designed to address tradeoffs involving affordability, risk, standardization, and deployment speed. Program tracks include Powering Growth, with sample sessions on data-center power and cooling, new nuclear deployment, solar cost reduction, and scaling geothermal; Industry Reimagined, covering industrial heat electrification, next-generation steel, and EPC project-delivery costs and risks; Next-Gen Manufacturing, addressing hardware investment and bankability, additive manufacturing, and sustainability tradeoffs in product design; and Future Workforce, on nuclear workforce readiness, apprenticeships, and aligning training programs with real projects. Additional sessions are in development in areas including energy storage, fusion, industrial efficiency, critical minerals, and sustainability tradeoffs. The listed sessions are samples and subject to change.

An intensive workshop on projected electricity demand and expanding the supply of natural resources used to generate power. Topics include natural gas, geothermal development and repurposing oil and gas assets; hydrogen, uranium, lithium and critical minerals; and water, environmental, storage, site-selection and regulatory considerations. Program discussions cover grid shortfalls and raw materials for electricity generation, solutions for increasing electricity supply, geothermal, and technology including ORC, sensors and small nuclear reactors. Other sessions address AI prompts for grid and behind-the-meter planning; lithium direct lithium extraction (DLE) and hydrogen technologies; regulatory and legislative factors affecting geothermal, critical minerals, low-carbon energy, grids and data centers; and mining and oil-and-gas intersections, including near-surface imaging and copper for electricity transmission. The program also includes an AI prompt clinic focused on water, the environment, science and regulations.