2027 IEEE FutureGrid Conference and Expo (FutureGrid)

The conference focuses on the customer-utility interface, including planning, demand management, distributed energy resources, storage, DERMS, energy efficiency, interconnection, standardization, scalability, AI, data center growth, and next-generation loads. The program includes tutorials, technical tours, welcome and opening remarks with a keynote, breakout sessions, exhibits, stage presentations, startup lightning pitches, a poster session, and a closing session. Super Sessions address generation mix and grid reliability; data center growth and the AI economy; flexible load management; AI for planning, operations, and reliability; and asset management for an affordable grid. The program also includes an invite-only Innovation Challenge and brings together utility engineers, planners, consultants, developers working on large-load interconnections, AI and data-center leaders, DER providers, policymakers, regulators, and researchers in data, cybersecurity, and grid-edge systems. PacifiCorp is the host utility.

Theme: “Grid Modernization: Scaling the Grid for Emerging Demand.” The IEEE PES flagship annual conference provides a forum for power engineers and academics to share research and innovations in power systems and energy technologies, discuss grid and utility challenges, establish technical directions and standards, and connect academia, industry, utilities, and government.

The public-facing program combines plenary presentations, industry, academia, and technology-sector panels, and Purdue-led research posters and lightning talks. Themes include grid planning and operations amid rapid load growth; AI for grid performance and grid studies; flexibility across large loads, transmission systems, distribution networks, and distributed energy resources; and grid investments, interconnections, and transmission improvements. Panels address grid operations with large loads, flexibility as a grid resource, grid planning with large loads, and AI for grid operations. The members-only program includes an advisory board meeting and a concurrent student career event. The advisory board reviews 2026 project reports, considers Purdue faculty proposals for 2027 research, and deliberates on proposed research activities for industry-member voting. The career event gives Purdue students an opportunity to explore energy-sector engineering careers and discuss internships and employment with industry representatives.

Sessions cover Environmental, Generation & Fuels; Grid Modernization; Transmission & Distribution; and Reliability & Resilience. Conference attendees can also attend sessions in the concurrent Safety Summit. The conference focuses on practices for building and maintaining safe, reliable electric systems, and includes the Public Power NextTech Expo. The 2027 agenda has not been published.

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.

Produced by IEEE PES and hosted by Georgia Power, the exposition includes a Data Center Stage track exploring how the rise of hyperscale and edge data centers is influencing grid planning, energy infrastructure and sustainable load management. The conference brings together the transmission and distribution ecosystem, including utilities, regulators, researchers and technology providers, with many manufacturers timing new product launches to coincide with the event.

Four plenary sessions and technical panels address solid-state transformer (SST) topologies and system architectures; power devices, including SiC, GaN, high-voltage IGBTs, and medium-voltage protection; high-frequency magnetics, packaging, and thermal management; fusion as a potential power source for data centers; SST control, protection, reliability, cybersecurity, and grid services; and grid-interactive data centers, energy storage, onsite generation, and flexible AI loads. The program also includes poster sessions and awards. Panel topics include grid interconnection, microgrids, demand response, renewable integration, battery and long-duration storage, workload flexibility, waste-heat recovery, and coordination between data centers and utilities. Plenary speakers include Dr. Patrick Chapman, Vice President of Enphase Energy and a National Academy of Engineering member, and Dr. Le Xie, Gordon McKay Professor at Harvard University.

The program focuses on transmission and power markets, bringing together finance, technology, and utility leaders. Sessions include: • “1920s Vision: Is Grid Planning Ready for the Future?” — transmission planning reforms under Order No. 1920, expansion efforts, implementation results, and where transmission is being built. • “Capacity Markets: Diagnosing a Chronic Condition” — whether current energy and capacity-market constructs can be rehabilitated or require an overhaul. • “Power Struggle: Paying for the Grid of the Future” — funding interregional transmission, grid grants, price-collared compensation structures, the Transmission Facilitation Program, a proposed transmission investment tax credit, and transmission’s capacity value. • “Gridmaxxing: ATTs and the Art of Doing More With What You've Got” — deployment of advanced transmission technologies, implementation barriers, line-loss savings, and resilience benefits. • “Cost Allocation: An Immovable Object Meets an Unstoppable Force” — cost allocation for large loads, jurisdictional disputes, co-location and proximate resources, broader grid expansion, curtailable large load, clean energy, and storage. Named speakers include Laura Rauch of MISO; Aftab Khan of PJM; Suzanne Glatz of Glatz Energy Consulting LLC; Katie Siegner of RMI; David Lapp of the Maryland Office of Peoples Council; Evelyn Robinson of MAREC; Jennie Chen of RAP; Joshua Macey of Yale Law School; Madeline Gould Laughlin of Grid United; Brooke Keene of Southwest Power Pool; Zach Zimmerman of Grid Strategies LLC; Theodore Paradise of CTC Global; Georg Rute of Gridraven; Carla Pinzon of Expand Power Technologies, Inc.; Bryn Baker of CEBA; Jeff Bladen of Verrus; Matt Christiansen of Wilson Sonsini; Morgan Sipple of the Data Center Coalition; and Craig Sundstrom of Amazon Web Services.

The program covers utility grid modernization, distribution planning, ADMS and DERMS deployment, distributed energy resource management, advanced metering, battery storage, microgrids, and data-center load growth. Sessions address grid reliability and resilience, wildfire risk, cybersecurity and OT security, AI applications in planning and operations, utility communications, affordability, workforce development, and policy and regulation. Named program items include “How Are Utility CEOs Driving the Age of Acceleration?”, “How Will the Data Center Boom Define the Evolution of the Grid?”, and “US DOE Grid Modernization Investment Framework – An Effective Cost Justification for Building the Grid of the Future.”