POWERGEN 2027

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 addresses safe, efficient, and responsible coal use, with sessions on emergency preparedness, procurement, reliability, AI-ready coal assets, unit-operation costs, workforce recruitment and knowledge retention, maintenance prioritization, combustible-dust hazards, ash use and marketability, heat-rate degradation, fire protection, and contractor safety. Roundtable themes include safety and health, boiler and combustion, coal handling, emergency response, incident prevention, uses for ash, and AI applications.

A business and education event for power generation professionals, including generator owner-operators, engineers, manufacturers, consultants, and service providers. Themes include operating and maintaining generation assets, new technologies, market shifts, operational challenges, managing costs, and bringing new capacity online.

The program spans project execution, nuclear energy, and grids, AI, and infrastructure. Sessions address financing and delivering the U.S. energy buildout; grid capacity, interconnection, transmission, reliability, and cost allocation; and the effects of data-center and industrial demand on power planning. Nuclear topics include power for data centers, first-of-a-kind project cost and delivery, nuclear finance, HALEU and fuel supply, utility choices among large reactors, SMRs, and microreactors, and pathways to SMR deployment. Other sessions cover LNG security, trade, and investment; energy storage and grid-edge technologies; AI in energy operations; and project bankability, permitting, policy, supply-chain, and delivery risks. The program also includes executive roundtables, a project-execution clinic, and an energy startup pitch competition.

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.

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.

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.”

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 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 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.

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.