ReFRESH Summit

The program covers corporate sustainability strategy across finance and the business case, communications, organizational change, data and disclosure, AI tools, decarbonization, supply chains, nature, and circular systems. Its Energy and Water programs add sessions on corporate energy procurement, grid flexibility, and water stewardship. Listed sessions address battery storage and flexible power; clean-energy procurement amid uncertainty; hourly energy matching; building decarbonization; corporate AI’s carbon costs; critical-material sourcing and material recovery for supply-chain resilience; circularity’s business case; Scope 3 supplier engagement; water risk and corporate balance sheets; AI and water stewardship; and collective action on the Colorado River. Other sessions cover regenerative agriculture, nature finance, sustainability disclosure, and communicating sustainability to policymakers and markets. The event also lists a keynote, tutorials, breakouts, workshops, and an Advanced Perspectives Program.

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.

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.

Annual national event for water power professionals. Programming includes CC Central exhibits and education, the Innovation Power House, plenary sessions, panel discussions, workshops, asset-owner-only sessions, technical presentations, roundtables, and hydro plant technical tours. The event brings together hydro asset owners and generators, C-suite and executive leadership, engineers, portfolio and general managers, plant operations personnel, manufacturers, suppliers, service providers, federal and state resource agencies, regulators, research entities, academia, nonprofit organizations, and financial entities.

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.

Resources for the Future and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation bring together researchers and stakeholders to examine energy economics, policy, and technology, with an emphasis on connecting research and decision-making. In-person attendance is by invitation only. The program includes an opening discussion on how researchers can collaborate with decision-makers amid changes in the US energy research and policy landscapes. Topical breakout sessions use lightning talks, practitioner reflections, and moderated discussion to cover energy supply chains, energy workforce transitions, industrial decarbonization, and energy system resilience. Other sessions address consumer perspectives on electricity rate design, energy efficiency, vehicle purchases, and energy policy choices; clean-energy research and deployment involving nuclear energy, geothermal technologies, carbon capture, and carbon dioxide removal; and the United States’ position in global clean-energy innovation. Facilitated networking focuses on data access, combining quantitative and qualitative research, reaching new audiences, and building communities of practice. The program also includes participant-nominated breakfast salons and a funders’ panel on emerging energy-system research needs and opportunities for impact.

“Collaborative Capital: The Multiplier Effect for Clean Energy” frames a working forum on coordinating investment across public, private, and philanthropic sectors and addressing systemic clean-energy financing challenges. The program combines plenary discussions, facilitated small-group problem solving, and breakouts. Small-group topics include state policy blueprints, low- and moderate-income financial access, tax-credit monetization, the clean-energy capital stack, virtual power plant valuation, local alignment to reduce soft costs, financing data-center growth, solar finance in low-incentive markets, resilience and outage avoidance, first-of-a-kind project financing, turning small projects into investable portfolios, liquidity for CDFIs and green banks, Indigenous and rural capital access, early-stage geothermal exploration, and utility capital for flexible capacity with equitable benefits. Breakouts address how state and local green banks use public seed funding to attract private lenders; philanthropic impact investing and program-related investments; community ownership and retaining wealth locally; philanthropic guarantees and credit enhancements; financing grid modernization, battery storage, and microgrids in disaster-prone regions; and clean-energy finance amid AI-driven growth. The program also includes innovation spotlights. David Crane, CEO of Generate Capital, gives the opening keynote; Amir Kirkwood, CEO of Justice Climate Fund, gives a keynote; and Elizabeth Mahony, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, gives the closing keynote. The forum follows the Chatham House Rule, and solicitation of funding is not permitted.

The programming focuses on regulatory, policy, market, and legislative issues affecting the North American water power industry. It includes educational programming, information exchange, and advocacy activities involving industry, government agencies, regulators, resource agencies, Tribes, and NGOs. Advocacy Day programming is intended to help industry representatives engage policymakers on Capitol Hill about water power policy priorities.

NARUC’s capstone meeting includes a year-end summary from NARUC President Ann Rendahl, topics across utility sectors, and installation of the organization’s new president and officers. The program covers utility affordability, customer assistance, ratemaking, large-load growth, data centers, demand response, and flexible load; transmission capacity, advanced transmission technologies, permitting reform, and infrastructure investment; coal-plant options, nuclear energy, natural gas, and pipeline safety; and grid resilience, distributed energy resources, virtual power plants, battery storage, and community microgrids. Other sessions address AI-enabled extreme-weather preparedness, cybersecurity in water and wastewater systems, operational technology for gas and water leak detection, telecommunications network transitions, utility data and customer service infrastructure, water infrastructure investment, federal-state energy regulation, and regulatory impacts of proposed permitting legislation. A workshop examines methods for evaluating advanced transmission technologies, including dynamic line ratings, advanced power flow controls, and advanced conductors. The agenda also includes committee business meetings and general sessions on utility infrastructure resilience and community-based resilience investments. Some meetings are closed to nonmembers or restricted to invitees.