May 16 2008
More than 150 industry, government and academic energy experts will gather together to debate how to best harness sustainable energy and information technology to solve the country's energy needs during ConnectivityWeek 2008 at the Santa Clara Convention Center from May 20 - 22.
The conference focuses on the intelligent connectivity among building automation, demand response and smart-grid solutions as critical elements in fully adopting sustainable energy practices. By harnessing new information and sensor technologies, the power grid system could balance off-peak, inexpensive and renewable energy with current and forecasted high energy demands. ConnectivityWeek 2008 is organized by Clasma Events, Inc., the leading events planner for the energy, network connectivity and building automation industries.
Keynote Speakers
Each day of the event focuses on complementary topics relating to IT and grid connectivity. Keynote speakers will present on the second and third days of the conference. Speakers will include:
- Ahmad Faruqui, of the Brattle Group Inc., who will present a recent study which concludes that up to 20 percent of the future energy demand can be reduced through the use of demand-response programs to monitor, manage and more efficiently direct energy use.
- Kurt Yeager, executive director at the Galvin Electricity Initiative, will challenge the ConnectivityWeek audience to re-think the entire electric system, and consider the negative impact of the nation's aging power grid.
- Gordon Holness, treasurer of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating & Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) will discuss the HVAC/R industry's impact on residential and industrial energy consumption and the move toward green buildings.
- Mark Huston, co-president of Constellation Energy's customer supply group, will share his views on supplying renewable energy and demand-response products to North American wholesale and retail customers.
- Bringing an information technology vantage to the conference, Chris Stakutis, vice president of Computer Associates' emerging technologies division, will review the role of IT in recent energy conservation initiatives such as greening data centers, which have a carbon footprint equal to the world's airline industry.
- Jeffrey Byron, energy commissioner for California, the world's sixth largest economy, will share his perspective of the state's energy policy and how it relates to information technology.
Constellation Energy, the nation's largest competitive supplier of electricity to large commercial and industrial customers and the nation's largest wholesale power seller, is serving as ConnectivityWeek 2008's Platinum sponsor.