Three September sessions have wrapped. Workforce Development spent two days on Long Island, the Storm Team Subcommittee met virtually on September 15, hosted by FPL, and the Load Forecasting Workshop spent two days in Denver on forecasting methods and practice, run as a working session rather than a lecture.
Part two takes up large load in Chicago, November 12 and 13. Data centers and what they do to the forecast. Registration is open, and you will not be lost if you missed the first workshop.
Challenge 02: Upgrading Aging Assets in the New Normal.
The second challenge took up the assets that will actually fail, and how a utility evidences a replacement program when the failure history cannot be joined to the asset it happened on. The Challenge Brief is live, and the Flight Plan goes to participants.
The GAP meetings and challenge launches take place on the second Tuesday of each month at 2:00 PM Eastern. Challenge 03 opens next.
The Center's six-module AI course launched August 27 and runs through December. Two sessions are done.
Module 2 asked the room to name one number where two of their own systems disagree. The answers sorted into five kinds of conflict, which is the useful part.
Module 3, Who Decides What, is Thursday, October 1, 4:00 PM Eastern, with Hagen Haentsch of Oncor. It is not too late to join. The sessions are not recorded, but the slides and a write-up of what the room said go up after each one. Catch up on those and walk into Module 3 with everyone else.
Andrea Dennis is Vice President of Transmission and Distribution Operations at OG&E and a member of the AEIC Board, and she takes the Power Delivery chair on September 30. She oversees the infrastructure that keeps the lights on across OG&E's service territory, and she brings that operating view into the Association's strategic conversations.
She also ran recruitment for the new Transmission System Operations subcommittee.
In her words: “AEIC doesn't replace internal expertise, it amplifies it by shortening the learning curve on decisions.”
The Data Framework Working Group brings utility leaders and practitioners together to turn data into real operational value.
The first draft of the group's Reference Guide, The Data Foundation Beneath Operational Decisions, is done. For a copy, or to get plugged in, email Elizabeth Cook at ecook@aeic.org.
This month's featured episode is Episode 89, with Ron Shepherd, Senior Director of Field Operations at PPL Electric Utilities, who chairs AEIC's Safety Subcommittee.
The subcommittee found that the industry got good at teaching frontline crews how to do the work, and drifted away from teaching why. His case for getting back to the why, and for starting with culture, comes down to one line: “If you have a safe workforce, you have a productive workforce.”
The Center for Operational Excellence is sustained by its Founding Donors: Quanta Services, Emerson, Stellar Energy and Siemens Energy. They committed at the close of 2025 and now anchor the base behind the Center's programs, including the Data Framework Working Group, the Grid Advancement Program, the Critical Issue Forums and the Grid Mod Pod.
This month the Center recognizes Stellar Energy, third in the series after Quanta in July and Emerson in August, with Siemens Energy in October.
Stellar Energy builds turbine inlet air chilling and thermal energy storage systems, the equipment that holds generation output up when ambient temperature is working against it. It is a narrow specialty and an operational one, which is why the support fits. A company whose business is the performance of existing assets on the hottest days of the year is backing a center that operators built around the same problem.
Members who want the longer version can hear their CEO, Marco Sanchez, on Grid Mod Pod episode 68.
Support the Center
Support the work closest to what you do.
If your company is interested in supporting the Center for Operational Excellence, Steve Hauser will take the conversation directly.
