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Quarterly Meeting: Making Emerging Technology Work in the Agricultural Space

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This ETCC meeting will bring together customers, utilities, manufacturers, and industry experts in the area of the rapidly changing agriculture and food processing landscape.  Speakers will provide insight into recent and current projects that incorporate emerging technologies and assess their demand side management benefits.  Panelists will also address current agricultural and food processing industry trends, and discuss how new technology can address evolving needs.  Finally, speakers will highlight new products and technologies that have beneficial energy and water efficiency impacts for agriculture and food processing customers.

Agenda

Subject to change

9:00 AM     Breakfast and Networking

10:00 AM   Introduction, Safety and ETCC Updates

10:20 AM   What Does Success Look Like? Building a Partnership with the ET Program

Rich in opportunities, the agriculture and food processing sector faces many hurdles to adoption of promising new technologies for optimizing energy and water use. Utility ET programs can help overcome those barriers by working with customers, local universities and providing a successful proving ground for advanced technologies. Panelists will share their own stories of working with new technologies that curbs energy use and provides additional benefits for production of clean energy.

  • Moderator: Dean Kunesh, Senior Solutions Marketing Manager, PG&E
  • Tom O'Donnell, Principal Engineer, E&J Gallo Winery
  • Dan Sonke, Manager of Ag Sustainability Programs, Campbell Soup Company

11:40 AM   Networking Lunch

12:45 PM    Field to Market: What are the Needs in the Agricultural Space?

This panel will lay out Ag industry trends such as consolidation of small farms, the movement towards more locally grown food, and the need for water conservation, among others. As resources become scarce, technology becomes more vital to the agriculture and food processing sector.  Panelists will touch upon opportunities for new technologies to meet these imminent and future needs.

  • Moderator: Robert Parkhurst, Director, Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Markets, Environmental Defense Fund
  • Stuart Styles, Director, Irrigation Training Center, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
  • Laurie Park, Principal, Water Energy Innovations, Inc.
  • Neil Black, President, California Bioenergy

1:55 PM      Break

2:15 PM      Emerging Solutions: What Technologies are Available for the Agricultural Space?

This panel continues the discussion of technology needs in the agriculture and food processing sector. Panelists will seek to highlight promising new technologies and solutions that can address some of the energy and water management challenges faced by customers today. The panel will also look at market, policy and cost barriers that might need to be addressed to help these technologies scale.

  • Moderator: Carolyn Weiner, Manager, Industrial Ag and Water Program, PG&E
  • Yanbao Ma, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, UC Merced
  • Krishna Somayajula, Engineer, CLEAResult
  • Doug Scott, President and Founder, VaCom

3:25 PM      Wrap Up and Networking

Link to Recording: ETCC Q2 2016 Quarterly Meeting - April 26, 2016

Location
PG&E Energy Training Center, 3136 Boeing Way, Stockton, CA 95206 and via Webinar
Event Type
Quarterly Meeting
Event Host
  • Pacific Gas & Electric Company logo
  • Southern California Edison Company logo
  • Southern California Gas Company logo
  • San Diego Gas & Electric Company logo
  • Sacramento Municipal Utility District logo
  • Los Angeles Department of Water and Power logo
  • CEC logo

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The ETCC is funded in part by ratepayer dollars and the California IOU Emerging Technologies Program, the IOU Codes & Standards Planning & Coordination Subprograms, and the Demand Response Emerging Technologies (DRET) Collaborative programs under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission. The municipal portion of this program is funded and administered by Sacramento Municipal Utility District and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.