Rocky Mountain Institute Announces Leading-Edge Topics for e^–Lab Summit 2018

Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sept. 5, 2018 — Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) today announced
the 2018 focus areas for its Electricity Innovation Lab (e^–Lab) Summit, an annual
multistakeholder workshop for electricity leaders and decision makers advancing
solutions at the grid’s distribution edge.

Led by RMI, e^–Lab brings together leading industry actors to develop, implement and scale new
solutions that will enable the nation to transition to an electricity system that is clean, resilient,
accessible and secure. E^–Lab Summit is being held outside Albuquerque, New Mexico,
September 5–7, 2018.

“E^–Lab aims to inspire and support change agents in the US electricity sector,” said Coreina
Chan, a principal at RMI who oversees e^–Lab. “We are helping to create the most critical
concepts and tests with the most critical people in the industry. We’ll be hosting representatives
from utilities large and small, regulatory agencies, technology providers, investors, customer
voices and others who are coming together to help answer some of the toughest questions we
face today in the industry.”

Summit participants join small discussion groups to frame and advance actionable strategies to
address the following key areas of innovation:

• Integrated System Planning for New Resource Capabilities: How can generation,
  transmission and distribution system planning be integrated to better account for a wider
  range of resource capabilities? How should utilities define system needs and run
  procurement in a way that considers all asset types (categorized by technology, scale
  and location on the system)?
• Wholesale Market Rules and Products for Distributed Energy Resources
  (DERs): What new products or rule changes are needed to allow DERs to compete on a
  level playing field with utility-scale assets in wholesale electricity markets? What is the
  role of aggregation?
• Making the Leap to Comprehensive Regulatory Reform: How do regulators and/or
  utilities bypass incremental changes to cost-of-service regulation and make a
  transformative shift to comprehensive utility reform?
• Achieving Ubiquitous Participation in Demand Side Management/Energy
  Efficiency Programs: What are the best approaches for engaging utility customers in
  demand side management/energy efficiency programs to make participation the norm
  rather than the exception? What role can nonutility organizations play?
• Low- and Moderate-Income Customer Engagement in Regulatory
  Proceedings: How can major regulatory reform processes be improved to better meet the needs of low- and moderate-income customers and communities? What is the most effective way to include them in these proceedings?
• Defining Delivery and Compensation for Resilience: How do we define delivery of resilience and how do we compensate for it? What market products/services or contract structures are most suitable for enabling DERs to provide resilience?
• Transforming Rural Electric Supply: Co-ops and DERs: How can cooperative and municipal utilities transition from investments in traditional resources to new business models incorporating DERs (e.g., distributed solar and storage)?
• Business Models and Policies for Building Electrification: What business models and/or policies are needed to deliver maximum value from building electrification? How should we manage the risk of stranded natural gas assets?

For more information on e^–Lab’s unique problem-solving approach and past projects, see
https://rmi.org/our-work/electricity/elab-electricity-innovation-lab/

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About Rocky Mountain Institute
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)—an independent nonprofit founded in 1982—transforms global
energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future. It engages businesses,
communities, institutions, and entrepreneurs to accelerate the adoption of market-based
solutions that cost-effectively shift from fossil fuels to efficiency and renewables. RMI has offices
in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Beijing.

CONTACT:
Todd Zeranski
Marketing Manager, Rocky Mountain Institute
Tel: 917-670-6568
Email: tzeranski@rmi.org