Agenda

When a crisis strikes, leaders are expected to respond with speed, clarity, and confidence—often in highly charged situations where instincts can work against effective communication. In today’s fast moving media environment, successful crisis communications requires a strategic approach focused on de escalation, trust building, and keeping stakeholders informed. This fast paced session provides practical guidance for managing high stakes situations before they spiral out of control. Participants will learn how to protect credibility, calm stakeholders, and maintain control of the narrative when it matters most.

Topics include:

• Establishing and maintaining control of the message
• Using social media to inform rather than inflame
• Working effectively with reporters during a crisis
• Navigating differences across TV, print, radio, and online media
• Responding when legal guidance conflicts with communication needs
• Communicating during extreme crisis events, including mass casualty incidents
   

Data centers can be a great engine for economic growth in some areas, but their development can be detrimental in other communities. With a thoughtful and focused approach public power entities can utilize data centers as a catalyst for investments to reduce system constraints and increase resilience. Get an overview of the current state of the data center industry and how to assess if your customer is credible.

How you communicate directly impacts your credibility, influence, and leadership effectiveness. Whether you’re presenting to city council, briefing a utility board, speaking with customers, or sharing updates with your team, your ability to communicate clearly and confidently matters.

In this engaging, hands-on workshop, participants will learn a simple, practical framework for structuring effective presentations, along with techniques to improve confidence, clarity, and audience engagement. 
Through interactive exercises, individual work time, and live coaching, attendees will refine their own presentations and receive actionable feedback on delivery, body language, and message structure. Designed for utility professionals at all levels, this workshop equips participants with tools they can immediately apply to strengthen their communication, increase their influence, and represent their organizations more effectively.

Topics include: 

• Structuring clear, compelling presentations 
• Building confidence and managing nerves 
• Strengthening verbal and nonverbal delivery 
• Engaging audiences through storytelling 
• Preparing for high-stakes speaking situations 
• Improving visuals, pacing, and overall presentation flow 
• Practicing skills with live coaching and feedback

Kick off the conference with an interactive peer discussion focused on your most pressing key accounts challenges that sets the stage for a collaborative and engaging conference experience. Exchange insights on managing large loads and navigating rate increases, share effective incentive strategies, and learn how fellow key account representatives are overcoming obstacles and delivering measurable wins.

It’s not just the channels of choice that have changed, how people are using and consuming social media has transformed in recent years. While now it is easier to create more accessible content and gauge users’ interest, the opportunities to criticize, organize opposition, and spread misinformation have increased. When a crisis hits, it will now play out on social media first. Gain a deeper understanding of the influence of social media and how you can leverage it to boost your organization and benefit customers, as well as how effective crisis management translates to managing a public social media presence.

Bring your list of hot topics and priorities in customer service to this lively discussion with your utility peers. Swap strategies and brainstorm potential solutions to mutual challenges.

Dive right into the top-of-mind issues on energy innovation and adoption, including addressing resource and workforce constraints. Join this peer driven discussion to exchange experiences and strategies that can help your utility move forward in a realistic, sustainable way. Topics include how to turn data-rich information into actionable insights, balancing grid modernization goals with budget realities, and responding to regulatory mandates that may outpace organizational capabilities.

Gather with your utility communications peers to discuss the latest opportunities and best practices in your work, including tips for mobilizing utility advocates, keeping internal communications effective and engaging, and what measurement and metrics offer meaningful insight.

Improving revenue recovery while minimizing account write-offs starts with addressing issues upstream before they become harder to solve. Learn how utilities are identifying high-risk accounts earlier in the billing cycle, how proactive outreach efforts can be effective, and other ways your utility can leverage data analytics to prioritize collection efforts.

Nuclear energy is poised to be the backbone of an affordable, reliable, and clean energy system. Small modular nuclear reactors could be valuable assets for utilities to maintain grid reliability and support climate goals. Learn where this tested technology stands and what the utilities pursuing advanced nuclear projects have accomplished and what's on the horizon.

Being a key accounts representative means serving as your utility’s trusted ambassador. Gain practical guidance and tips for how to represent your organization with confidence, professionalism, and strong business etiquette when engaging with your clients.

Community engagement can be one of your biggest reputation builders — but only if attending community events and ongoing outreach efforts match your team’s time, budget, and capacity with measurable impact. Review ready-to-use ways to measure success, discuss how to identify the right topics to engage on, and hear examples of how your peer utilities are building trust and sharing the public power story.

Explore how CPS Energy modernized its customer experience strategic indicators and learn about the utility’s journey to identify the true drivers of customer trust, as well as how to translate those insights into measurable improvements.

Public power utilities are increasingly expected to support electrification and flexible load growth without adding undue system cost or major infrastructure upgrades. Learn about Vermont Public Power Supply Authority’s partnership with Bellawatt to implement a “prices to devices” approach that connects customer devices directly to price signals — without AMI or fully integrated backend systems. Share how an EV focused program is evolving into a broader distributed energy resource management system strategy, along with practical lessons, tradeoffs, and insights on turning innovative concepts into scalable, customer centric solutions.

As data centers and advanced manufacturing drive unprecedented demand for power, success depends on how effectively utilities and customers work together from first inquiry through energization and long-term operations. Gain perspective on what data center teams value most in a utility partner, from speed and certainty in the interconnection and service process to clear capacity, transparent cost responsibilities, coordinated permitting and construction timelines, and reliable ongoing service. Hear practical approaches for structuring early-stage collaboration, aligning technical requirements, and setting expectations that reduce schedule risk and support confident investment decisions.

Utility energy efficiency programs — such as incentives, rebates, and weatherization — remain critical tools for managing peak demand while also enhancing the overall customer experience. Explore how you can leverage data from AMI, GIS, and other sources to gain a clearer understanding of customer demand and key contributors to peak load. Learn what data-driven insights can help evaluate demand savings potential, improve program impact, and deliver greater value to both the utility and your community.

Dissect why key account programs often fail, highlighting common issues related to strategy, clarity, prioritization, relationships, and follow-through. Get practical guidance and tools to help you strengthen your approach, operate your program more strategically, and build stronger, more effective partnerships.

Video is one of the most effective ways to make the public power story feel personal, whether you’re highlighting safety, reliability, community events, energy efficiency, or new utility programs. In this hands-on session, you’ll leave with a “grab-and-go” approach for planning, shooting, and publishing: simple shot lists, interview prompts, and practical guidance for capturing clear audio and great-looking footage quickly on the tools you already have. Share examples and proven tactics for helping shy frontline employees feel comfortable on camera — so you can feature authentic voices while staying on message and keeping production moving.

As customer expectations rise and utility call centers face increasing volume, artificial intelligence offers a practical path to faster, more accurate service. Get a peek into how public power utilities around the U.S. are leveraging AI-powered tools for functions including call routing, automated event categorization, and issue triage. Discuss where utilities are seeing success using these tools and how it can help reduce handle times, improve first-contact resolution, and free up staff to focus on complex customer needs. Review how to assess whether your utility is ready for AI and take away tips for implementation and adoption.

Your utility’s voice needs to work everywhere — on your website, social media, and emails — and maintain consistency whether attributed to an executive or subject matter experts. Dig into how public power communicators define tone, maintain consistency, and decide when it’s appropriate to be lighthearted in one moment and authoritative in the next — especially when shifting from everyday engagement to outage and crisis communications. Gain practical tips for brand voice governance, empowering SMEs, and using AI to support utility communicators (without replacing human judgement).

As customers continue to raise and face concerns on energy affordability, interactions between CSRs and customers over their monthly bills, or payment options when behind, can be increasingly stressful and strained. Walk through recent utility and ratepayer advocate case studies and discuss how to effectively and compassionately listen to customer challenges and work with them to manage bills and arrearages.

Utilities invest significant effort in designing programs, yet often lack insight into which customers are ready to participate or what will help them sign up. Explore how utilities of all sizes are using AI to gain customer intelligence to move beyond broad promotion toward smarter, targeted outreach. Hear what utilities have learned from pilot programs using AI-based tools to better identify customers for heat pump, EV rate, demand response, and other programs. Review considerations for effectively leveraging AI for customer program adoption to help your utility do more with less.

Find out how utilities are using smart rate design and pricing strategies for large loads to improve reliability, guide growth, and influence customer behavior — while remaining fair, simple, and competitive. Learn about tools to help you communicate the value of your rates, avoid under recovery and cross subsidization, evaluate contract options, and confidently price large load opportunities using real world lessons and proven frameworks.

Join your fellow communicators for a rapid-fire Q&A and brainstorming session to tackle your common challenges. Submit topics in advance to be sure you take home ideas you can try out right away.

Explore how to keep employees engaged and motivated amid frequent change and burnout from the day-to-day difficulties of a customer service position. Review ideas for effectively translating directives from senior leaders to your frontline teams and similarly supporting a feedback loop from your team to utility leadership.

Rapid growth in data center development — driven by AI and digital services — is reshaping electric load forecasts and raising concerns about affordability and system capacity, particularly for public power utilities serving rural areas. Examine findings from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on how battery energy storage systems deployed alongside data centers can help manage peak demand, reduce potential cost shifts, and defer or avoid expensive transmission, distribution, or generation upgrades. Discuss use cases where BESS can provide grid benefits such as cost effective peak shaving and reliability, and how to evaluate storage alongside alternative capacity solutions.

Learn what experienced key accounts representatives are doing to navigate common challenges in today’s evolving landscape. Hear which strategies have driven success in their utilities, and gain candid lessons and practical insights into what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what makes sense for your key accounts. Then discuss key takeaways and exchange ideas for strengthening your key account program and driving meaningful impact in small group roundtables.