The Tennessee Valley Authority on July 25 will host the first-ever Tennessee Valley Women’s Policy Summit, in conjunction with Engage, which is a bipartisan women’s organization.
The event will bring together policymakers, business and community leaders to discuss how energy, environment, and economic development can drive financial security and economic empowerment for women in the Tennessee Valley.
TVA said that key themes of the event will be as follows:
- Women are a driving force in helping shape how the energy industry moves forward, as their leadership roles in public power and policy expands and grows more representative of the communities being served.
- Maintaining affordability and reliability while meeting energy demand growth is vital to securing economic opportunity and managing energy burden for families.
- Strong partnerships between the private and public sectors, and between economic sectors are required to maintain and build upon our sustainable energy economy.
- Workforce pipelines must ensure opportunities for women in clean energy transition, including workforce development, STEM education, training, talent pipeline, and leadership opportunities.
There are three panels that are scheduled to take place at the summit:
Panel 1: Partnering to Meet Growing Demand and Ensure Reliability
Panel 2: Ensuring Energy Affordability and Investing in Innovation
Panel 3: Providing Opportunities for Women in the Energy Economy
Partnering to Meet Growing Demand and Ensure Reliability
Industry experts and policymakers will discuss reliability and load growth issues. They will highlight the challenges the electricity sector faces with high levels of demand from on-shoring of manufacturing, data centers and AI, and electrification as it retires aging infrastructure, builds new generation, and complies with changing policy and environmental regulations.
Discussion will focus on ways the sector is working to meet this challenge, and how distributors, generators, end-users and policymakers can partner to help.
Ensuring Energy Affordability and Investing in Innovation
Industry experts and policymakers will discuss the infrastructure investments needed to meet load growth and the new technologies needed to increase efficiency and modernize the grid.
They will highlight the importance of maintaining affordability for energy customers while making these investments, including effective community engagement strategies to increase awareness of programs that help lower energy bills. Discussion will also focus on innovative solutions to maximize the efficiency of existing infrastructure and the deployment of distributed solutions, what policy solutions are in place to help, and any lessons we can learn from other sectors.
Providing Opportunities for Women in the Energy Economy
Industry experts and policymakers will discuss the many opportunities that come along with the challenges the energy sector is facing to meet increasing demand while maintaining affordability and reliability.
They will highlight the opportunities for women in the energy transition and how industry stakeholders can work together to create workforce pipelines and ensure women will benefit.
Discussion will also focus on the best ways to engage in communities to inform the creation of strategies and programs, and how STEM education and supplier diversity initiatives are key to developing the future workforce the industry needs.
While the event is space-constrained and will not be open-invitation, details on major takeaways from the event will be the focus of a future episode of APPA’s Public Power Now podcast.
