The Week in Moments
Introduction
The 4th Annual Utility Solutions Forum brought utility leaders together during Climate Week NYC on September 22 and 23, 2026, at the North Javits Center (Nest Campus). Hosted by NPUC in partnership with Motive Power, two half-days gave 47 leaders from 29 organizations room for candid, peer-level conversation on this year’s theme, Utilities at the Center of America’s Energy Expansion.
Each day opened with a keynote or fireside chat, followed by a panel and a hands-on interactive challenge, with short panels rather than presentations. Motive Power also took the Momentum Stage and Main Stage during the week. Here is what happened, who joined us, and where it goes next.
Forum Day 1: Powering the AI Boom
Day 1 asked how utilities can serve a surge in AI and data center demand without hurting reliability or existing customers. Denise Owusu, Decarbonization Manager at Motive Power and Lead of the NPUC, opened the forum with the keynote “The New Load Paradigm,” outlining five moves utilities can make now. An executive utility panel followed, moderated by Katerina Deliargyris with Nadine Zerrini of DC Water and Vandan Divatia of Eversource. Tables then took on a challenge: three hyperscale developers want to nearly double projected load growth, so what would you pilot in the next 90 days? Answers centered on starting with the community and making large loads pay their own way.
Forum Day 2: Reliable, Resilient, Affordable
Day 2 widened the lens to the whole system: keeping the grid reliable, resilient, and affordable as demand grows and severe weather becomes more frequent. Dave Tamayo, Board President of SMUD, joined Denise for the opening fireside chat on the utility of 2035. The Utility Leadership Panel, moderated by Kyle Loving of Motive Power, brought together Kevin Hale of NYSERDA, Gerardo Delgado of Nicor Gas, and Kedaar Raman of NYPA. The day’s challenge asked how to build a more reliable grid without passing significant costs to customers, and the tables came back with ideas like “Bring Your Own Battery” and using EV fleets as backup power.
Momentum Stage: From Footprint to Impact
On September 23, Julie Hewitt of The Gulch Environmental Foundation and Katerina Deliargyris of Motive Power took the Momentum Stage with a simple message: you made your trip, now make it count. Attendee travel to Climate Week NYC could create about 24,000 tons of CO2e. The Gulch Carbon Calculator lets attendees measure their trip, understand it, and offset it, supporting carbon drawdown at Rainmaker Farm in Oklahoma. Motive Power has offset 4,850 tons so far this year.
Watch the full “From Footprint to Impact” session on YouTube.
Main Stage: Keynote and Fireside Chat
On September 24, Denise Owusu opened the Main Stage with a keynote on her work leading the NPUC and this year’s Utility Decarbonization Report. She then moderated “Women in Charge: Two Coasts, Two CEOs, One Power Bill” with Tamla Olivier, CEO of Baltimore Gas & Electric, and Lora Anguay, CEO of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. The conversation covered cutting the plan before asking customers for more, why pace and public trust are the barriers to powering data centers, and how data centers can work if they pay their way.
Fireside chat with Tamla Olivier and Lora Anguay. Video courtesy of The Nest Campus.
Who Attended
Forty-seven leaders from 29 organizations joined us across both days. Utilities in the room included Con Edison, DC Water, DTE Energy, Eversource, LADWP, National Grid, Nicor Gas, NYPA, and SMUD, alongside technology providers, state agencies, and universities from across the energy ecosystem.
Join Us in 2027
The Utility Solutions Forum grows every year. If you’d like to be part of Climate Week NYC 2027, as an attendee, a speaker, or a sponsor, tell us a little about yourself and we’ll be in touch.