Conference Tracks

2018 ESTAC Speakers

• Erik Bakke
  

  Sr. Account Executive, EnerNOC, an Enel Group Company

  Erik develops renewable energy assets leveraging energy storage technologies for projects “behind the meter” in commercial, industrial and multi-tenant buildings.

  Prior to joining Enel, Erik led solar project development in the Western U.S., providing technology and capital for distributed energy projects at EnSync Energy Systems. His expertise in power generation began with GE Energy in 1991. He has held leadership roles in the solar industry since 2006 with GE Solar, SMA, Conergy and with Sol Systems, a preeminent solar finance and development company.

  As the Sales Leader for Commercial projects with SMA Solar, Erik launched large project inverter sales while creating the market for integrated power platforms on the first utility scale solar projects in Canada and the United States. As early as 2006, as the Regional Manager of Conergy’s US SunTechnics division, Erik built and led sales, engineering and project management teams to deliver turnkey solar PV systems up to 1.2 MW including the first solar-powered grocery store portfolio in California.

• Richard J Bravo
  

  Senior Engineer, Southern California Edison (SCE)

  Richard is a Senior Engineer in Integrated Innovation and Modernization at Southern California Edison. He has worked on various projects including the upgrade of motor control centers for oil exploration, control systems upgrades for pipelines and truck loading racks, SCE satellite communications, SCE's Delayed Voltage Recovery project, load performance during transient conditions, and SCE solar PV inverter generation performance in distribution system. Richard graduated from California State University, Long Beach with both BSEE and MSEE. He earned a Power Systems Sequential Program Certificate from University of California in Los Angeles and holds Professional Engineer license in electrical engineering from the State of California.

• Rahul Chopra
  

  Sr. Advisor/Program Development Specialist, Energy Technologies Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  Leader, Grid Integration Group, Energy Storage & Distributed Resources Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  Rahul is a serial entrepreneur and a partner at Ventus Partners and advises leading Venture Capital Funds, technology incubators, and new startups in the fields of energy and telecom infrastructure, healthcare IT, and technology related business models and markets. At Lawrence Berkeley, Rahul is a Sr. Advisor for Energy Technologies Area where he focuses on Public Private Partnerships, business development, new business ideas and models, and strategic alliances across the area. As a Rockefeller Fellow and as an Advisor to the City of San Francisco's Mayor and Board, Rahul chairs the P3 Committee on Fiber Everywhere where he is responsible for fundraising and revenue for citywide fiber asset P3. In addition to serving on the Boards of multiple technology firms, start-ups, foundations and various local governments advising on city infrastructure, Rahul works closely with the leading venture and PE firms as an advisor on the west coast in diverse industries that span energy, wireless, and healthcare infrastructures creation and optimization. Having founded 2 high-tech startups and raised over $200M in capital and completed over $1Billion in transactions, Rahul has over 20 years of financial, transactions, corporate development and strategy expertise in launching and growing disruptive, high-tech businesses. Prior to startups, Rahul ran multiple hundred million dollar businesses at 3COM and NORTEL. Rahul is a Graduate of Columbia University and the University of California Berkeley. Patents: 2 in MIMO for wireless and Dynamic Call Control for Unified Messaging (aka Apple Visual Mail, Google Voice etc.)

• Marcel Christians
  

  Chief Technology Officer, Ice Energy

  Marcel serves as Ice Energy’s Chief Technology Officer.

  He joined Ice Energy in the summer of 2015. Under Marcel’s guidance, the Ice Energy product development team has expanded the product portfolio to include the Ice Bear 40, the residential Ice Bear 10 and Ice Bear 20, as well as the Polar Bear product line for refrigeration applications.

  At Ice Energy, Marcel also leads efforts to promote and educate on engineering best practices, process improvements and quality standards. In addition to product development and new application efforts, he and the R&D team have extended the storage capacities of existing products while reducing product cost and footprint. Marcel is dedicated to a strategy of exhaustive innovation ensuring Ice Energy's intellectual property is fully realized to produce a comprehensive suite of energy storage, cooling and heating solutions for global residential and C&I markets.

  Prior to joining Ice Energy, Marcel worked at UTC Carrier Corporation’s Technology and Components Division where he designed and developed disruptive heat transfer technologies and systems for the chiller market.

  Marcel holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland, where he studied under the tutelage of world-renowned heat transfer expert Prof. John Thome. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Pretoria, in South Africa with a M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering.

• Ed Cortez
  

  Principal Electrical Engineering, City of Riverside – Public Utilities Department

  Ed Cortez has over 25 years of experience in electric transmission and distribution system capital improvement, reliability, automation and power quality projects. He is responsible for managing the Communications, System Planning, Substation Engineering and Protection groups for Riverside Public Utilities. Mr. Cortez directs and supervises the deployment and integration of electric systems to support the business processes related with advanced grid technologies and system reliability. He is also responsible for the development and implementation of goals, objectives, policies and priorities of Riverside Public Utilities.

  He previously worked for DNV GL and was the technical lead in providing engineering and application support utilizing the Synergi Electric software products on a global basis. He has broad integration experience in the delivery of implementation services for GIS, CIS, OMS, SCADA, and AMI projects. He began his career with the City of Anaheim – Public Utilities, where he evaluated and recommended infrastructure improvements that met current and future needs. He graduated from California State Polytechnic University at Pomona with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering.

• Daniel Elliott
  

  President & CEO, EnerBlue, Inc.

  Daniel Elliott is the President and Chief Executive Officer of EnerBlu, Inc. a high-power electrical energy storage solution company bringing innovative technologies and products benefiting from EnerBlu’s lowest manufacturing cost eLTOTM battery technology. Mr. Elliott is leading the development of a state-of-the-art gigawatt eLTO manufacturing plant on a 144-acre campus located on reclaimed coal mine land in Pikeville, Eastern Kentucky to produce systems and vehicles. These include pre-engineered hybridization and microgrid systems for stationary, utility grade grid energy storage systems, all-electric trucks, school buses and shuttle buses. Mr. Elliott is a recognized leader in business development and strategy in the sustainable energy sector. Mr. Elliott has worked with leading battery technologies for mobile and grid based systems including Ford Motor Company, DaimlerChrysler, Honda R&D, Nissan, Mitsubishi, SiemensVDO, Delphi, Magna Steyr, Bosch, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Toshiba, Coslight, Yintong Energy and others. Mr. Elliott has worked globally to identify and commercialize leading edge technologies and has led corporate M&A transactions, capital raising, technology validation, manufacturing plant construction, strategic partnership developments and other key activities associated with business success and growth. In 2008, Mr. Elliott advised President GW Bush on renewable energy for transportation; he has also won the Department of Energy’s “Energy Innovators Award” for his work in rapid charging and high C rate battery technology commercialization.

• Mike Gravely
  

  Team Leader for Energy Technology Systems Integration for the Energy Research and Development Division, California Energy Commission (CEC)

  Mike Gravely is the Team Leader for Energy Technology Systems Integration for the Energy Research and Development Division at the California Energy Commission. In this role, he oversees the full spectrum of research activities to improve the California Electric Grid including: implementing the California Smart Grid, assessing future energy storage needs for California, determining the benefit and value of microgrids and distributed energy resources, addressing the grid related issues associated with integrating higher concentrations of renewables, evaluating new advanced generation systems, expanding demand response solutions for California, and addressing natural gas infrastructure safety and reliability. His team is managing over $150 million in microgrid and energy storage research and demonstration projects.

  In his over 15 years at the California Energy Commission, he has held key roles as a scientist, supervisor, office manager, deputy division chief and senior engineer addressing the wide range of energy issues facing California and the Nation. Over his years with the Commission, he has worked on addressing the challenges facing the electric grid as California transitions to a new world of higher and higher concentration of renewables. He has also worked actively with the government offices of the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation and other state energy offices such as New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington to share information and develop partnerships. He has had the pleasure of overseeing hundreds of research grants to move energy technologies from the laboratory to the field and eventually to commercial success.

  Mike has over 30 years of engineering and integration experience in the energy, aerospace and communications fields. Prior to the Energy Commission, Mike served in executive positions in the Federal Government and private industry including managing research, testing and fielding of distributed generation and energy storage systems for the Department of Defense, addressing the business challenges of a startup energy storage company and overseeing a staffing and training company that specialized in serving the utility industry. Mike Gravely has a BSEE from the Virginia Military Institute and an MSEE from California State University at Sacramento.

• Matt Gregori
  

  Technology Development Manager, Southern California Gas Company

  Matt Gregori serves as a Technology Development Manager for Low Carbon Resources in the SoCalGas Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) group. In this role, he seeks out new clean energy technologies that are ready for deployment at the pilot or demonstration scale. His current focus is on technologies that convert woody biomass or renewable electricity into Renewable Natural Gas for injection into the natural gas grid.

  During his career in the clean energy field, Matt has built and operated various types of clean energy projects, from biodiesel production facilities to food waste anaerobic digesters.

  Matt earned a B.S. in Chemistry at The California Institute of Technology and an MBA at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.

• Juchen Guo
  

  Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside- Chemical and Environmental Engineering

  Juchen Guo earned his Bachelor degree from Zhejiang University in 1999 and his Ph.D. from University of Maryland in 2007, both in Chemical Engineering. From 2007 to 2012, he worked as postdoctoral researcher at University of Maryland (2007 to 2011) and Cornell University (2011 to 2012). He joined the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at University of California, Riverside as an Assistant Professor in summer 2012. His research interests are interfacial phenomena and material properties in electrochemical systems including Li-ion, Li-S, and multivalent ion batteries. He is the recipient of 2014 Hellman Fellowship and 2018 NSF CAREER Award.

• Pirouz Kavehpour
  

  Professor and Vice chairman of MAE Dept., University of California, Los Angeles

  Prof. H. Pirouz Kavehpour is professor and vice chairman of graduate studies in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCLA. He is also director of the Complex Fluid & Interfacial Physics Laboratory. He received his B.S from Sharif University of Technology (Tehran, Iran) in 1991, and his M.S. in 1997 at the University of Rhode Island where he investigated the heat transfer and fluid mechanics of gaseous flows in microchannels. Dr. Kavehpour performed his Ph.D. research at MIT (2003) in the Hatsopoulos Microfluids Laboratory. He stayed at MIT for his post-doctoral research on the lubricity and rheology of complex fluids in microfluidic devices and in high-speed fiber-coating processes. Prof. Kavehpour’s research includes energy storage, CHP/CCHP, Microgrids and intergration of renewables for low income communities. Prof. Kavehpour is fellow of ASME, and recipient of L. E. Scriven young investigator award from the International Society of Coating Science and Technology. He is also a recipient of the Army Young Investigator award (YIP) for his research on interfacial properties of the ionic liquids with application to batteries.

• GJ la O'
  

  VP Technology, Primus Power

  GJ la O’ is a VP of Technology at Primus Power. He received the B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2001 and the Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT in 2008. He joined Primus Power in 2009 and has been instrumental in leading the technology development of a low-cost, high-power and robust flow battery system. Primus Power's proprietary EnergyPod® flow battery employs only one tank of electrolyte solution and one pump (vs. two for others), a patented bromine electrode and zinc electrode and no separator (which typically need to be replaced in 5-10 years) – together these lower footprint, increase lifetime and reduce cost. He has published over a dozen articles in refereed journal articles in the field of electrochemistry and electrochemical energy sources and has presented at over thirty conference and industry presentations. He has 23 patents issued.

• Michael Lee
  

  Technologist, Electrochemical Technologies Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CA Institute of Technology)

  Michael Lee is a Business Development Manager at Smarter Grid Solutions. He is a 10-year veteran of the renewable energy markets, including domestic and international project development. Prior to joining SGS, he participated in renewables + storage projects at First Wind for 15 and 10 MW batteries to integrate wind in Hawaii. At SunEdison, he worked on several DG solar + storage projects as part of the first California SGIP tranche. Michael holds a degree in finance from Ohio State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

• Seyed H Madaeni
  

  Senior VP of Product Strategy, Advanced Microgrid Solutions

  Dr. Seyed Madaeni is Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at AMS where he leads product, engineering and R&D organizations focused on optimizing AMS's portfolio of energy assets in global wholesale electricity markets. Prior to AMS, Seyed worked at Tesla where he led electricity market participation and trading, and successfully built and operationalized the trading platform for integrating the world's largest li-ion ion battery in Australia's wholesale electricity market. Seyed has also held Principal positions at SolarCity and Pacific Gas & Electric which he has collaborated with utilities, regulators and other stakeholders to identify opportunities to effectively integrate and leverage distributed energy resources to benefit the grid and its customers.

  Seyed has published numerous academic papers in prestigious journals such as IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Proceedings of IEEE, Energy Systems, as well as technical reports for National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Seyed holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Tehran and Ph.D. in. Systems Engineering (Operations Research) from The Ohio State University.

• Jin Noh
  

  Policy Manager, California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA)

  Jin Noh is CESA's Policy Manager and manages policy and regulatory affairs for CESA at various proceedings and initiatives at the CAISO, CPUC, and CEC. Jin currently leads CESA’s efforts in energy storage planning and procurement, including market and program designs to enable utility-scale and customer-sited energy storage services. Prior to CESA, Jin worked for four years as a Research Analyst at SRI International working on a range of science, technology, and innovation consulting projects for public and private sector clients, such as the New York State Energy & Research Development Authority (NYSERDA). Jin has also worked previously with other various energy sector clients, such as Sfuncube, Sonoma Clean Power, and the Department of Energy. Jin received a B.A. in Public Policy Studies and Economics from Duke University and a M.P.P. from the University of California, Berkeley.

• Mihri Ozkan
  

  Frontier Fellow of National Academy of Engineering; Medalist for Engineering Science, University of California, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California-Riverside

  Prof. Mihri Ozkan is a faculty at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in UCRiverside. She completed her graduate studies at Stanford University and at UC-San Diego. She is “the Climate Action Champion" and “Change Maker Professor” of UC-Riverside. Ozkan believes that adaptation of electric vehicles by 2040 depends on improvements on affordability, battery storage capacity, and battery durability. In addition, she says this requires breakthroughs in raw materials, new battery technologies, material processing and battery manufacturing. Hence, Ozkan aims to reduce the cost of anode and cathode raw materials, use new robust and safer battery architectures and performance increase in Li-ion batteries by using renewable and recyclable resources. Her work on developing batteries using in-expensive and abundant renewable resources such as mushrooms, beach sand and diatomite fossils and waste materials such as recycled glass and plastics won Ozkan “the Top 100 Author award” from the Nature publishing group. Furthermore, her battery research is featured many times in popular news outlets such as Forbes, Guardian, New York Times, Time, BBC, TBS, Discovery News, Popular Science, Huffington Post and more. Ozkan advised about 70 graduate students, mainly PhDs. She published about 300 technical papers (Citations: 6580, H-Index: 41, i10-index: 106). She has about 12 UC patents and more than 67 patent disclosures. About 20 of her patents are licensed by the industry. She received national and international honors including; “the National Medal for Engineering Science Award” from the Society of Engineering Science, “the Frontiers of Engineering Honor” by the National Academy of Engineering, “Engineering Educator of the Year Award” by the National Engineers Council, “Young Investigator Award” by the Army Research Laboratories and “the Emerging Scholar Award” by the American Association of University Women.

• Kent Redwine
  

  EVP, Special Projects and Development, EnerBlu, Inc.

  Kent Redwine is the EVP of Special Projects and Development at EnerBlu, Inc. a high-power, electrical energy storage solution company bringing innovative technologies and products benefiting from EnerBlu’s lowest manufacturing cost eLTO™ battery technology. EnerBlü is building a state-of-the-art gigawatt scale, eLTO manufacturing plant on a 144-acre campus located on reclaimed coalmine land in Pikeville, Eastern Kentucky to produce systems and vehicles. These include pre-engineered hybridization and microgrid systems for stationary, utility grade grid energy storage systems, all-electric trucks, school buses and shuttle buses. Mr. Redwine began his career as an investment banker at Bank of America and Thomas Weisel Partners focused on technology M&A, where he executed nearly $20 billion in transaction volume. Since 2007, he has been focused almost exclusively on the commercialization of battery technologies and systems, including development of eLTO material production. Mr. Redwine received a BA in Chemistry and Economics from Claremont McKenna College and was a summer associate at Lawrence Livermore National Labs.

• Sarah Tolbert
  

  Professor, UCLA – Departments of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Materials Science & Engineering

  Sarah H. Tolbert is a professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Materials Science and Engineering at UCLA. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA, she received a B.S. from Yale University, a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley as an NSF graduate fellow, and was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at U.C. Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on controlling nanometer-scale architecture in solution-processed nanomaterials to generate unique optical, electronic, magnetic, structural, and electrochemical properties. She has published over 150 scholarly research article. Her group specifically focuses on electrochemical energy storage (including both pseudocapacitors and batteries), solar energy harvesting, electrocatalysis, nanomagnetics, and new ultra-hard materials. She also leads a program aimed at bringing nano-concepts to schools throughout the greater LA area. Professor Tolbert is the recipient of a number of awards and honors including Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Chemical Society R.A. Glen Award, Closs and Barrer Lectureships at the University of Chicago and Penn. State, respectively, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, an NSF CAREER Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, and a Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship. She serves on the editorial advisory boards of Chemistry of Materials, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, and Nanoscale Horizons.

• Antonio Tong
  

  R & D Engineer, University of San Diego - Center for Energy Research

  Antonio Tong is a senior engineer at the University of California San Diego. His work is focused on battery energy storage system modeling, management, control, and their integration in conjunction with smart grid, solar PV and electrified transportation. He is serving as the principal investigator for the DoE funded ARPAe CHARGES project, validating advanced energy storage technologies for the future utility grid. He is also affiliated with many energy storage deployments and research projects on the campus, including the BMW second life EV battery stationary storage system, the first of its kind to be deployed in the United States. Prior to that, he worked at the University of California Davis as a graduate researcher. He developed one of the first pilot systems that reuse EV batteries in a solar-storage smart home. He also led the creation of the community scale microgrid at the UC Davis Robert Mondavi Institute utilizing PV plus storage to provide renewable energy for viticulture and brewery research. He has over ten publications in battery management, smart grid, electrified vehicles, fuel cells. Antonio Tong received his Ph.D. from the University of California-Davis and Bachelor of Science from Zhejiang University in China, both in mechanical engineering.

• Will West
  

  Technologist, Electrochemical Technologies Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CA Institute of Technology)

  Dr. Will West is a Technologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he works as Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator, or Task Manager for research and technology development programs related to electrochemistry and energy storage/conversion. In addition to his ongoing R&D activities, he presently serves as Cognizant Engineer for the rover and descent stage batteries on the JPL’s Mars 2020 mission. He received his B.S.E. degree in Chemical Engineering, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science Engineering from Arizona State University. After completing his Ph.D., Dr. West served as a Postdoctoral Scholar at Caltech and JPL. He has worked as Prototyping Co-Lead at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (Caltech), consultant for numerous research and development firms, expert witness for the U. S. Department of Justice, lecturer at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, and as Associate Professor at Nagoya University (Japan). He holds 31 U.S. and international patents, and is author/co-author on approximately 60 journal articles and 90 conference presentations, and co-edited/co-authored the Handbook of Solid State Batteries.