Keynote Case Study: Indiana Municipal Power Authority — The Future of Energy Moves Before Regulation

IMPA brought futurist Jim Carroll to its 2019 annual meeting in French Lick, Indiana to show municipal-power leaders how wind, solar, battery storage, microgrids and electric vehicles were already changing the grid.

The Future of Energy Moves Before Regulation

Small and mid-size municipal utilities must make long-lived decisions while technology costs, generation sources and load patterns keep changing quickly. Jim’s keynote made the case that innovation leaders move early and treat disruption as opportunity rather than waiting for permission.

Six trends are shaping that shift.

• Wind + Solar. Renewable generation expands the mix and changes assumptions about where and how electricity is produced.
• Battery Storage. Falling storage costs create new options for balancing supply, demand and resilience.
• Microgrids. Distributed systems give communities new ways to manage local generation and continuity.
• Electric Vehicles. EV adoption introduces a new and potentially significant source of electricity demand.
• Grid Intelligence. A more distributed grid requires more data, visibility and active system management.
• Innovation Leadership. Public-power leaders need the confidence to act before every technology and policy question is settled.

The energy transition rewards utilities that plan early, experiment fast and learn before the curve arrives, Jim told the IMPA membership.

It’s the line municipal-power leaders in French Lick took back to their own boards. Explore more keynote case studies.