Beneficial Electrification

Details

Join the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University for Beneficial Electrification featuring industry experts.

Duquesne Light Company, Pittsburgh’s local electricity utility, and Carnegie Mellon University’s Wilton E. Scott Institute of Energy Innovation are hosting an event that brings together a key group of stakeholders on beneficial electrification in the built environment and the impact this transition will have in our local communities.

Join us as we explore beneficial electrification as a strategy to address energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This event is an opportunity to educate attendees on an emerging topic, create a coalition of potential partners, and build momentum locally. By bringing together a variety of perspectives from the electric industry, academia, regulatory space, local government, community groups, etc. we can emphasize the need to collaborate on this complex topic.

Speakers

Alex Laskey is the founder and executive chair of Rewiring America and formerly the CEO of OPower. Duquesne Light has signed their support to the Rewiring Americas Initiative, which aims to achieve national emissions goals, improve our health, lower monthly bills, and create millions of clean energy jobs by first electrifying households. Alex will bring a depth of knowledge of what needs to be done to influence the transition to a clean energy future and an inspiring view of what we can accomplish in the region.

Kevin Walker is the president and chief executive officer of Duquesne Light Holdings, Duquesne Light Company. Kevin has nearly 30 years of utility experience in a host of roles at multiple utilities throughout the country. Prior to joining Duquesne Light Company (DLC), he served as senior vice president of customer and operations services and nuclear decommissioning at Southern California Edison. In this role, he oversaw customer experience for more than five million accounts; the services provided to the corporation through the Operational Services group, which included Supply Chain, Corporate Real Estate, Transportation Services and Corporate Environmental Services; and the on-site transfer of spent nuclear fuel from wet to dry storage.As DLC’s first Black man and person of color to become president and CEO, he is a proud Veteran of the U.S. Army, having served six years as a field artillery officer with a deployment to the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm. Kevin holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from West Point Academy and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He resides in Marshall Township, Pennsylvania, with his spouse John, seven-year-old twins Grace and Max and two dogs Ellie and Henry. In his spare time, Kevin enjoys biking, hiking and exploring Pittsburgh’s trails and parks.

Destenie Nock is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and engineering and public policy and conducts research on energy equity within the US and internationally. Earlier this year, Nock was designated as a Scott Institute Energy Fellow. She joins CMU having received her Ph.D. in 2019 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. There, she performed energy systems modeling and analysis in both New England and Sub-Saharan Africa, using multi-criteria decision analysis and applied optimization to better equip policy makers to understand energy planning options. In her previous work she assessed the sustainability of different future scenarios for electricity generation in the New England region.

Rachel Gold is principal of Carbon-Free Electricity at RMI. She holds a master’s in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley and a bachelor of science in biology and environmental studies from Brandeis University. Her areas of expertise are utility business model reform, energy efficiency program design and strategy, and collaborative processes for complex problem-solving.