In advance of the solar industry’s biggest tradeshow, Solar Power World spoke to the new CEO of the Smart Electric Power Association (SEPA), one of the conference organizers along with SEIA.

SEPA is a nonprofit organization that doesn’t participate in lobbying. Its mission instead is to bring together the different energy industry stakeholders — from utilities to large solar contractors — to advance clean energy deployment in all forms. Less than a month away, RE+ is one of the biggest opportunities for collaboration each year.

SEPA’s new president and CEO Sheri Givens brings a utility background to her new role, but acknowledges that relations between the solar industry and utilities have often been fraught. Through emerging technologies like virtual power plants and microgrids, Givens sees plenty of options for all parties to work together toward mutual goals in the years to come.

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

Solar Power World: I really want to talk about how SEPA plays into our audience, which is solar developers and contractors, because I know you might be a little more utility-focused.

Sheri Givens, president & CEO of SEPA: We actually started about 30 years ago as the Utility PhotoVoltaic Group (UPVG). We were really working with the federal government administering funding to help with utility-scale solar. And then we evolved into the Solar Electric Power Association. So again, we were focused on solar, and about 2016, we realized that solar is a great and wonderful part of the clean energy solution, but it will work better if other parts of the system are also clean and working with the solar. So that’s why we expanded our brand to the Smart Electric Power Alliance.

I just took over the helm back in November of last year. My predecessor Julia Hamm led the organization for 20 years and built it from a party of one to a party of 50+. We now have a team of experts across 20 states and D.C. We focus on a lot of areas of the clean energy industry. Our main mission is to provide actionable solutions to get to a carbon-free system. Solar is part of that solution, as are a lot of the other technologies that we’re looking at.

What we do is we work with our members and the greater energy industry on trying to find those solutions to get to carbon-free. You mentioned utilities — that is a large part of our membership. We have 1,100 members nationwide. About 700 of those are utilities, and that includes investor-owned utilities, electric cooperatives and public power, which makes us unique, because each of those organizations have their own trade groups that lobby and represent them on the hill. We just bring them all together to talk about their challenges and any solutions that they might be working on with the greater industry.

In addition to utilities, we also have corporate members, about 300+, and these are the clean energy companies that are working effectively with utilities. Those do include solar companies, including SEIA.

We also have a lot of the public utility commissions. About 70% of the utility commissions are members, and we’re expanding our membership to include utility consumer advocate offices. That’s actually what my background is. And we work with state energy offices. So, we’re not just a utility organization, we’re an organization that brings all the people, all the players and the voices to the table.

In what areas is SEPA focusing efforts?

One area of interest that we have currently is equity. We want to bring everyone with us in this clean energy transition. We want to ensure that all voices are heard. We’ve been doing quite a few projects in the equity space over the past year, speaking with and listening to community-based organizations on that clean energy transition, ensuring it’s equitable for all.

One of the key elements that we’re going to be focused on for the next two-to-three years is this “5 by 25” initiative. These are five areas that SEPA is going to be working with our members and the greater energy community on progressing to advance to that carbon-free system. That includes resilience —think about microgrids — how are you going to have a strong, resilient system that can withstand storms and other disasters brought on by climate change? The second area is transportation, looking at electric vehicles and fleet VTG (vehicle-to-grid).

A third area is energy storage. We’ve touched on this in the past as an organization, but we’re really going to start building that team that can help with those storage solutions. Thinking about large-scale renewables like solar and wind, and other clean technologies — how are we going to store that power to ensure there is that resilient system in place?

The fourth area is emerging technology. This is one of the ones that I’m most excited about. We have 90% of the technologies in place to get us to carbon-free today. What’s that last 10%? What’s it going to take? And that can be a whole host of technologies. There’s everything from green hydrogen to direct air capture to CCS (carbon capture and storage), thinking through what our members are doing domestically and what other countries and companies are doing internationally so we can bring in those insights and learnings.

Then, the fifth area is policy. What’s it going to take from a federal, from a state, from a regional level to collaborate to get to carbon-free? We’re thinking through different solutions that are available to regulators and policymakers — not advocating, not telling them what to do, but doing the research and providing the insights and the guidance on what’s available out there.

What is an example of a policy issue where your organization can step in and unite everyone to push the needle forward?

The power of facilitation and collaboration and bringing folks together — that’s always been our secret sauce, bringing the developers together with the utilities and having those conversations. I mean, there’s been friction points in the past and what we’re trying to highlight are those best practices and those areas where there have been really good examples of how to work better together.

We had an RE+ regional event in Northern California, and we had the CEO of Sunrun, Mary Powell, on stage with one of the c-suite executives from the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and they were talking about how they could potentially work on a virtual power plant project together. So, we’re thinking through where the areas of agreement and collaboration are, and also addressing the friction points and trying to figure out how we can best move forward and really understand the issues at hand.

Do you see utilities being more willing to work with clean energy industries?

I mean, I can speak from personal experience. Prior to taking over SEPA. I was actually an executive at a utility in the Northeast. And one of the pieces of work we did was effectively working with our CEO at my company and the CEOs of developers across the state to again address any kind of pain points or touch points or areas that we could ensure that we could work better together and to collaborate to ensure that solar development was a key priority for our company as well as the Commonwealth.

There are a few standout utilities, maybe some smaller co-ops, that are really progressive on working with clean energy, but then you do have some of the big IOUs that are still really butting heads [with the solar industry].

I was reading an article in Solar Power World this morning about how Xcel Energy is going to be utilizing solar and storage to address the closure of one of its coal plants. To me, that’s a great example of a utility that’s thinking about other opportunities in the clean energy space to address some of the fossil fuel pollutants of the past.

Is there anything else our readers should know about SEPA?

I just think there’s a great opportunity for us to collaborate, because we were a solar-centric organization for many, many years, and now we’ve expanded broader. Solar is always going to be a part of that clean energy future. It’s an important tool and toolbox for our organization and for our members. If there’s any way that we can work together and collaborate to showcase some of those best-case examples of how utilities are working with developers, I think that’s a great opportunity.