A live interactive audio conference presented by Restructuring Today on Dec 3, 2007

Will Texas get the best demand program?  They sure are trying.  The program they had simply didn't work.

Now the PUC has voted to improve the incentives from $20 million to $50 million and to get rid of the program's threshold.  That hadn't worked either.

Where will your company be when the new program starts up next year?  For some, the expected payouts may be significant.

To hear this panel's answers to dozens of questions posed by utility industry professionals about Texas' new demand response program, order the on-demand audio download or audio CD recording for just $150:

• Barry Smitherman is chairman of the Texas PUC.  He was appointed on April 21, 2004 by Governor Rick Perry as the 25th person to serve as a commissioner at the PUC.  Prior to his current role, Smitherman spent 17 years as either a public finance investment banker or attorney advising state and local governments throughout the South, Southwest, Midwest and Western states.  During this time he held leadership positions with several Wall Street firms including Credit Suisse, Lazard Freres (now called Lazard) and JP Morgan.  He was national head of the tax-exempt bond department at JP Morgan predecessor Bank One.  He is also a former prosecutor with the Harris County District Attorney's office and a former adjunct professor of public administration at the University of St Thomas in Houston. Smitherman is a member of the State Bar of Texas.

• Brett Perlman is the vice president of corporate development for EnerNOC, a leading demand response provider that serves commercial and industrial customers in competitive wholesale energy markets.  Prior to his current role, he served as a commissioner of the Texas PUC from 1999 to 2003.  Perlman was appointed to the Texas PUC in 1999 by then-Governor George W Bush and served until September 2003.  He was responsible for leading the successful restructuring of Texas' $17 billion electric utility industry and $4 billion telecom industry as these markets opened to competition.  Prior to his appointment to the Texas PUC, Perlman was a management consultant with the Texas office of McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm known for its leadership role in business consulting.

• Read Comstock is the director of regulatory and legislative affairs at Strategic Energy, a retail supplier of electricity products and services in competitive markets throughout the US.  Comstock manages Strategic Energy activities before the Texas PUC, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the Texas legislature.  Comstock was the chairman of the ERCOT technical advisory committee, the stakeholder committee that presents electric market policy recommendations to the ERCOT board, and a member of the ERCOT retail market subcommittee and the wholesale market subcommittee.  His career has been devoted to the deregulation of electricity markets.  Prior to joining Strategic Energy, Comstock was the executive director of Competitive Power Advocates in Austin where he was responsible for monitoring regulatory and legislative matters that affect independent power producers and power marketers in Texas.  Prior to that, he was the manager of regulatory affairs for PG&E Energy Services in Houston.

• Malcolm Smith is the CEO of Xtend Energy, Inc and Xtend Energy LP, providers of demand response services to industrial and large commercial customers. He also serves as president of Energy Data Source LP, a provider of energy metering and energy management solutions based in Austin.  Smith's areas of expertise include demand response, electricity restructuring, utility metering and information technology. He has served in the executive management of energy and technology-related companies since 1993.  He has made presentations to the Texas PUC and Smith is active in working groups of ERCOT, including the generation adequacy working group that he recently chaired, ISO-New England and PJM Interconnect.  Smith has been recognized by Entrepreneur magazine as the leader of one of the fastest growing small businesses in America.

Hear answers to questions like these and more about the new emergency interruptible load service (EILS) market:

• How do you bid?
  
  
• When does bidding begin?
  
  
• How is the program different from LAARS (load acting as resource)?
  
  
• Why do cities like this program?
  
  
• How does it compare with programs in other states?

Will Texas get the best demand program? -- registration options:

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