The Climate Champions

Ladeene Freimuth is President of The Freimuth Group, a domestic and international energy and environmental consulting firm, specializing in policy and strategic advising, outreach, and advocacy. She also is a Global Fellow with the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Dan Delurey, President of Wedgemere Group, a DC firm that focuses on modernization and transformation of the electricity sector and how it intersects with climate change and resilience. He founded the National Town Meeting on Demand Response & Smart Grid.

Yuri Horwitz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Sol Systems, has delivered over 800 MW of solar projects from his trading, fund and asset management, and development businesses. Customers include Amazon, Nationwide, 30+ DC public schools, and many others.

Elizaveta Malashenko, Deputy Executive Director at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), discusses the first ever Wildfire Technology Innovation Summit, a key step to develop a climate adaption strategy to mitigating the impact of wildfires.

Sunil Cherian, CEO and Founder of Spirae, has been implementing microgrid technology for over a decade. Spirae’s focus on standardization and modularization of microgrids is a critical step to implement a federated network of renewable based microgrids.

Karen Lefkowitz, former VP, Utility of the Future, PHI, and now CEO, Sunset Energy, consults in the electric industry focusing on advanced technology that mitigates climate change. Full disclosure, we are also working on some exciting projects together.

Mike Niggli is an inspiring, dynamic leader. I had the pleasure of working on Mike’s team while he was COO and President of SDG&E during the formation and successful run of the Smart Grid Team.

Among his many Board positions, Mike is Chairman at ESS.

Steve Hauser, CEO of The GridWise Alliance, has spent his career successfully modernizing the electric grid, including being a key driver of the 2007 EISA Title XIII, Smart Grid legislation, and resulting ARRA smart grid projects that followed in 2009.

Co-founders of PI Energy, Phil Layton and David Andresen, discuss PI's transformational plasmonic solar technology that will significantly lower module cost, the cost of installation, and substantially increase the viable surface area for generation.

April Bolduc, President of S Curve Strategies, consults with utilities, charging station and advanced technology providers, states, and municipalities – basically, any entity that is asking how to improve the deployment of electric vehicles.