Grid Modernization in Vermont: A Conversation with Ladeene Freimuth and Kerrick Johnson
Thursday, December 20th, 2018 from 4:00-6:00pm

Energy Action Network’s Leveraging Change Speaker Series continues with a conversation about grid modernization featuring Ladeene Freimuth, Policy Director for the GridWise Alliance. Even though the electric sector produces only 10% of our greenhouse gas emissions, the security and efficiency of our grid is critical for strategically electrifying our thermal and transportation sectors through electric vehicles and heat pumps. The conversation will be moderated by Kerrick Johnson and followed by EAN’s holiday celebration.

Ladeene Freimuth will speak about the recently released 2018 Grid Modernization Index, a ranking of all 50 states according to their progress in grid modernization policies, operations, and consumer engagement. We’ll learn where Vermont ranks and how we can move from being a “Believer” to being a “Leader.”

What: Leveraging Change Speaker Series & EAN Holiday Celebration

Grid Modernization in Vermont: A Conversation with Ladeene Freimuth and Kerrick Johnson

When: Thursday, December 20th from 4:00-6:00pm (the talk will begin around 4:15, with the holiday celebration to begin around 5:15).

Where: Down Home Kitchen, 100 Main St, Montpelier

Ladeene Freimuth is the founder and President of The Freimuth Group, LLC, a domestic and international energy and environmental consulting firm, focused on policy and strategic advising, lobbying, research and analysis, and project design, implementation, and management for corporate, trade association, and not-for-profit clients, including serving as the Policy Director for the GridWise Alliance. Her areas of expertise include grid modernization/“smart grid,” advanced vehicle technologies, clean energy, energy efficiency, and energy security. She has a renowned ability to facilitate dialogues and connections and negotiate among diverse stakeholders on complicated issues to achieve successful outcomes. She also is a Global Fellow with the Global Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Ms. Freimuth possesses more than twenty-five years of work experience, including in both the U.S. House of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate, where she authored major pieces of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and alternative transportation legislation, and helped secure tens of millions of dollars in funding for these program areas.

Kerrick Johnson is the Director of Strategy and Public Affairs at VEIC. Prior to joining VEIC, Kerrick has been the founding Chief Ecosystem Officer at Utopus Insights and the Vice President for Strategy and Communication at VELCO. Kerrick joined VELCO in 2006 as the company undertook a $1 billion expansion—the largest in its history. He conceived and led VELCO‘s work to secure the nation’s only successful statewide smart grid project through a $68 million DOE investment grant, and spearheaded implementation of a $75 million statewide fiber optic network. Kerrick’s responsibilities expanded to include IT/Telecommunications, leading the company’s operationalization of the fiber network, creation of a statewide radio system, and other bold strategic initiatives. His conceived and led a research engagement with IBM that produced the Vermont Weather Analytics Center, an energy data and analytics platform that lowers weather-related operational costs, increases grid reliability and unlocks the value of renewable generation. This initiative grew into VELCO’s partnership with the newly launched Utopus Insights.

Prior to his 17 years in Vermont transmission and distribution utility work, Kerrick worked for the Vermont Attorney General’s Office as an Investigator for the Consumer Protecting Division and Legislative Liaison. He attended Vermont’s Johnson State College and served four years in the US Air Force as an airborne Russian linguist after having graduated from the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.

The Leveraging Change Speakers Series is an EAN member event that aims to bring in speakers from New England and across the country to advance understanding of emerging opportunities to make breakthrough progress toward Vermont’s 2025 total energy and emissions reduction commitments. On the third Thursday of the month from 4:00-6:00pm at Down Home Kitchen, we will bring in speakers that have demonstrated success in shifting paradigms around the energy system to share what they see as the highest impact drivers to make this kind of progress. Save the date for our first speaker series of the new year, January 17, 2019 from 4:00-6:00pm.

The Speaker Series is open to EAN Members and public partners only.