Wednesday, March 26^th

Day 1 - Thursday, March 27^th

• We face a future in which concerns for our global environment, for social welfare and for stable market economics are all linked to the future development of electricity systems. As President and CEO of Elia System Operator and Chairman of ETSO, Daniel Dobbeni has the responsibility of ensuring that the lights stay on for much of Europe today and tomorrow. His organization faces challenges such as the imperative for investment to meet issues such as lack of transmission access where the wind farms are being developed, the potentially conflicting investment motivations of the Utilities vs. Generation, one country vs. another and how the EU commission may need to act to get the Transmission System Operators the necessary business case to drive investment to meet the impending gap between supply and demand. Don't miss this unique opportunity to hear Mr. Dobbeni talk about the future of electricity markets.

• Innovation is a critical driver for business success. Innovation is influenced by both national contexts and organizational leadership. What enables some regions of the world to create more innovative firms than others? What differentiates winners from losers among competing firms? What are the secrets of innovative leaders? Mr. Dutta’s presentation will address these important questions.

• Energy and commodity markets have changed and continue to evolve rapidly and have undergone structural change in terms of what is traded, how it is traded and who trades it. Companies have to consider attributes such as: the macroeconomic picture (supply/demand), the ease of entry into energy and commodities trading, investor interest and the rapid emergence of new exchanges and instruments. In this session Dr. Vasey will examine these issues and strategies for success.

• OGK-4 OAO is a Russia-based company active on the wholesale market of power and energy. OGK-4 was one of six electricity generating companies created as part of a wide-ranging reform of the Russian electricity sector that is breaking up the monopoly held by UES. Being a new company in a new competitive generation market, OGK-4 had to quickly construct new business processes and implement new systems to be successful. Hear from Mr. Pestryakov how OGK-4 met this challenge and continues to adapt and be successful in the Russian power market.

• Utilities worldwide are faced with aging generation portfolios and at the same time an increasing skills shortage to manage and run these critical assets. Eskom is a South African electricity public utility and is the largest producer of electricity in Africa and is among the top seven utilities in the world in terms of generation capacity and among the top nine in terms of sales. In this session hear how Eskom is working to reduce the unpredictability in the South African power system and increase the reserve margin, through solutions that can leverage technology and key skills to increase availability of power stations.

• Organizations make frequent references as to how they are innovating to provide better products and services to their customers, and often cite it as a key driver to gain competitive advantage in the global economy. The low success rates, and hidden costs, however, are driving business leaders to look at more formal approaches to their innovation process, which is driving the demand for application and infrastructure that manage the process effectively. In this session Mr. Richardson will discuss business challenges and examine the approaches to achieve tangible and measurable results through applying formal process to innovation.

• Iberdrola is one of the biggest Utilities worldwide and a leader on renewable energy. During the last 6 years, Iberdrola has built up 12 Combined Cycle Power plants around the world (Spain, Brazil, Latvia and Mexico) and installed more than 7,000 MW on renewable (with more than 40,000 MW in the renewable pipeline). In this session hear how Iberdrola maximize profits and increase performance of generation assets inside its combined cycle division by means of advanced centralized diagnosis and monitoring techniques on CMDS (Center for Monitoring, Diagnosis and Simulation of Combined Cycle Power Plants).

• With truly liberalized energy markets where households choose their electricity suppliers, Utilities must rethink their approach to customer care. This involves making new investments in people, processes and technology. Hear how ČEZ, a. s. the largest electricity producer in the Czech Republic, has transformed their customer care operations to compete in liberalized markets.

Day 2 - Friday, March 28^th

• The dynamics of the energy markets are being driven by the combined forces of rapid growth in demand for reliable and affordable energy, the increasing electrification of economies and the emerging issue of addressing climate change. Responding to this changing environment will require utilities to adapt their strategies to a new set of opportunities and constraints. In this session Mr. McConnell will discuss the current market demands and the long-term trends in energy markets as well as the implications to utility strategies and responses will be outlined.

• Aligning the Utility business to dynamic and often volatile energy markets will be a key survival metric for all Utilities. Business drivers such as demand response, distributed generation and grid-interactive cars will need to be integrated into the utility infrastructure strategy. But how does a utility develop a roadmap to optimize their infrastructure to support their long term strategy while aligning to the emerging realities of the marketplace? These are just some of tough issues that Mr. Cochrane will be discuss in this session.

• As governments across Europe sort out their policies and comply with EU mandates for energy market liberalization Utilities have become a focal point. The expectations for customer service are vastly different than those of just a few years ago and the ability to attract and retain customers means survival to many companies. Europe's energy companies will have to take care of business first—and that means finding and keeping loyal customers. UtiliPoint will present the results of its recent research on the status of retail gas and electric markets in Europe and the impact that regulatory change is having on customer service.

• Utilities need to evaluate many options as they prepare for market liberalization. One of the key strategies being reviewed, piloted or deployed is smart metering. This session will explore the many benefits associated with the deployment of smart metering from both a customer and utility perspective including technology trends and challenges will along with the impact on utility business processes.

• The situation of (German) utilities is affected by a more and more competitive energy market and numerous new regulations and pricing pressure of the federal network agency. Both impacts forces the utilities to install more agile, slimmer and more flexible internal systems and processes that greatly shortens the introduction of new business processes and simplifies their change. EWE and other utilities are going to use new flexible technical IT solutions to decrease their specific process costs and to increase the flexibility of business process adaptation along the value added chain. This session will highlight the technical and commercial options for utilities of an integrated core business perspective with respect to new IT technologies.

• Climate change may be the most important issue of our time. Its impact on Utilities has been dramatic as all Utilities seek ways to better prepare themselves for a carbon-constrained world and for the pricing of carbon emissions. The presentation will highlight some of the unique approaches companies are taking to meeting the carbon challenge as well as a look at Microsoft’s green initiatives.