Smartest Projects
Gui Maia is manager of digital innovation at Ameren. Tracy West is director of research and development at Southern Company. Kevin Schwain is director of transportation electrification at Xcel Energy. Steve Mitnick is President of Lines Up, Inc., Editor-in-Chief of Public Utilities Fortnightly, and author of “Lines Down: How We Pay, Use, Value Grid Electricity Amid the Storm.”
Gui and his team at Ameren are applying artificial intelligence to prioritize maintenance of natural gas distribution systems to protect customers and employees. We named it the Smartest Digitization Project. Tracy and her team at Southern Company are installing a cutting edge generation and storage system to enhance resilience at Georgia Tech, quite proudly since a few of them were Yellow Jackets while in college. We named it the Smartest Microgrid Project. Kevin and his team at Xcel Energy are implementing an extensive program to put Minnesota customers — at scale — into the driver's seat of an electric car. We named it the Smartest Transportation Electrification Project.
Gui Maia, Tracy West, and Kevin Schwain celebrated their awards with us at a session of the recent Global Smart Cities and Communities Virtual Summit, hosted by Dentons. If you missed that session — why I ask — catch it here, where we've excerpted the highlights of this insightful discussion on smart innovation. Not to forget, there were other great sessions as well at the conference. How many industry events do you attend that feature an astronaut, a presidential candidate, and a senior officer of the world's leading sustainable cement company?
Dentons' Clint Vince: Today, Steve Mitnick will moderate a panel with three utilities selected by Public Utilities Fortnightly for groundbreaking projects in the smart cities and connected community's context.