2023 NYC Solar + Storage Summit
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
John Jay College Gerald W. Lynch Theater
524 W 59th St, New York, NY 10019
Full Agenda
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9:15 AM - Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:30 AM - NYC's Clean Energy Transformation
Join this morning conversation to gain insights into how NYSERDA and Con Edison are approaching the ambitious project of decarbonizing America’s largest City. There is no silver bullet, but rather a number of critically important initiatives that will ensure progress. This discussion will focus on how New York is advancing parallel efforts to reduce building emissions, electrify our buildings, prepare our grid for large-scale renewables and scale up local solar + storage deployment.
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Tria Case, Executive Director, Sustainable CUNY (Moderator)
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Anthony Fiore, Chief Program Officer, NYSERDA
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Matthew Ketschke, President, Con Edison
10:00 AM - City Leadership to Accelerate Solar + Storage
New York City has ambitious climate and clean energy goals, but it also has a complex built environment and significant barriers to realizing its solar and storage potential. Join this panel to hear leaders at the NYC Mayor’s office and key City agencies discuss NYC’s local laws, pending zoning/permitting improvements, and other initiatives to accelerate solar and storage deployment.
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Emily Sweeney, Solar Ombudsman, CUNY (moderator)
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Julia Casagrande, Deputy Director, Clean Energy, NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice
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Gus Sirakis, Deputy Commissioner, NYC Department of Buildings
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Julian Bazel, Counsel, Fire Department of New York (FDNY)
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Steven Caputo, Assistant Commissioner, DCAS Division of Energy Management
11:00 AM - Industry Innovation to Scale up Solar in the City
Nearly 40,000 NYC buildings have installed solar to date, but in a City with one million buildings, we’re just getting started. The Inflation Reduction Act creates a ten year runway of federal support for the City to rapidly scale up solar adoption, helping building owners lower their electricity costs while complying with Local Laws 97, 92 and 94. Join this panel discussion with leaders from real estate and the solar industry to learn how companies are innovating to scale up solar in the City.
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Luke Forster, Senior Business Analyst, DER, NYSERDA
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Noah Ginsburg, Executive Director, NYSEIA (moderator)
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Laura Humphrey, Director of Sustainability, L+M Development Partners
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T.R. Ludwig, Founder and CEO, Brooklyn SolarWorks
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Lincoln Xia, CEO, Accord Power
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Noam Bar-Zemer, Northeast Policy and Strategy Manager, SunPower
12:00 PM - Lunch and Networking
1:30 PM - Afternoon Keynote: Lisa Garcia, EPA Region 2 Administrator
The EPA will play a major role in our clean energy transition, including regulating fossil fuel emissions and deploying the $27B Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, including $7B earmarked for solar. Learn more about these efforts from Lisa Flavia Garcia, Regional Administrator for EPA’s Region 2 office covering New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and eight federally recognized Indian Nations.
2:00 PM - Financing Solutions to Accelerate Solar + Storage
Between expanded federal tax incentives and the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, the Inflation Reduction Act has unleashed billions of dollars in public and private capital that are flowing into the solar and storage industry as we speak. At the same time, interest rates are reaching record highs, creating a moment of immense challenges and opportunities for financing in the solar and storage industry. Join us for a dynamic panel discussion about how leading public, private and nonprofit clean energy financiers are navigating these challenges and harnessing these opportunities to accelerate solar + storage deployment in NYC and across the nation.
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Louise Yeung, Chief Climate Officer, NYC Comptroller (moderator)
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Gregory Randolph, Managing Director, New York Green Bank
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Winston Chen, Director, Capital Markets, CleanCapital
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Jay Merves, Director, Business Development, NYCEEC
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Adam Gilbert, Head of Sales, Greentech Finance Solutions
3:00 PM - Expanding Access: Workforce, Housing and Community Solar
Ensuring equitable access to the benefits of clean energy is critically important, and there are unique challenges to overcome to bring solar, jobs and bill savings to low-income New Yorkers. Recent Federal, State and Local policy developments are accelerating progress on efforts to overcome these barriers and expand access. Join this panel to learn how leaders in affordable housing, community solar and workforce development are harnessing the Climate Leadership and Communities Protection Act, NYSERDA funding, and bonus tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act to bring the benefits of solar and storage to New York City’s low-income communities.
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Gaspar Caro, CUNY (moderator)
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Anika Wistar-Jones, Director, Here Comes Solar, Solar One
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Jason Kaplan, COO and General Counsel, PowerMarket
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Charles Callaway, Director of Workforce Development and Founder, WE ACT for Environmental Justice / SUNS
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Siobhan Watson, Deputy Director, Sustainability Programs, NYCHA
4:00 PM - NYC Storage: Mission Possible
Energy storage is a cornerstone of New York City’s clean energy transition, promising to provide resilience, reduced grid congestion, and the flexibility needed to replace in-City fossil fuel peaker plants with intermittent renewables. However, permitting, constructing and operating energy storage systems in NYC presents unique challenges. Join this panel to hear how companies are getting it done and how the City and State are providing incentives and reforming permitting/zoning to catalyze more in-City storage deployment.
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Daniella Leifer, DG Ombudsman, CUNY (moderator)
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Jon Carbajal, Director of Product Development, NineDot Energy
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Bill Oberkehr, Senior Project Manager, NYSERDA
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Nilus Klingel, Senior Planner, NYC Department of City Planning
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Paul Rogers, Co-Founder and Principal, Energy Safety Response Group
5:00 PM - Happy Hour (sponsored by Brooklyn SolarWorks)
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Exhibitor area open from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM
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Speakers
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5:00 PM - Happy Hour
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Lisa Garcia
EPA Region 2 Administrator
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Lisa Flavia Garcia serves as Regional Administrator for EPA’s Region 2 office covering New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and eight federally recognized Indian Nations. Garcia is an environmental lawyer who has advocated for environmental and climate justice for 20 years as a community lawyer representing grassroots groups and as a public servant at all levels of government.
In 2019, Garcia joined Grist Magazine to run an innovative new program called Fix, a climate solutions lab focused on amplifying the voices of climate leaders and accelerating equitable climate solutions. Prior to that, Garcia was Vice President for Litigation for Healthy Communities at the nonprofit law organization Earthjustice, where she launched programs including Sustainable Food and Farming, Puerto Rico initiative, and Community Partnerships.
Under the Obama administration, Garcia lead the EPA’s environmental justice work, serving as Associate Administrator and Senior Advisor to EPA Administrators Lisa P. Jackson and Gina McCarthy. Garcia helped create and implement Plan EJ 2014, the first strategic plan for weaving EJ into all of the EPA’s work. She led the design team for EJSCREEN, EPA’s first nationwide EJ mapping tool to assess overburdened communities, which has been used widely by states and communities and is the foundation for President Biden's Climate and Economic mapping tool.
Prior to 2009, Garcia was Director of Environmental Justice and Indian Affairs at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and she was an Assistant Attorney General in the Environmental Protection Bureau of the NYS Attorney General’s Office and an Associate Professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark, NJ. She also worked for Senator Robert Torricelli and NJ State Senator Byron Baer.
Garcia has served on the boards of El Puente, The Fund for NJ, Eastern Environmental Law Center, the David Rockefeller Fund, Governors Island Trust, Palisades Interstate Park Commission, and the Nature Conservancy. Garcia is a proud graduate of Teaneck High School in NJ, Stony Brook University (SUNY), and Brooklyn Law School. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and son.
Anthony J. Fiore
Chief Program Officer
NYSERDA
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Anthony J. Fiore was appointed Chief Program Officer for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) on January 25, 2023. In this position, Mr. Fiore will lead NYSERDA’s cross cutting programmatic strategy, leveraging program and market assessments to optimize sector-specific interventions and economywide strategies to meet the climate goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and execute on New York’s Climate Action Council Scoping Plan – the framework for how New York will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve net-zero emissions, increase renewable energy use, and ensure all communities equitably benefit in the clean energy transition.
Matthew Ketschke
President
Con Edison
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Matthew Ketschke is president of Con Edison of New York, with responsibility for the safety, construction, planning, design, and reliability of Con Edison’s energy systems serving more than 9 million New Yorkers with electricity, natural gas, and steam. Mr. Ketschke previously served as senior vice president of Customer Energy Solutions with areas of responsibility that included energy efficiency, electric transportation, and grid modernization. Before becoming a senior vice president, Mr. Ketschke served in a series of positions of increasing responsibility at Con Edison including vice president of Distributed Resource Integration, vice president of Manhattan ElectricOperations, and vice president of Staten Island Electric Operations. He joined Con Edison in 1995. Mr. Ketschke holds a Masters’ of Business Administration from Columbia University. He also holds a master’s degree in management and bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. He currently serves on the board of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and is a Rockefeller Fellow.
Noam Bar-Zemer
Policy and Strategy
Northeast States
SunPower
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Noam Bar-Zemer oversees policy and strategy for SunPower in the Northeast. He has also been intimately involved in efforts to shape and implement the Inflation Reduction Act. Noam started his career in Washington, DC, where he worked for Al Gore's Climate Reality Project, helping to grow the global coalition of institutions and influencers supporting the initiative. He went on to serve as a Press Advance Associate at the White House for Vice President Biden before returning to NYC to start a 10-year stint in corporate and cause-based marketing and communications. He has overseen national ad campaigns for Fortune 500's and has helped think tanks and nonprofits realize award-winning campaigns in the healthcare and climate spaces. Before coming to SunPower, Noam served as the Campaign Director at Potential Energy Coalition – a nonpartisan coalition bringing together America’s leading creative, analytic, and media agencies to shift the narrative on climate change. There, he oversaw several national climate education and persuasion campaigns, including Science Moms, which is currently the largest effort of its kind in the U.S.
Charles Callaway
Director of Workforce Development
Green Institute at WE ACT for Environmental Justice
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Charles Callaway is a resident of West Harlem. As the Director of Workforce Development and head of the Green Institute at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Charles taps into his many years of working with and leading empowerment programs throughout Harlem. At WE ACT, he has recruited and trained 2,031 people in 30-hour of OSHA and 32-hour of asbestos handling classes for the construction industry along with more than 100 in solar installation certification classes. From this, more than 200 now have jobs, including 168 community members working in the construction field and 98 in the solar industry. Charles has also been instrumental in developing a solar workers cooperative, SUNS: Solar Uptown Now Services, with his solar trainees, and they have installed 18 megawatts of solar power to date and serve for other solar companies. Charles previously served as WE ACT’s Director of Organizing, playing a key role in organizing residents around significant issues in the community and helping them understand the importance of advocating on its behalf. He worked with Harlem residents on the Columbia University expansion and 125th Street rezoning. Charles also worked with the Mother Clara Hale Community Taskforce and the MTA to build the first green bus depot in Harlem.
Winston Chen
Senior Director, Capital Markets
Clean Capital
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Winston is responsible for the firm’s capital markets strategy, including the structuring and execution of tax equity and debt financings. Prior to joining CleanCapital, Winston was a Vice President at Silverpeak, a multi-strategy private equity firm where he worked exclusively on investments in utility-scale wind, solar, and battery energy storage projects. Earlier, Winston was a Senior Associate at Fisher Lynch Capital, a private equity firm with $5.5 billion in AUM focused on direct equity co-investments in leveraged buyout and growth capital transactions. Winston began his career as a management consultant with L.E.K. Consulting. Winston earned his BS in International Economics from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and his MBA in Finance and Energy & Environment from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Jon Carbajal
Director of Product Development NineDot
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Jon Carbajal is NineDot’s Director of Product Development with over 15 years of experience in the renewable field. Jon has led the technical and commercial design of dozens of battery storage projects located throughout New York and Ontario. He leads NineDot’s new product development initiatives from expanding the applications of outdoor stationary storage system to also adding business models such as deploying V2G systems. Jon is a trained energy engineer having earned a Masters in mechanical engineering from Cornell and a MS in Sustainability Management from Columbia. He enjoys modernizing old infrastructure from his NYC home and small sailboats. Jon is an active member of the NYSEIA NYC Policy Committee.
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Adam Gilbert
Head of Sales
Greentech Finance Solutions (GFS)
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Adam Gilbert is the Head of Sales for Greentech Finance Solutions (GFS), integrating channel driven consumer lending programs for Greentech Renewables customers. Greentech Renewables is a national equipment distributor providing customers with tools and informational resources to design, finance, sell, and install PV and energy storage solutions. In his 14 years in the solar industry, Adam has focused his time on residential channel sales and finance working for Sunrun, SunPower, and Mosaic prior to joining Greentech in 2020. In his role with GFS, Adam oversees Greentech Finance's sales strategy and execution while supporting partners in expanding the addressable solar market.
Gregory Randolph
Managing Director
Investment & Portfolio Management
NY Green Bank
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Gregory Randolph oversees Investment & Portfolio Management at NY Green Bank. Prior to NY Green Bank, Mr. Randolph spent 16 years focusing on project finance, capital markets, energy mergers and acquisitions, and opportunities in the energy and power industries at Greenhill & Company. Mr. Randolph was also the Managing Director in the energy and power group of Goldman Sachs where he ran the Project Finance and Midstream Energy Groups. Prior to his 12 years at Goldman Sachs, he worked in the project finance group at Salomon Brothers. Mr. Randolph started his career as an analyst at J.P. Morgan. Mr. Randolph graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University in 1981 with a degree in economics and received an MBA from the Wharton School in 1987.
Anika Wistar-Jones
Director of the Here Comes Solar
Program at Solar One
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Anika Wistar-Jones is the Director of the Here Comes Solar program at Solar One, an NYC-based environmental education non-profit. Anika leads a team that provides free technical assistance to affordable housing providers, low-income homeowners, and city officials to facilitate the adoption of solar throughout New York City. Over the years, she has supported hundreds of affordable housing properties to install solar using a variety of financing strategies, and has developed a deep understanding of the challenges and solutions to make solar accessible in hard-to-reach markets. Prior to Solar One, Anika worked for solar and energy efficiency startups, as well as environmental advocacy organizations, leading campaigns to fight climate change and fracking. She is a Davis United World College Scholar and a graduate of Middlebury College.
Laura Humphrey
Director of Sustainability
L + M Development Partners
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Laura Spencer Humphrey is the Director of Sustainability at L+M Development Partners - an impact driven, vertically integrated developer, builder, and manager of multifamily, mixed use, and affordable housing. In this role, Laura brings over a decade of experience leading strategies to realize energy and carbon goals in the built environment at the organizational and regional level. Prior to L+M, she spearheaded the development of decarbonization strategies for private sector clients at ENGIE Impact and directed energy initiatives at the state, city, and utility service territory level in roles at ICF and NYSERDA. Laura holds a MS in Sustainability Management from Columbia University.
TR Ludwig
CEO and Founder of Brooklyn Solarworks
Co-founder of Brooklyn Canopy Co.
NYSEIA Board of Directors Treasurer
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T.R. is a clean energy leader with over 15 years of experience in various management and executive roles within the solar industry. He has led solar companies both large and small, with a focus on sales and marketing, solar lending, and canopy innovation specific to NYC (and beyond). T.R. received his MBA from the Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands, and currently serves on NYSEIA Board of Directors as Treasurer, Member of NYC Policy Committee. T.R. has a passion for electrifying most things including boats, homes, music, and vehicles.
Paul Rogers
Co-Founder and Principal
Energy Safety Response Group
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Paul is a retired FDNY lieutenant that has worked in the field for over 25 years. During his tenure with the fire service in his final years, Lt. Rogers was assigned to the Bureau of Fire Prevention to lead projects on energy storage systems and was played a large role in the writing of the FDNY Rule 608-01 Outdoor Stationary Storage Battery Systems. Paul has worked alongside NFPA, UL, Con Edison, FM Global, DOE, NYSERDA, and represents the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) on the NFPA 855 Standard for the Installation of Stationary Energy Storage Systems committee, as well as the International Fire Code Action Committee for ESS installations. Paul has conducted dozens of energy storage safety presentations for projects across New York State, NYC, and the rest of the country.
Jason Kaplan
Chief Operating Officer
General Counsel
PowerMarket
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Jason Kaplan is the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel at PowerMarket, a leading community solar provider that supports the acquisition and management of over 500 MW of operational community solar assets. Jason has a diverse role at the company, from engaging affordable housing providers in community solar opportunities, to writing the rules on community solar banked credits that have been adopted by the NY Public Service Commission. Jason cares deeply about the inclusion of marginalized communities in community solar and that the benefits of these programs should be realized by those in most need. Jason graduated from Vermont Law School, cum laude with a joint degree in law and masters in environmental law and policy, and Colgate University, cum laude B.A. Geology.
Jay Merves
Director of Business Development
and Finance
NYCEEC
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Jay is the Director of Business Development and Finance at NYCEEC. Jay is responsible for leading business development activities, sourcing, negotiating, and closing transactions, and managing relationships with customers and counterparties, including project developers and lenders. Jay has extensive experience in his career managing complex financial transactions at global financial institutions. These include GE Capital, Chase, ACE Insurance, and Credit Suisse. Prior to joining NYCEEC, Jay served as a consultant in the areas of clean energy finance and risk management, and conducted an assignment on the development of PACE related projects. Jay’s areas of expertise include clean energy financings, structured credit, and synthetic securities. Jay holds an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a BS in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Siobhan Watson
Deputy Director of Sustainability Programs
New York City Housing Authority
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Siobhan is the Deputy Director of Sustainability Programs at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), where she leads teams focused on innovation in waste management facilities, achieving NYCHA’s goal of installing 30MW of solar by 2026, and improving the resiliency of infrastructure across NYCHA campuses. She led the development of NYCHA’s first climate adaptation plan and is overseeing implementation of the goals it outlines, including scaling up NYCHA’s work to manage sudden “cloudburst” rain events and developing plans for a network of resilience hubs at NYCHA community centers. With the Sustainability team, she is developing pathways to integrate NYCHA resident workforce development across NYCHA’s sustainability programs; the recent establishment of a NYCHA Clean Energy Academy is a highlight of this work. Prior to her work at NYCHA, Siobhan worked a variety of roles in climate programs and policy in both public and private sectors, including at the environmental consulting firm Terrapin Bright Green and as an environmental policy analyst at the New York City Council. Siobhan also teaches a course on sustainability in cities in Columbia’s Sustainable Development program. She holds a PhD in environmental planning from Columbia University and a Master of City Planning degree from MIT.
Louise Yeung
Chief Climate Officer
New York City Comptroller
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As Chief Climate Officer, Louise Yeung leads the NYC Comptroller's efforts to confront the climate crisis and support a just transition to a clean energy future for New York City. Louise works to align the office’s functions and operations with climate goals, including bringing a climate justice lens to the City’s budget and balance sheet, developing policy analysis on renewable energy and resiliency infrastructure, and mitigating climate risks to pension investments.
Additional speakers to be announced.