ChargeExpo 2024: Navigating the Expansion of EV Charging Networks with EUEC Chairman Dr. Prabhu Dayal

Hey there, everyone. It's Daniel Litwin, the voice of b to b coming at you from the Irving Convention Center for Charge Expo. Twenty twenty four. I'm here today with mister Prabhu dayal. He's chairman of the EUEC, the Energy Utility and Environment Conference, Robu. Great to have you. How are you doing today? Very good. Nice to be here. Yeah. And thank you so much for taking some time to chat. I know you're a busy man. Probably here is coordinating the entire conference. So, you know, I appreciate you taking a few minutes to chat with me and shed some light on the collaboration happening across the larger EUE industry, especially as we look at major trends that are motivating the industry forward, like the development of ev charging infrastructure, modernizing our grids, expanding the diversity of our energy resources for power generation, etcetera. So why don't we start first by telling our audience a little bit about yourself? Can you just give them some context on the experience you've had in the industry because it's rather bountiful. And I know you provide a really grounded lens. So give us your perspective. Great. No, I'm originally originally from, to San Electric Power Company. They originally worked there. Okay. And I, when we started up, then I also worked there, passing as gas company. And, that's when we started the the conference, the the EUEC, the Energy utility environment conference. And, it's been twenty five years old in the with the power industry. Right. And we have a big database of, it's an annual conference that has about a thousand to two thousand delegates coming in here. But, about five, six years back, we started, the charge which is called Transportation Electrification Conference in San Diego. The conference has grown since, since then. My my my myself, I'm a engine an engineer with a PhD from the University of Arizona in Environment. The the the conference is, jumping it on. The conference has got two conferences together. One is the Charge Expo Conference which deals with batteries charging infrastructure and, fleet. That's one path. And the second conference is the original conference is twenty five years old. That, deals with Hall in the electric utility sector Yeah. In the power center. Almost most of the electric utilities in the in the US I've been being to our conference one time in another. Nice. So it's, that's kind of a big, break background. We are today now in Irving Convention Center Yeah. And, you know, Regions would be, you know, to, let's let's let's to kind of back it on it. I love it. Alright. So, bravo, with this conference now being twenty five plus you're sold. But this sort of added, charge layer of it being a a little more recent. You've obviously seen the industry evolve, you've seen new trends and new standards sort of start to lead the way. And so I'm curious if you could give us a retrospect over the last twenty five years, where is this industry landing today that you think is is really a testament to the last twenty five years of collaboration, industry growth, and industry alignment on strategy to achieve, you know, the goals the industry had twenty five years ago that are now being achieved today. Right. So twenty five years ago, there have been huge coal fired power plants and the control technologies with that. The time, then there was a climate change in under You will get reduced on action. But once you have all this renewable energy started coming in. Today, the the the team is charging station electric power, in the the the the EV portion of the electric vehicles and the charging of the batteries, interacting with electric utilities. Electric utilities need to supply the power, but at the same time they want something green, so they're looking at renewable energy. So, this conference has separate tracks, and and that's the you can see the trend where the control technologies and mercury is going down. You know, people are not you know, but you can see the the rooms are full. You didn't in the fact J, which is belong to charging charging station. Right. They're talking about batteries, at talking about fleet mechanism. And at the same time, the climate change, you know, how much are you changing the in the carbon footprint? So we we got a very, very, very key of interest, that's a movie trend. That's what I find. And the and there's a fantastic match between TVs and electric utilities. They have to make the they got to match with the grid. Right. So we see that trend, and we don't have any invited speaker, they they're basically supply and demand. They're coming. They want to speak, interest in speeding. So then what drawing them here more specifically what are the major conversations that are happening today for the larger, you know, energy, utility, environment, industry, that, you know, are really capturing people's attention and that are guiding some of the strategic investments and cross stakeholder coordination for twenty twenty four. What are those conversations? I think, what's happening is this specific speaker. Sure. So the individual two is a battery. So we have a session battery. So each one is looking at a partner. He he may be a a client or maybe a competitor, but at the same time they're in the same field. They come back to me and say, we wanna be talking about the batteries. You put me in a different I should be in the charging infrastructure. So that trend is coming in as Guppy is picking up. This is what we used to have twenty five years back. With the control technologies of, you know, out fault powered power plants. Right. Now the trend is, okay, the transmission and distribution, how even, you know, working with a grid system. There's the guy guys who's supplying the charging station. There's a whole lot of interest in charging station. And the the specific area is up, you know, how do you charge, you know, how do you pay for it? Yeah, right. And, and each state's a little different. And in terms of, So it's it's a combination of the technologies plus from from end users, as well as for business, what what each company is doing, they're exchanging ideas in there. Interesting. So then it sounds like one of the big debate points then is sort of the operational layer of this. Right? Obviously, there is major pressure and desire for development of new infrastructure, but the user experience is always key here, and that comes down to, you know, reliable charging stations, a reliable grid for those charging stations to interface with a diverse pool of energy resources, a power generation, to obviously facilitate that kind of infrastructure. So within that sort of operational layer, where it's really gonna be filled and what's gonna validate I think a lot of the momentum in this industry, which is how does the user feel about this experience? How accessible is it? Yeah. What are some of the specific operational points of contention. Yeah. Then you find leading today at the conference, and this year. Yeah. What what one of the things is, right, these conference, you have sea level people in from the utilities. Right. So when they come to a specialty conference, if there's only in batteries, they only talk battery. But in this case, They have, different people from different tracks. So what facilitates is that you got the manpower, you got the number of people that you got a thousand delegates in there. From different different utilities. So that what happens is they've crossed a bridge. It's not only, a climate conference. It's not only electric it's got all of these ten different tracks, and they find it interesting to go to the right people that because they're there. You know, they they they may be in control technology, Right. Another guy is talking electric, but then, boom, you know, this kid's a T and B issue that they're Right. So that interaction is there. The the other thing is we have the exhibiting, the company making an exhibitor, but he has the opportunity to go talk about it. And then then we've been up partnering with you in terms of marketing, you know, the we're using market scale market this, sure, moving forward, to the social media aspect because we have a huge database of people wanna come back. Right. And that the whole trend now is in renewables. And and EV going in, you know, what is that's what's what's happening now. Right. The old, coal fired power plants don't get the type of funding we compared to what's coming up right now. Interesting. And there, we have agencies, the federal agencies in present dates on what what are the controls, what are the regulations, then we have the industry groups or specific companies looking at selling their product and, and they'll learn it from each other. So the speakers, the speaker, and an exhibiting combination gives the best the best ideas for them to network. Then it sounds like at large, there are niches within this industry that aren't getting enough evangelization. That should be. Right? That should be getting a little more focused, whether it's from other industry players or regulators or policy makers or, you know, the folks funding out the big checks to help fund some of this new infrastructure and these developments. What are some of those slices of the larger, energy and utilities, industry that you think aren't getting enough focus today, but should be. Should be getting a little more emphasis with priority in their role in supporting the next generation of the industry. What are your thoughts? I think the there's a lot of funding money available Yes. There is. Federal government. And we have speakers that there's a specifically talking about. Yeah. And, they're surprised even when they come and look at it. And, what we do, we will, you know, put this forward moving forward, and and what's going to happen next, you know, on date when we have a a communication, they know what's going on. And in terms for moving moving forward, we wanted to get the feedback. You know, where are we gonna go? You know, what are we gonna do, moving forward? And what are the companies coming back here. And so we're lucky. We we wanna know, you know, how are you going to Las Vegas next year? Because in LatinConference Right. Or do we go back to San Diego? Ago. It's a fantastic location or or early. This is a great facility, and, you know, I'm wondering, do it in arming. We can do that. There's also, the EV cars, you know, locally, you know, and we have one of the feature that, you know, a truck with the battery cooling system, what he's doing. Yeah. So this is a great opportunity where, the AB, courage, and, talking with with a power industry, the interaction maybe. Nice. That's great to see. And you, tee me up nicely for this next question, which is on collaboration. And cross industry conversation. So, obviously, I think one of the major benefits of a conference like this is The capability for these disparate players of the industry to come together and better align and coordinate on strategy for achieving short term and long term goals. Again, in clean energy transitions and reinvestments and revitalization of our energy grid of building out of e v infrastructure, and designing that user experience to be user friendly, which helps the industry, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So I'm curious, you know, what some of the most important cross stakeholder conversations are that you think need to be happening this year in twenty twenty four. Right? And why? What kinds of facilitated synergies do we need to be seeing this year? Go ahead and break that down for us. Yeah. We'd be we'd be looking at the specific actually, we're looking at feedback from the when the company is coming back. Sure. And, the current, you know, the the area that I saw, a lot of interest was in from, from a standpoint of, EVs, there was a battery. The battery cushion was once specific area and what kind of batteries have gone in the and the charging stations was enough in from from a EV stand to from the charging station. And then in terms of new interests that you're seeing at the show this year, where are you seeing a lot of the fresh energy, pun intended at charge expo twenty twenty four in terms of, whether it's specific technologies, types of companies, Oregon, conversations that are really guiding the show forward or that are, you know, you're noticing people are expressing a lot of interest about learning more on. I I think, the interest is in in in from from a charging standpoint. Yeah. There's, charging stations. Design and, use a traveling station from one. And then there was also I noticed that there was a lot of interest from the the trucks and the EV trucks, and we we have a couple of, hip focused areas in there. We couldn't get displaced. You know, there there's a lot of interest. But there's so much demand that we can't get displays in in the EV truck industry. Sure. And that's that's a huge area of scope. And people are very busy, you know, to even market themselves. Oh, yeah. So, there's that's the tool moving forward. I can see, the truck and buses. They were fleet buses that speak. The the other fleet area that's very interesting and very moving forward is the fleet industry in the utility. Every one of those companies have wheat industry, and the and then for inter interacting with the charging charging infrastructure within the within those companies with the fleets. Right? So what we do is here in the conference, we we have fleet, track. And so they're all talking about fleets Then they're talking about the funding mechanism that's available for the fleets. Yeah. And, and then, the I'm almost thinking about the nuclear there's also some other areas from the nuclear and the renewable side with, what's your nuclear plants. So very interesting aspects Then we go, all of a sudden, it comes into cybersecurity. We got an old area of cybersecurity, and that's the interesting part somebody may be interested on something in one area, and then he sees there's a need for cybersecurity and that that is there. And what happens be it's supply and demand. The people come in there, and all of a sudden, you see that there's so many papers, so much of interest and on cybersecurity and, risk management, that we have to double up on that area. So it's a trend, you know, where going. I mean, let's see the trend is in renewables. So our will and, and, and then also, you know, in terms of charging station, the EVs's, And, and then we are also the switching that people are going to alternate dual vehicles and what's going on as well. Yeah. Alright. Well, Doctor. Bravo, I think that wraps up our interview here for the day. If folks wanna find out a little bit more about the gray work that EUEC is bringing to the industry. Maybe they wanna tap in and exhibit next year, speak next year. How can they get in touch? How can they learn more about EUEC in charge expo twenty twenty four. It's a combined conference. So the easiest way would be the website is EUEC. You get a the easy enough energy utility environment conference, and it's it's tied in with charge expo dot com. And so, so the two two will work together. What we have is the huge, exhibit floor and half of it is with and energy utility EUEC spokes on the other half is going to be able to charge expo. It's one location where you get, the double bind, you know, before you go get to go all the racements. And then, then the meetings that go on, so that we have separate tracks where people are you get to speak, as well as you exit it. And then, that's that's it. Love it. Yes. Alright. Well, exciting stuff and obviously easy enough. E u e c dot com to learn more. Problem. Thank you so much for your time, and I'm really looking forward to again seeing how all of these different layers of the larger EUE industry. And really even more specifically of the EV charging layer, start to realize the necessary synergy, right, that they have to create, whether it's, you know, cybersecurity with utilities or whether it's user experience designers with infrastructure deployers or whether it's, you know, power generation, providers and the utilities themselves. There's a lot of areas for cross stakeholder collaboration, and I'm excited to see how this show helps foster some of that necessary dialogue. So probably thank you again. Folks, we've been chatting with doctor Prabhu Again, doctor Prabhu Dayal, he is chairman of the energy utility environment conference. Thank you so much for your time. Mhmm. Much appreciated. And thank you everyone. We'll catch you on some more interviews here live from Charge Expo twenty twenty four.