Oregon’s Energy Future Conference

The Business of Clean Energy & Efficiency

May 21, 2019

Oregon Convention Center

Portland, OR

Registration

Oregon’s Energy Future is the state’s signature clean energy event. Now in its 13th year, Oregon’s Energy Future connects policy with practice and addresses the industry’s current challenges and opportunities. Attendees gain a deeper understanding of the political, economic, and social forces driving Oregon’s clean energy economy, and come away with insights into how to meet the current challenges and take advantage of future opportunities.

Agenda

The educational sessions cover topics in the areas of:

Energy in Context

Grid Modernization

Clean Transportation

View Agenda

Keynote Speakers

Bill Ritter, Jr.

Founder and Director
Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University

Bill Ritter, Jr. is the founder and director of the Center for the New Energy Economy (CNEE) at Colorado State University which launched on February 1, 2011. The Center employs an assistant director, four senior policy advisors and analysts, a research manager, a research associate, and a team of student researchers.

The Center works directly with governors, legislators, regulators, planners, policymakers, and other decision makers. It provides technical assistance to help officials create the policies and practices that will facilitate America’s transition to a clean-energy economy. Ritter authored a book that was published in 2016 entitled, Powering Forward – What Everyone Should Know About America’s Energy Revolution.

Ritter was elected as Colorado’s 41st governor in 2006, and built consensus to tackle some of the state’s biggest challenges. During his four-year term, Ritter established Colorado as a national and international leader in clean energy, by building a new energy economy. He signed 57 new energy bills into law, including a 30% Renewable Portfolio Standard and a Clean Air Clean Jobs Act that replaced nearly a gigawatt of coal-fired generation with natural gas. In total, the Colorado new energy economy created thousands of new jobs.

Ritter is the chair of the Board of Directors of the Energy Foundation and a senior fellow and member of the board of directors of the Advanced Energy Economy Institute. Ritter earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Colorado State University (1978) and his law degree from the University of Colorado (1981). With his wife Jeannie, he operated a food distribution and nutrition center in Zambia. He then served as Denver’s district attorney from 1993 to January 2005.

Oriana Magnera

Climate and Energy Policy Coordinator
Verde

No False Solutions
Energy justice means shifting the locus of power. Policy work driven by justice is community-led and co-creative. But too often, policy and program processes shut community out, minimize their voices, or ultimately make politically feasible compromises that undermine meaningful solutions. How do we know when we’re headed down a false path and how can we build tools and relationships to center the voices of community to achieve real and radical change?

Oriana Magnera is the Climate and Energy Policy Coordinator at Verde, a community-based organization that builds environmental wealth through social enterprise, outreach, and advocacy. Her work is focused on energy that is community-based, community-controlled, and community-benefiting, and more broadly, she advocates for policies and programs that meet forward the principles of environmental justice. Oriana is a policy wonk with the heart of an organizer and spends her time outside the energy world advocating around housing issues, hygiene access for folx who are unhoused, and racial justice. She holds a BA from Columbia University in gender and ethnic studies.