About Microgrids

Texas Time: The Microgrid Conference 2025 Call for Speakers is Now Open

Aug. 5, 2024

Whether it's new data centers, industrial plants or EV charging infrastructure, the new electrification economy is going to need more power than the utility-scale grid can provide.

Rod Walton, Managing Editor

Flag of Texas courtesy Paul B. Joiner/Wikimedia Commons/Public doman.

The state motto for Texas is “Friendship.”

I can’t think of a better term than that to describe my personal goal for next year’s Microgrid Knowledge Conference, which will be in Dallas. Microgrid 2025 will be April 15-17 at the Sheraton Dallas.

Call for Speakers: Submit your Session Idea for Microgrid 2025 Here

The Lone Star State, of course, is known for its long oil and gas history. Nowadays, however, it's also a national leader for wind, solar and microgrid deployment. The future of the energy mix is a big deal in Texas.

Whether it's new data centers, industrial plants, military bases, health care systems or EV charging infrastructure, the new electrification economy is going to need more power than the utility-scale grid can provide. Enter the microgrid.

The aim of Microgrid Knowledge Conference 2025, of course, is to bring greater awareness to championing the growth of the microgrid and aggregated distributed energy resource industries. The best way to facilitate that is through bringing people together. Networking. Interactive content sessions. Friendships on the most collaborative level. A lot of fun, too.

Quality of content is the biggest driver for any event, and for that we have just opened our MGK Conference Call for Speakers. This call is open to all entities with something to say about every facet of microgrids, and it will remain open here until October 1.

Among the major themes we’re seeking for Microgrid 2025 content sessions are Customer Education/Microgrid 101 level insights for non-expert end users to learn more; Digital Optimization, including how AI can revolutionize microgrid controls and interaction; Economic Viability and Applications, focused on ways to grow the industry and make the value chain argument for microgrids; Generation and Fuels Focus, from solar-storage projects to a future full of potential for hydrogen and small nuclear; Project Development and Operations, including case studies on how microgrids were designed and developed, commissioned and maintained for maximum efficiency and sustainability; Systems Engineering and Integration; and why microgrids should be a key choice for Mission-Critical Applications.

We want to highlight the three energy-focused Big Ds in Dallas: Distributed, Decarbonized and Demonstrated. Microgrids have a story to tell, and those include many benefits to tout as the energy transition evolves with massive growth in data centers, industrial and commercial electrification and EV charging infrastructure.

Microgrid Knowledge Conference 2025 will be our 10th annual event, and we want you to join us in celebrating that decade of growth for the industry. The Call for Speakers is now open for the next two months.

We cannot wait to see old friends and make new ones this coming April in Dallas. You’ll get a Texas-sized welcome, for sure.

Click here to Learn More and Submit your Ideas for our Microgrid 2025 Call for Speakers

About the Author

Rod Walton, Managing Editor | Managing Editor

For Microgrid Knowledge editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

I’ve spent the last 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. I was an energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World before moving to business-to-business media at PennWell Publishing, which later became Clarion Events, where I covered the electric power industry. I joined Endeavor Business Media in November 2021 to help launch EnergyTech, one of the company’s newest media brands. I joined Microgrid Knowledge in July 2023.

I earned my Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. My career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World, all in Oklahoma . I have been married to Laura for the past 33-plus years and we have four children and one adorable granddaughter. We want the energy transition to make their lives better in the future.

Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech are focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.