We decided to hold our Users Summit amidst what we and others coined the Perfect Storm for the power industry. In addition to the multitude of environmental, regulatory and workforce pressures, generators are facing lower energy demand, budget cuts, travel moratoriums, layoffs and much more. We knew attendance would be down. We knew some customers feared that to travel anywhere, no matter what the rationale, would reflect negatively on them. And some were told “don’t even ask.”

Despite that, customers encouraged us to hold the event. Some took vacation time to attend, or paid for their own airfare. Others drove more than 800 miles, or flew halfway around the globe. Understand that we’re not talking about a Pink Floyd reunion concert or a tropical cruise here – but a learning experience. With that kind of dedication we decided we could not NOT go forward with this event.

In the end it was probably even more important than ever that we go forward. It is in times like these, when people are confronting such incredible challenges, that we most need to join together and interact, to share wisdom and insight, experiences and concerns. So while parts of the Summit were dedicated to market, product and technology updates, the interactive components really stole the show – from the Gordon Littleton-led session about getting and maintaining operator buy-in, and the user group open forum where customers got to prioritize improvements they’d like to see; to the best-practice debates during “how-to” training sessions and the many one-on-one discussions between customers.

It’s hard to measure the value of sharing ideas and learning from one another – but on practically every evaluation form it was that face-to-face interaction and knowledge sharing amongst customers and between customers and NeuCo that was ranked the #1 most valuable feature of the event. In an increasingly technology-driven world there’s clearly still no replacement for that type of personal contact.

I’d like to say a special thank you to our guest speakers – especially our six customer presenters who gave outstanding talks about their optimization experiences.  Presentations were given by some of the most proactive and innovative optimization technology users in the industry: by Dave Bloomfield of APS Four Corners, one of our very first and longest-standing customers who never stops innovating; by David Head of Xcel Tolk, one of our newest and most enthusiastic customers; by Tom Ziegler of Ameren and Larry Jorgensen of Deseret Power – two “super users” who continue to push the envelope; by John Hudspeth of NRG Limestone, host of our DOE Clean Coal Power Initiative demonstration project; and by Mario Sanjuan, the boiler guru from CPS Energy who doesn’t believe in “good enough”. 

Discussions with customers like these led me to three key takeaways: 1. We’ve come a really long way since the last Summit – and yet that’s just the tip of the iceberg with respect to the opportunity for this technology in power; 2. Successful people/process/technology integration, whatever the use case, is critical to the sustained success of optimization projects; and 3. Some of the greatest benefits of optimization – and in fact from a forum like the Summit – are things that can’t be directly measured.

You’ll be hearing a lot more about these themes and other topics coming from the Summit over the next several weeks – from Peter Spinney and from a series of guest bloggers. And, as always, we welcome your interaction.