Advanced Energy United's 2025 Leadership Forum will start with a networking lunch, followed by strategic conversations and insights with the Advanced Energy United leadership team. Following a light networking reception, dinner will be on your own with plenty of local eateries to visit.

Advanced Energy United CEO Heather O’Neill will facilitate a strategic conversation with the Board Members of Advanced Energy United to explore how our integrated organizational structure with Advanced Energy United and Counterspark creates unmatched advocacy power in the clean energy space.

A facilitated conversation that engages United members as partners in expanding United's state and regional clean energy advocacy strength.

State regulators face immense pressure to advance clean energy goals while managing ratepayer impacts in an era of rising energy costs. Engage with a panel of public utility commissioners to explore regulatory tools and policy frameworks that enable grid modernization and clean energy deployment while managing consumer costs.  

Wrap up and reflections from Advanced Energy United President & CEO Heather O'Neill.

Day Two of the Forum is open to all members and invited nonmembers.

Welcome remarks from Advanced Energy United President & CEO Heather O'Neill

United’s leadership will discuss how coordinated strategic advocacy across federal engagement, regional transmission organizations, and state venues work to enable mass electrification while ensuring grid readiness, alleviate critical permitting and interconnection bottlenecks, and scale deployment of both large-scale clean generation and distributed energy resources.  

Success in deploying more clean energy increasingly depends on building bipartisan support and coalitions with varying perspectives in states of all political stripes. This panel brings together seasoned advocates who have successfully navigated state political landscapes to share proven strategies for framing clean energy as an economic asset, as essential for energy security, and a local job creator. Panelists will reveal how to build coalitions with unlikely allies and demonstrate how messaging around energy costs, energy independence, grid reliability, and jobs resonates in these crucial markets.

As federal policy shifts reshape energy markets, successful grid modernization requires strategic alignment between utility investment priorities and advanced energy deployment goals. This panel brings together utility executives and industry leaders to examine how investment decisions across transmission infrastructure, grid-scale renewable projects, storage and distributed energy resources can create mutual value while enhancing grid reliability and flexibility. Panelists will explore regulatory approaches that support both utility objectives and advanced energy growth and other market mechanisms to drive integration of diverse energy technologies. 

After the federal budget bill that rolled back key incentives, and the increasing polarization of many clean energy technologies, the industry faces a critical moment where traditional policy advocacy is no longer sufficient to secure our economic and political future. This session will bring together seasoned political strategists to openly assess both our 2025 setbacks, including the failure to protect transformative federal legislation like the IRA and IIJA, and our unexpected victories, extracting lessons about what moves the political needle. In this engaging conversation, we'll chart out strategies for a path forward that transforms advanced energy from a policy priority into a winning political force that can weather federal headwinds and drive state-level breakthroughs. 

To close out a day of strategic conversations, participants are invited to attend a joint networking happy hour at The Spire in Washington, D.C., co-hosted by clean energy trade associations Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), The American Clean Power Association (ACP), and the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE). This offsite reception offers a chance to build meaningful connections with peers, partners, and industry leaders across the energy sector.