Global Solar Power Forum Speakers

Derek D. Adams

Managing Director, Permian Energy Development Laboratory

Derek is the Managing Director of the Permian Integrated Energy System (PIES) at PEDL. He brings deep cross-sector experience in power generation, energy storage, renewable energy, oil and gas, and decarbonization technologies. Derek leads the development and execution of integrated energy projects at PEDL Lands, working across public, private, and research domains to advance innovation in the Permian Basin. His work focuses on translating complex energy challenges into actionable strategies by aligning technical design, stakeholder engagement, and commercial feasibility. Derek is committed to accelerating the deployment of next-generation technologies that will define the future of energy systems.

Omeed Badkoobeh

Vice President of Sales, ESS Division at Ampace Technologies

Omeed Badkoobeh is a veteran leader in the solar + storage industry, with over 16 years of hands-on experience spanning residential, commercial, and utility-scale systems. He began his career designing and deploying rooftop solar and small commercial installations, and later held a sales role at Tesla, where he honed his skills in driving adoption of clean energy technologies.

Omeed is the founder of Yotta Energy, a company that has pioneered a novel solar + storage architecture (PV-coupled microinverter + battery modules, branded as SolarLEAF™) designed to cost-effectively and scalably integrate storage into rooftop solar systems, while managing thermal conditions and improving deployment economics.

Under his leadership, Yotta was recognized on the 2024 Global Cleantech 100 list for its innovation and impact.

Currently, Omeed serves as Vice President of Sales, ESS Division at Ampace Technologies, where he leads commercial and strategic efforts to accelerate deployment of energy storage systems (ESS). His mission is to help make solar power dispatchable and grid-resilient by scaling ESS adoption across markets. Throughout his career, Omeed has combined entrepreneurial vision with domain expertise. He is a NABCEP-certified solar professional and has been personally responsible for deploying millions in revenue across renewable energy projects.

Andy Bowman

CEO, Jupiter Power

Andy Bowman has been a serial clean energy entrepreneur since the late 1990s. Prior to forming Jupiter he was president of Pioneer Green Energy LLC, a company he founded in 2010 with six others and led through 2015. Over 2001-2009 Andy led renewable energy project development first as President of Renewable Generation Inc., then Senior Vice President at Airtricity and finally as Chief Development Officer at E.On Climate & Renewables (now RWE).

Prior to 2001, Bowman helped develop some of the first privately financed wind farms in the US. Over his career Andy has had executive responsibility for nearly 3,600 megawatts of wind and solar projects across the US.

Patrick Buckley

VP, Development with Open Road Renewables

Patrick has spent the last 15 years developing utility-scale wind and solar projects across the country. Since 2015, he has led development of over 700 MW of utility-scale solar projects across Virginia and Ohio with Open Road Renewables. He has deep expertise in project origination, land acquisition, permitting and community engagement.

Prior to joining Open Road, Patrick led the development of several wind and solar projects from California to Alabama while at Pioneer Green Energy. Patrick is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin and received his MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Etienne Cadestin

Founder & Global CEO, Longevity Power

Etienne founded Longevity Partners in 2015. Prior to that, Etienne worked at Knight Frank, JLL and the United Nations Environment Programme (the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agendas).

Etienne has more than a decade of experience in sustainable property investment and strategy.

In 2019, Etienne won the EG Awards in the category ‘Future of Real Estate’. Before that, Etienne was picked to be an Estate Gazette’s ‘Property Rising Star’ and nominated for numerous awards as one of the most active young leaders in the sustainability and real estate industries. He regularly speaks at high-level events, giving his vision for smart cities, carbon-neutral buildings, wellbeing in the work place and the future of the real estate industry.

Etienne graduated from the London School of Economics. A keen sportsman, Etienne has run nine marathons and enjoys playing tennis, sailing, skiing, cycling and golf. He is married, with a daughter and a son.

Sergio Castellanos

Assistant Professor at the UT Austin's Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Department

Sergio Castellanos is an assistant professor at the UT Austin's Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Department, where he leads the RESET (Rapid, Equitable & Sustainable Energy Transitions) Lab, analyzing just decarbonization pathways for emerging economies, data-driven sustainable transportation approaches, and equitable local energy transitions. With collaborators, his interdisciplinary projects have been awarded international prizes (United Nations' Data for Climate Action Challenge), won national competitions (México), and gathered media attention (Forbes, Greentech Media). He was a recipient of the 2023 Cesar Chavez "Si Se Puede" Award' from PODER, an environmental justice organization in East Austin, TX, in recognition of his leadership and transformative work to help better communities in Austin. Sergio holds an Engineering Ph.D. from MIT.

Christian Claudel

Associate Professor, William J. Murray, Jr. Fellowship in Engineering No. 1, Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin

Christian Claudel is an Assistant Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at UT-Austin. He received the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from UC-Berkeley in 2010, and the MS degree in Plasma Physics from Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon in 2004. He received the Leon Chua Award from UC-Berkeley in 2010 for his work on the Mobile Millennium traffic monitoring system. His research interests include control and estimation of distributed parameter systems, wireless sensor networks and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Russell Gold

Executive Vice President for Strategic Communications at T1 Energy

Russell Gold was born somewhere east of the Sabine River (very far east) but made it to Texas in 1996 and stuck around. He worked as journalist for more than three decades, nearly all of it in Texas. He spent two decades as an award-winning investigative journalist at the Wall Street Journal. That job was bookended by a stint at the San Antonio Express-News in the 1990s and Texas Monthly in the 2020s. He has written about wildcatters, exploding offshore rigs, renewable energy developers and Bruno, the oil-rig dog who disappeared and found his way home. He dodged polar bears on Alaska’s North Slope, climbed a wind turbine in Oklahoma and spent more time on drilling pads than anyone with uncalloused hands should. His work has been recognized with a Peabody Award and two Loeb Awards. He is also very good at being a runner up. His work was twice a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and once for a National Magazine Award. He has written two books. His 2014 book, The Boom, was long listed for the FT Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year prize. His 2019 book, Superpower, wasn’t—but it is even better. He currently works at T1 Energy, a solar-manufacturing company. He lives in Austin with his wife. They raised two sons who are currently making valiant attempts at adulting.

Alex Hanson

Associate Professor, Chandra Family Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin

Alex Hanson is an Associate Professor and holds the Chevron Centennial Fellowship in Engineering (No. 1) in the Chandra Family Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2019. His research interests include power magnetics and modular power conversion. Dr. Hanson has received the NSF CAREER award, the AFOSR Young Investigator award, the William Portnoy Best Paper award, and the Gordon T Lepley excellence in teaching award. Dr. Hanson also leads the university-wide Texas Initiative for Datacenter Energy and large Loads (TEX-DEL), which covers the entire large load energy journey including generation, grid connection, conversion, storage, consumption, and thermal management.

Timothy Harvey

Customer Renewable Solutions Manager, Austin Energy

Timothy Harvey has more than 30 years of experience in the energy industry, including 18 years in Austin Energy’s solar group. Under his leadership, Austin Energy has developed and expanded its award-winning residential, multifamily, and commercial rebate programs, as well as GreenChoice, Community Solar, and Shared Solar programs. Harvey is dedicated to advancing renewable energy solutions that benefit the Austin community and support the city’s sustainability goals.

Austin Energy is a leader in renewable energy, pioneering Texas' wind and solar industries. As a community-owned utility, it prioritizes customers over shareholders, ensuring its programs align with local sustainability and resiliency goals while keeping costs fair and transparent.

Brian Korgel

Director, Energy Institute, The University of Texas at Austin

Brian A. Korgel is the Director of The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute and the Rashid Engineering Regents Chair Professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering. He also directs the Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) for a Solar Powered Future (SPF2050), the Nanotechnologies area of the UT Austin Portugal Program at UT, and serves as Associate Editor of the journal, Chemistry of Materials. He is a former Fulbright Fellow and has been Visiting Professor at the University of Alicante in Spain, the Université Josef Fourier in France and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from UCLA in 1997 and was a post-doctoral fellow at University College Dublin, Ireland, in the Department of Chemistry. He has given more than 260 invited talks and published more than 280 papers. He is also an artist, exploring language and human/technology cohabitation.

He has co-founded two companies, Innovalight and Piñon Technologies, and received various honors including the 2012 Professional Progress Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and election to Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).

Vatan Kumar

Manager in the PV Projects team at RWE Clean Energy

Vatan Kumar is Manager in the PV Projects team at RWE Clean Energy, where he leads the design and development of utility-scale solar projects across the U.S. His work focuses on optimizing DC:AC ratios, inverter and module selection, and applying advanced modeling practices such as P50/P75 uncertainty analysis, TMY tuning, and inter-annual variability assessment.

Vatan holds an M.S. in Electrical Power Systems Engineering from North Carolina State University, where he now lectures in the Utility-Scale PV Systems course. He is passionate about bridging academia and industry, mentoring future engineers, and advancing best practices in large-scale PV system design. With a data-driven approach and cross-functional field experience, he is committed to scaling renewable energy with both technical rigor and practical innovation.

Doug Lewin

Author, Texas Energy and Power Newsletter Host, Energy Capital Podcast President, Stoic Energy

Doug Lewin authors the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter and hosts the Energy Capital Podcast. He is a nationally recognized energy expert, particularly in the electric grid, renewable energy, energy efficiency, demand response, utility regulation, and pollution reduction. Lewin founded Stoic Energy, a Texas consulting firm specializing in grid and energy issues, in 2018. Previously, Doug led government and regulatory affairs work for CLEAResult, an energy efficiency program implementer for over 250 utilities in 40 states and provinces. Prior to joining CLEAResult, Lewin was the founding Executive Director of the South-central Partnership for Energy Efficiency as a Resource (SPEER) and worked at the Texas Legislature for five years as a legislative aide, primarily on energy, environment, and climate issues.

Joseph Luther

National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden CO, USA

Joseph M. Luther is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, where he leads research for next-generation optoelectronics. He received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder (2005) and a Ph.D. in Physics from the Colorado School of Mines (2009).

Following his Ph.D., Luther joined the group of A. Paul Alivisatos at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher, further expanding his expertise in nanomaterials. He returned to NREL as a staff scientist in 2009, where he has since become an internationally recognized leader in solution-processed and emerging photovoltaic technologies.

Luther’s research history spans nearly the full spectrum of PV platforms, from III-Vs and silicon to nanocrystal-based cadmium telluride, dye-sensitized, organic, and especially metal halide perovskite solar cells. He has established three world-record efficiency benchmarks on the Best Research-Cell Efficiency Chart and has been named to the Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers list eight times.

Amit Munshi

Assistant Professor at Colorado State University

Amit Munshi is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University (CSU) and the founder and president of JPHB Solutions LLC. He earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering from CSU in 2017. He also briefly served as the Chief Research & Development Officer of Toledo Solar Inc. in 2021 before returning to academia and simultaneously founding his own company. He also serves as the Site Co-Director of the CSU Site for the NSF IUCRC for a Solar Powered Future. He also continues to serve as a PI or co-PI for several US Department of Energy funded programs. He specializes in thin film CdTe PV technology and his research interests are process development for novel materials and its repeatable implementation, and understanding the influence of subtle process conditions on device performance through materials and optoelectrical characterization. Other research interests include technoeconomics of photovoltaic technologies and barriers to implementation, supply chain and end-of-life management of PV technologies, assessment of PV technologies under real world applications, etc. Dr. Munshi's PV commercialization efforts at JPHB are focused on scaling innovations in CdTe technology for niche applications such as Building Integrated PV (BIPV), Agriculture Integrated Photovoltaics (AgroVoltaics), and Internet of Things (IOT).

Joshua Rhodes

Research Scientist and Lecturer at The University of Texas at Austin, Non-Resident Fellow at Columbia University, Founding Partner and CTO of IdeaSmiths LLC

Joshua D. Rhodes, Ph.D. is a Research Scientist and Lecturer at The University of Texas at Austin, a non-Resident Fellow at Columbia University, a Founding Partner and CTO of IdeaSmiths LLC, and a commissioner on the City of Austin Electricity Utility Commission. He has authored over 125 scientific articles, columns, op-eds, journal publications, and reports which have been cited over 2,500 times and he has given over 120 keynotes, panel presentations, podcast interviews, and other talks. His current area of work is in how energy systems power our modern lives, with a particular focus on new supplies and demands of electricity. He holds a double bachelors in Mathematics and Economics from Stephen F. Austin State University, a masters in Computational Mathematics from Texas A&M University, a masters in Architectural Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. He enjoys mountain biking, backpacking, and a good cup of coffee.

W.S. Sampath

Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado State University (CSU).

Dr. W.S. Sampath is Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado State University (CSU). He has been a faculty member at CSU since 1985 with research focus on CdTe photovoltaics since 1991. His research group has demonstrated an efficiency of 20.1% for polycrystalline thin film CdTe photovoltaics, one of the highest efficiencies among universities and has published more than 130 papers. He is a site director of the NSF I/UCRC (Industry/University Co-Operative Research Center) for SPF2050. The center has completed ten years (Phase I & II) and is currently in phase III that includes financial support from industrial members. His research has been supported by NSF, DOE, EPA, USAID, UN-ICS, and industry over the past 37 years.

Micalah Spenrath

Deputy Director, Policy & Energy, HARC

Micalah Spenrath serves as the Deputy Director of Policy & Energy at the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), where she leads the organization's Policy & Government Relations program, applying science to inform sound energy policy. At HARC, she plays a key role in building strategic partnerships with policymakers, industry and other stakeholders to support the deployment of sustainable energy solutions across Texas. Her experience includes working on Texas Solar for All, a program designed to bring distributed solar and storage to communities across Texas and the nation, reducing energy costs, building resilience, and local workforce opportunities.

Prior to joining HARC, Micalah was a Principal at Advanced Energy United, advocating for policies to accelerate advanced energy adoption in Texas. She also contributed to the ERCOT Aggregated Distributed Energy Resources (ADER) Pilot Project through her role on the ADER Task Force, a coalition of businesses, utilities, and research institutions shaping the future of distributed energy resources and virtual power plants in Texas.

She holds a Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University, a Bachelor of Science with Honors in Earth and Environmental Science from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a Project Management Professional (PMP)® Certification.

Mark R. Stover

Executive Director Texas Solar+Storage Association (TSSA)

Mark Stover serves as the Executive Director of TSSA. He joined the association in May 2024. Prior to joining TSSA, Mark served on the association’s board of directors and was its secretary.

Before TSSA, Mark led government and regulatory affairs activities in ERCOT and SPP for Apex Clean Energy, a national leader in utility-scale wind, solar, BESS, and green hydrogen development, construction, and operations.

Mark holds over 25 years of external affairs experience in the electric power industry. Prior to joining Apex in 2017, he ran a consulting practice focused on renewable energy policy and project development. From 2008-2014, Mark served on the management team of a privately funded renewable energy company, Hydro Green Energy (HGE), where he was Vice President of Corporate Affairs. From 2006-2008, Mark worked at Good Company Associates in Austin, TX, where he provided a variety of consulting services to clients in the renewable energy, demand response, and energy efficiency sectors.

Mark’s career began in 1994 in Washington, DC, where he spent 11 years working at three national trade associations, including the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA) and the National Hydropower Association (NHA), where he ran legislative, regulatory, and media activities. Mark graduated from Syracuse University, where he studied political science and foreign affairs. He left DC for Austin in 2005.

Andy Uhler

Andy Uhler is an award-winning public radio correspondent and host of Phases & Stages: The Texas Energy Story. He’s currently a journalism fellow through a partnership between UT’s Energy Institute and Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. He started his journalism career as an undergraduate at KUT, the University of Texas at Austin NPR affiliate. He transitioned to music journalism in 2006, becoming the senior producer of Texas Music Matters. After completing a master’s degree in global policy studies at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in 2014, he returned to KUT to help launch the Texas Standard. The following year, he took a job as a sustainability reporter at American Public Media’s Marketplace, where he remained until accepting the energy journalism fellowship.

Tiffany Wu

Energy Markets and Regulatory Consultant, McAdams Energy Group

Tiffany Wu is an energy markets and regulatory consultant at McAdams Energy Group. From 2022 to 2023, she advised former Commissioner Will McAdams at the Public Utility Commission of Texas through the Department of Energy Solar Energy Innovation Fellowship. During her fellowship, she helped establish the Aggregate Distributed Energy Resources (ADER) Task Force and pilot program and helped shape policies on DER operations, resiliency, and reliability. Most recently, she was a Senior Project Manager at TEPRI, leading virtual power plant (VPP) development for multi-family housing and community resilience hubs in low to moderate income communities. Tiffany also spent a decade with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Notable projects include commissioning the world’s first fully integrated carbon capture process from stack to storage at Southern Company’s Plant Barry Generating Station (2011) and designing the world’s largest post-combustion capture project at

NRG’s W. A. Parish Plant (2013).

Tiffany holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, a Master of Public Affairs, and an M.S. in Energy and Earth Resources from The University of Texas at Austin. As part of her master’s research, she analyzed resiliency considerations made by key decisionmakers during the deregulation of ERCOT’s market and published papers quantifying environmental externalities and generation resource diversity as part of the Energy Institute’s Full Cost of Electricity initiative.