Honoring Innovation, Leadership, and Scalable Solutions in Clean Energy
2025 SEPA Power Player Awards
Washington, D.C, April 02, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) is proud to announce the winners of the 2025 SEPA Power Player Awards. These prestigious awards recognize outstanding individuals, organizations, and projects that have advanced the transition to a clean, affordable, and resilient energy system through bold leadership, collaborative partnerships, and replicable solutions.
Reflecting the award program’s original six focus areas—resilience, emerging technology, transportation electrification, policy, energy storage, and energy equity—this year’s winners represent the ingenuity and dedication shaping a cleaner energy future for all.
“I am thrilled to recognize this year’s Power Player Awards recipients, each of whom has driven remarkable advancements in the energy sector,” shared Sheri Givens, President and CEO of SEPA. “This year’s winners reflect the real, measurable progress made in 2024 by individuals and organizations whose pioneering work not only propels us towards a sustainable energy future but also sets a global standard for innovation and collaborative success in the field. This year’s awardees highlight the power of dedicated individuals and teams to effect real, impactful change, inspiring all of us to continue striving for excellence in our industry.”
In 2025, SEPA received nearly 100 nominations from across the U.S. and internationally, reflecting the breadth of innovation happening throughout the sector. Submissions came from utilities, corporations, regulators, project teams, and individuals—each playing a vital role in advancing the energy transition. Winners and finalists were selected by a diverse panel of judges, including members of SEPA’s Research Advisory Council, Program Advisory Committee, and internal subject matter experts, through an impartial scoring process focused on innovation, collaboration, and replicability.
The winners were honored at the 2025 Power Player Awards Dinner on April 1, 2025, in San Diego, California, held in conjunction with SEPA’s Energy Evolution Summit.
The 2025 Awardees include the following:
Resilience Power Player of the Year Awardee
PPL Electric Utilities’ commitment to safety and reliability is demonstrated through its “Predictive Failure” project. At the heart of this project is the utilization of novel Early Fault Detection (EFD) technology. The implementation of EFD utilizes the Internet of Things, edge computing, and machine learning to help detect and pinpoint equipment defects on the distribution network, allowing for intervention and outage prevention in previously inaccessible locations. The project has been shown to improve public safety, service reliability, operational efficiency and mitigate the potential of wildfire ignition. As of December 2024, PPL had installed enough sensors to prevent nearly 300 outages that would have impacted more than 150,000 customers.
Emerging Technology Power Player of the Year Awardee
Arizona Public Service pioneered a virtual power plant (VPP) model that reduces energy demand through a network of customer-owned devices. Their Cool Rewards program uses residential and small to medium-business customers’ smart thermostats and battery storage systems to reduce the grid’s overall energy demand. Recently the program was able to reduce energy demand by 160 megawatts, while providing financial benefits to participating customers. This location-based demand response program demonstrates how the intersection of data and VPPs can enhance resilience during extreme events, making this model scalable for broader use.
Transportation Electrification Power Player of the Year Awardee
The Honorable Patricia Monahan, Commissioner Emeritus of the California Energy Commission
The Honorable Patricia Monahan, Commissioner Emeritus of the California Energy Commission, has led the charge on the nation’s most robust zero-emission vehicle infrastructure program. Commissioner Monahan secured grant funding for the CALeVIP 2.0 initiative, EnergIIZE, and National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure – programs that advanced charging and hydrogen refueling infrastructure throughout California. Since their implementation, these initiatives have expanded to accommodate medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles through inductive and megawatt charging. California’s cutting-edge lessons provide a guide for other states looking to expand electric vehicle adoption.
Policy Power Player of the Year Awardee
With the enactment of the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) demonstrated its commitment to clean energy through initiatives that included streamlining interconnection processes, improving customer support and education, providing financial incentives, and increasing stakeholder collaboration. Last year, ComEd interconnected more than one gigawatt of distributed energy resource capacity to their grid, provided analysis and oftentimes same-day approvals of interconnection applications, and offered near-real-time information for solar projects in high-fidelity hosting capacity maps. These initiatives can be replicated by adopting ComEd’s practices related to customer engagement, communication, and utilization of digital tools to streamline education and installation processes.
Energy Storage Power Player of the Year Awardee
Ampt has emerged as a leader in power management in response to Australia’s strict grid compliance codes. The organization has developed a “Direct-to-Battery” (D2B) system replicating the responsiveness of standalone storage in renewable generators. By utilizing Ampt’s innovative DC-coupled design, where DC/DC conversion occurs in the photovoltaic system, instead of a battery converter, substantial performance and cost advantages are realized. D2B architecture provides an integrated PV+ storage solution that optimizes clean power generation that outperforms existing infrastructure while reducing consumer costs.
Energy Equity Power Player of the Year Awardee
ConnectedSolutions – EnergyHub, National Grid, Eversource, Cape Light Compact, Rhode Island Energy, and Unitil
ConnectedSolutions is a collaboration between EnergyHub, National Grid, Eversource, Cape Light Compact, Rhode Island Energy, and Unitil to form a virtual power plant. ConnectedSolutions’ open access, device-agnostic program encourages participation from customers across all socio-economic backgrounds through behavioral programs or technology-intense devices, such as battery storage. Customers can maximize the program benefits by participating in other programs, such as regional energy markets. Amongst all distributed energy resource technologies, over 650 megawatts of flexible capacity was available in 2024.
For more information, including a list of finalists and nomination details, visit the SEPA Power Player Awards webpage.
About SEPA:
The Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), a 501(c)(3) organization with over 1,000 members, accelerates the transition to a clean, affordable, and resilient electricity system for all. SEPA engages with its diverse membership — including utilities, policymakers, regulators, and technology companies — through education, collaboration and convening to advance innovative policy, regulatory, and technology solutions. For more information, please visit www.sepapower.org.
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CONTACT: Natalie Goldfarb Smart Electric Power Alliance 771-213-6988 ngoldfarb@sepapower.org
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