Great River Energy electric cooperative of Minnesota will be the host utility at a major regional conference that brings electric utilities of all types together to discuss solutions to challenges facing the power industry.

DTECH Midwest—the first regional meeting in the region—will be held July 14-16 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. GRE's commitment marks the first time an electric co-op has been the top utility sponsor of a DTECH event.

“It's in our backyard, in the state where 26 of our member co-ops and their consumer-members are located, and being the host utility just seemed like the right thing to do," said Jeff Haase, a professional engineer who serves as director of member services at the Maple Grove-based generation and transmission co-op.

“We're excited to be in this position as the host utility," Haase said. “We really want to get more folks from co-ops and municipal utilities to participate."

It's also a chance for Minnesota co-ops to share some of their cutting-edge grid modernization projects with other co-ops and utilities from the upper Midwest, he said.

GRE experts will be among the industry leaders making presentations at the meeting, participating on the keynote panel on preserving reliability and on a separate panel on EVs. The co-op also served on the planning committee that reviewed proposed research papers and presentations, Haase said.

Among the region-specific topics at the conference will be how to mitigate severe weather impacts, which is always a concern in the Midwest. Other topics will include artificial intelligence, reliability and resilience, and transportation electrification.

The target audience for the conference would be co-op operations managers, distribution engineers and employees involved in helping consumers with EV adoption and other new technologies, Haase said.

Midwest co-op employees wishing to attend the conference can register here.