Aaron Smallwood

Aaron Smallwood is Vice President of Research & Industry Solutions at the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), and leads the development of SEPA’s strategies for Distributed Energy Resource management, emerging technologies, energy Internet of Things, grid architecture, transactive energy, cybersecurity, and standards and interoperability. Mr. Smallwood was the Program Management lead for DOE’s Orange Button initiative developing a standardized solar data taxonomy, and leads SEPA’s industry focused technical program collaboratively developing solutions to industry challenges. He also led SEPA’s Open Field Message Bus (OpenFMB) Distributed Intelligence initiative that culminated in the formalization and approval of NAESB Standard RMQ.26.<br /><br />Prior to joining SEPA, Mr. Smallwood was the Vice President of Technology at the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, leading technical initiatives and working with a wide representation of industry stakeholders to advance grid modernization. In his 20+ years in the electric sector he has held roles aligning IT and Business strategy at an investor-owned utility, and also several senior roles at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) where he was responsible for IT Operations for ERCOT’s multi-data center real-time grid management and dispatch systems, retail and wholesale market systems, change management, Enterprise Data Warehouse, systems integration, and market settlement systems. At ERCOT, Mr. Smallwood was also the Nodal Market Program Controller and led the Financial Management Office for the Texas Nodal Market Implementation Program, a $642MM market redesign program that delivered locational marginal pricing, integrated energy and market management systems, and settlements for the ERCOT market.