Biography
Bill Hederman is a Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. He teachers the core course: Introduction to Energy Policy, as well as being part of the Wharton Executive Education Faculty for the "Futures of Utilities" program. In addition, he advises 3 startup firms, two in demand-side management and one in advanced encryption technology.
He also currently serves as a Senior Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he is teaching Geopolitics of Energy for the joint CSIS_Maxwell School masters program. A retired Deloitte Director, Bill is now an independent senior adviser at Deloitte and Touche. He served as senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, providing leadership on Department of Energy (DOE) missions to Ukraine, the Baltics, and Germany. In this position, he was also the chief architect for the analytic framework developed for DOE's groundbreaking Quadrennial Energy Review.
In the corporate sector, he was vice president for Business Development and Strategic Initiatives at Columbia Transmission Companies on the management team that brought Columbia out of bankruptcy. During the Enron and California crises, he joined the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and formed the Office of Market Oversight and Investigations, which has been credited with playing a major role in the restoration of confidence in electricity and natural gas regulatory oversight.
Hederman began his professional career as a systems integration engineer at Bell Labs in the directorate that later developed the cell phone system. He served on the RAND Corporation's pioneering technology demonstrations research team, and was the Congressional Budget Office's first energy budget analyst. He led the establishment of: the policy analysis department at INGAA (pipeline association), the International Energy Agency's gas technology center, and the Washington office for RJ Rudden Associates (now Black & Veatch).
Hederman holds engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Notre Dame, and a professional degree (M.P.P.) from the University of California at Berkeley.
Related Events
2 Events
July 22, 2022
Past Event
The Future of Natural Gas
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USEA Virtual Press Briefing: The Future of Natural Gas
The future role of natural gas in U.S. electricity generation is under the microscope. At present, 38 percent of the nation’s generation is from gas. The current vision of the Biden Administration and some utilities is to significantly reduce reliance on natural gas by 2050 in order to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. Is this timetable achievable? What is the impact on the grid if gas is substantially reduced?
These are the issues swirling around for utilities and the customers they serve as they plan, build, and implement their carbon-neutral futures.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, the utility giant, is weighing the closure of its largest generating station, the coal-fired 2,470-megawatt Cumberland Plant, and will replace it with gas generation if no alternatives can be found. It has released an RFP for 5,000 MW of new, carbon-free generation, a massive request that may produce long-term effects if it cannot be fulfilled by the timeframe of 2029.
The United States is not alone in this problem. The European Union is wrestling with its natural gas dilemma - due to its delicate position with Russia - by classifying some gases, including methane, and nuclear, as green. Will there be a similar compromise in the United States?
Can utilities significantly reduce or completely eliminate natural gas utilization? What would be the consequences?
These critical questions and more will be addressed in this briefing, which will consist of a panel of experts taking questions from knowledgeable journalists. USEA Acting Executive Director Sheila Hollis will give opening remarks. Llewellyn King, nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and broadcaster, organized this briefing and will moderate.
The general audience can submit questions using the Zoom Q&A function, but members of the media will be given preference. A recording will be made available after the briefing.
Panelists:
Don Moul, Executive Vice President and COO, Tennessee Valley Authority
David Naylor, President, Rayburn Country Electric Co-Op
Phil Moeller, Executive Vice President, Edison Electric Institute
Jack Weixel, Senior Director, S&P Global Commodity Insights
William Hederman, Adjunct Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Journalists:
Jennifer Hiller, The Wall Street Journal
Ken Silverstein, Forbes
Rod Kuckro, Freelance
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October 31, 2018
Past Event
All, Energy Efficiency
Technology Briefing: What Does "Resilience" of the Electric Power Sector Mean Today?
USEA is pleased to sponsor a panel on one of the hottest topics in the electric power industry – resilience of the power grid. Resilience is generally defined as increasing the ability of the power system to prevent or mitigate the impact of unusual – in particular catastrophic – events (e.g., storms, fires, earthquakes, cyber and physical attacks). With the increase in the incidence and severity of such events, and with the unquestioned criticality of secure power supplies to our lives, resilience is on the top of many utilities’ and regulators’ agendas, including a major ongoing proceeding at the FERC.
There are many questions regarding resilience, such as: How does it differ from reliability? Where is the line drawn? What is the role of the Federal government versus states, utilities and consumers? What process should we use to determine whether a system is resilient, and what investments make sense to undertake to increase resilience? Who should pay for such investments, and what does that depend on? Are certain systems inherently more resilient than others, and if so, are there long-term as well as near-term changes we should make to create a more resilient power system?
USEA welcomes the following speakers to discuss their perspectives on the resilience of the electricity system:
Candice Castaneda, Counsel - North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)
Sara Mullen-Trento, Ph.D., Senior Technical Leader - Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
Bill Hederman, Senior Fellow - University of Pennsylanvia Kleinman Center
Elliot Roseman, Author & Program Director - United States Energy Association (USEA)
Washington, District of Columbia
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