Event Details: ​What is the PNW Battery Collaborative?: A community of battery entrepreneurs, scientists, and enthusiasts united to make the PNW the nation's leading hub of battery innovation.

​​What is this event?: Join us for an evening mixer with fellow battery innovators to exchange ideas, spark new partnerships, and explore opportunities to launch the next big breakthrough in battery technology. The main focus of the event will be a round of lightning talks by local battery innovators (~5 mins each), audience Q&A, and an opportunity for attendees to share announcements and learn about battery jobs/resource opportunities. This event is preceded by multiple meetups and site visits organized by the PNW Battery Collaborative in Seattle and attended by an aggregated total of nearly 200 participants.

​Why now?: The PNW is quickly becoming a key hub for battery innovation in the US. To maintain our region's competitive advantage and effectively support other regions in deploying batteries it is crucial that our local battery community be cohesive and inclusive.

​Who can join?: Any PNW locals working in or interested in supporting the region's battery industry.

​​Run of Show: - 5:30pm-6:00: check-in - ​6:00-6:15: introductions, agenda overview, & battery comms exercise - 6:15-6:35: lightening talks by speakers (listed below) - 6:35-6:50: speaker panel & audience Q&A - 6:50-7:00: audience announcements, resources, & job opportunities - 7:00-7:30: informal networking

​Lightening Talk Speakers:

• Grayson Shor, Founder (PNW Battery Collaborative)

• Duncan Miller, CEO (Rose City Robotics)

• Drew Lebowitz, Principal and Managing Director (PowerSwitch)

• Danny Lu, Senior Vice President (Powin Energy)

• Tyson Bittrich, Market Research Analyst (Mayfield Renewables)

• Shelly Whitlock, Executive Director of Development (Polaris Battery Labs)

​If you would like to speak at this event please reach out to event co-hosts Grayson Shor and Duncan Miller

​​Logistics: ​This event is hosted at the Metro Region Innovation Hub (google link)

​Please arrive between 5:30pm-6:00pm to sign-in. Programming will begin promptly at 6:00pm

​This event is free, please RSVP in advance

​This is an in-person only event

​​Have questions?: Reach out to event co-hosts Grayson Shor & Duncan Miller

​How to stay up to date on Collaborative activities?: Join our events calendar and our LinkedIn page

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​​Thank you to our generous sponsors: ​Metro Region Innovation Hub: is the hub for business innovation in the Portland metro region.

​Prosper Portland Green Cities: supporting companies producing innovative products, services, and technologies that address the climate crisis and solve environmental challenges.

UpStart Collective: a community-driven collaboration space for founders.

​Portland State University Business Accelerator: supports and serves the entrepreneur ecosystem and local startups from their early stage through growth.

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​​The views and opinions expressed by speakers during this event are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or perspectives of the organizers, sponsors, or affiliated organizations. The event is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Attendees are encouraged to independently evaluate the information shared and seek additional professional advice where applicable.

Location Metro Region Innovation Hub 2130 SW 5th Ave, Portland, OR 97201, USA

Energy storage is increasingly perceived as a necessary and vital component of any future smart grid, yet meaningful energy storage is still a scarce and missing component.

Why is energy storage so important? - Energy storage helps solve the variability issues with renewable energy (solar and wind) generation, and as such will help balance the grid - Distributed energy storage located near the point of use will provide localized power, thereby decreasing the need to build new power plants and additional transmission lines. - Energy storage has been proclaimed by some as a "killer app" by utilizing batteries in parked electric vehicle (EV) fleets to feed stored energy back to the grid. Such Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) applications have promise to feed energy back to the grid for special purposes to benefit both the utility and the electric car owner. - Significant utility-scale storage capacity solves an even bigger issue, capturing and utilizing the massive amounts of electrical generating capacity that is otherwise typically unused.

The discussion will focus on: - Value chain elements of the energy storage industry - Who are local champions of energy storage - What are the interests of the investment community - What does the policy and regulatory framework look like - How do customers value energy storage - How is the smart grid expected to interact with energy storage

Join our panel on April 21st, to understand the technologies, trade-offs, market segments, future potential of energy storage.

Our 3 panelists are: - Dylan Steeg, Director Intel Capital, Intel's global venture capital organization. Dylan is responsible for several cleantech and semiconductor sectors, including photovoltaics, smart grid/demand response, datacenter energy efficiency, and semiconductor manufacturing

• Dan Nicollet, Co-founder, Supercritical Energy, a pioneer of Supercritical Fluid Technology applied to distributed energy generation and storage on the electric grid

• Marcus Wood , Partner and Chair of the Energy and Telecommunications (ENTEL) practice group Stoel Rives, . He focuses his practice on energy provider and energy facility developer clients.

The panel will be moderated by John Thornton, Founder, Clean Future, a consulting firm providing business and technical expertise at the convergence of energy, mobility, sustainability and the Smart Grid.