Intel, Google, McKinsey Among Speakers at May Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency

The Institute for Energy Efficiency, an interdisciplinary research institute focused on delivering technologies to significantly boost energy efficiency within 10 years, today announced that registration is now open for its inaugural Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency, to be held at University of California at Santa Barbara on May 20-21, 2009.

The Summit will bring together global influencers and stakeholders in energy efficiency technologies, commercialization, and policy for two days of in-depth discussions and industry updates in this fast-moving sector. Confirmed keynote speakers thus far include:

• California Public Utilities Commission, Dian Grueneich, Commissioner
• Intel Corporation, Justin Rattner, Vice President and CTO
• McKinsey & Co., Nick Hodson, Principal
• SunPower Corporation, Dick Swanson, President and CTO
• U.S. Department of Energy, Raymond Orbach, former Undersecretary for Science
• U.S. Department of the Interior, Lynn Scarlet, former Deputy Secretary of the Interior

Other speakers and panelists confirmed thus far include:

• United Technologies Corporation, J. Michael McQuade, Senior Vice President, Science and Technology
• Southern California Edison, Gene Rodrigues, Director of Energy Efficiency
• Cisco Systems, Garry Epps, Distinguished Engineer
• Google Inc., Luiz Barroso, Distinguished Engineer
• Microsoft Research, Feng Zhao, Principal Researcher and Manager

"People tend to overlook the simplest solution to most problems. In the case of the world's access to and consumption of energy, simply using existing energy more efficiently is the cheapest and easiest way to make more energy available," said Dr. Daniel Colbert, Executive Director of the Institute. "Industry, academia, the venture capital community and policymakers finally have their eyes on the prize in a big way. The Institute is bringing these players together for our inaugural Summit to address barriers and major advances in the energy efficiency sector.

The Summit agenda will focus on the latest energy efficiency technology developments and commercialization, along with the current policy landscape. The technology sessions will delve into five energy efficiency categories, which reflect the work of the technology-focused solution groups of the Institute for Energy Efficiency: lighting; building and design; production and storage; computing; and electronics and photonics.

On May 20, there will be a special evening lecture by William McDonough, a winner of Time magazine's "Heroes of the Planet" award. The lecture will be open to all Summit attendees.

Registration is now open for the Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency. For more information about the Summit and to register, please visit: http://www.iee.ucsb.edu/sbsee

About the Institute for Energy Efficiency

The Institute for Energy Efficiency is an interdisciplinary research institute focused on delivering significant energy efficiencies within 10 years. The Institute's cutting-edge research activities leverage the considerable expertise of U.C. Santa Barbara's highly acclaimed faculty, scientists, engineers and researchers, including five Nobel Laureates.

The Institute for Energy Efficiency runs a wide variety of programs and initiatives-including the Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency-that advance its mission of improving how energy is produced and used.