Speakers

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Drew Szabo

Drew Szabo

Sr. Manager - National Wind Electrical Leader , Westwood Professional Services

Drew has more than 25 years of engineering experience, with a background in utility substations, electrical studies, and renewable energy engineering. His experience includes engineering of diverse electrical power systems, including utility-scale solar and wind energy plants, energy storage, and utility substations. Having worked in both EPC and consulting engineering settings, Drew has led electrical engineering teams in the detailed design of many utility-scale solar, wind, and energy storage projects in the United States and Canada, from 1-MW distributed generation solar to 250-MW projects interconnected to the 345 kV transmission grid. He has also been responsible for the execution of design studies associated with these facilities, including underground thermal, short circuit, load flow, arc flash, insulation coordination, harmonics, and grounding studies.

Drew is an active member of the National Electrical Safety Committee Technical Subcommittee #3 (Substations)

Sessions

21-Jan-2026

02:30 PM – 03:30 PM

304C

Repowering Renewables: Making the Business Case for Wind and Solar Upgrades

"This is my first year at POWERGEN and so far I can just say, wow, this event is huge. I never thought I would have access to so many different vendors and so many different experts in the energy industry by coming to an event like this."

Caitlyn Watkins

Cleco

"It's my first time at POWERGEN. I'm having a great time walking around and seeing all of the booths in the exhibit hall and everything that everybody's trying to sell me, as well as a lot of very useful technical presentations. My particular favorite has been the carbon capture track, but they've all been good that I've attended so far."

Janelle Dana

Entergy

"Hi, I’m Chad Lemoine with Entergy... here as a corrective actions program specialist. It’s my first time at POWERGEN, so it’s been great for networking. I’ve met personnel at our plants I’d only talked to on the phone, so that face-to-face interaction has been really good. I’ve enjoyed meeting new people, learning about what they do, and how it interacts with my work... Overall, it's been a really good time."

Chad Lemoine

Entergy

"I think my favorite part of the conference has been essentially the Smarter Power Plant Track. There's been a lot of good [takeaways] for us because our plans are quite old, so there's a lot of manual readings and things, but me being the IT generation, I think it could be done better. So having a lot of these [takeaways] from companies who have [accomplished what] we are wanting to do is great. It's been really eye opening networking with all of the exhibitors [as well]. It's my first time here, but I don’t think it's going to be my last."

Jonathan Hellborg

Svensk Kraftreserv

“Nel’s chosen to sponsor and be part of POWERGEN because it's one of the more important shows in the hydrogen market, also the power generation market in general. Over the years, we've seen a shift in POWERGEN from more traditional power generation to a greater presence with renewables, and now with hydrogen, as an energy source, moving into the future.”

Chris Van Name

Nel Hydrogen

“We're here today at the conference because I believe this is the largest power generation conference there is in the country. One, it's a way to get our name out and that's why we're sponsoring it. But two, it's also a great way to connect with other groups, other organizations and, you know, meet the people who are actually important for our own progression as a company.”

James Walker

Nano Nuclear Energy, Inc

“We come to POWERGEN every year because it's a great show you can make great contacts in the renewable space, great contacts in the data center space, great contacts in the commercial industrial space. So that's why we're here every year. You should be here too.”

David D’Escoto

Maddox Industrial Transformer