Speakers

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John Kemp

John Kemp

Director of Origination , Avangrid Renewables

John Kemp started in the solar development business in 2008 founding Earth Right Energy, INC. During his tenure at ERE, John developed, built, and sold over 200mw of DG solar in TN, NJ, MA, NY, and CA. John founded “The School Solar Savings Program” for Tennesse Schools in 2010, allowing school districts to lease their rooftops for additional revenue to the school systems utilizing the TVA Green Power Providers Program.

Since 2010, John has help key Utility Scale positions at Bosch Solar Americas, Hanwha Q Cells, E.ON Climate and Renewables, Silicon Ranch Corporation, and most recently Avangrid Renewables. During his tenure at E.ON, John developed a pipeline over 2GW of Utility Scale Solar with his team of 7 Senior Solar Development Managers. John negotiated a PPA in 2019 with TVA on a 100mw solar project located on a remediated brownfield in Shelby County TN. In 2023 John closed negotiations on a wind PPA in Illinois for 150mw with a large C&I offtake.Before leaving E.ON, John finished development of a 100mw project in West Texas that completed construction in October of 2019 and obtained COD in November 2019. John’s projects have been shortlisted in the TVA RFP with over 200mw, and Alabama Power RFP with 80mw, and GA Power RFP with over 400mw. John earned his BSOM/MAOM from Tusculum College as well as his Executive MBA from the University of Tennessee.

John's currently leads Origination efforts at Avangrid for the Eastern U.S., with the help of his team have successfully negotiated over 1 GW of Utility Scale Solar and WInd project PPA's in the last three years.

Sessions

21-Jan-2026

03:15 PM – 04:15 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