A near-record crowd of about 450 EPRI members, guests and staff were on hand in Orlando March 8-12 for the winter Generation Sector advisory meetings to review our technical progress and to shape our future R&D strategy.

Discussions at the Generation Council meeting highlighted a multitude of issues and the quickly evolving nature of our business environment - from the near-term impacts of EPA's Information Collection Request and the anticipated new emission standards that will follow, to the uncertainties over the management of coal combustion products, and to compliance with new NERC CIP cyber security standards and being able to accommodate increased plant cycling operations. And these challenges to maintaining the existing fleet are complicated by regulatory uncertainties and the need to establish planning "glide paths" for units foreseen to become economically unviable and the transition to other generation resources.

All of these issues place greater reliance on accurate technical bases to support critical decisions on generation assets. During this winter meeting, your representatives worked with our staff to sharpen EPRI's R&D portfolio to address many of these challenges. In parallel, many of you have actively taken our research results and applied them to towards resolving these challenges. We are extremely gratified when the value of our research is realized by those who helped guide and support its development, ensuring it is available and valuable to all.

At the meetings, we were pleased to honor 16 member companies, selected by their peers for recognition of their successful application of 16 EPRI technologies, with the 2009 Technology Transfer Awards. Please join us in applauding their work, which benefits all of us.

Sincerely,

Carolyn Shockley
Vice President, Generation