REV2025: Repower, Revitalize, and Ready: PV System Upgrades for Vermont’s Energy Future
Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 – 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Sponsored by Power Factors
Amphitheater
This session explores how modernizing aging photovoltaic systems with more efficient inverters, better serviceability, and enhanced grid-support features can reduce the need for full replacement, increase reliability, accelerate grid-readiness, and meet new interconnection and reliability requirements from ISO New England. This conversation is especially relevant as Vermont considers new policies to support grid resilience, storage integration, and equitable investment in infrastructure.
Moderator: Cara Richards, SMA America
Cara Richards is a Strategic Sales Manager at SMA with a strong focus on accelerating the adoption of solar energy across the U.S. With almost two decades of experience in clean technology and sustainable infrastructure, Cara brings a unique blend of strategic insight and hands-on leadership to the renewable energy space. She has led high-impact initiatives that drive market expansion, foster key partnerships, and deliver scalable solar solutions to the utility, commercial, and residential sectors. Cara is passionate about empowering communities through clean energy and is dedicated to shaping a more resilient, equitable energy future through innovation and collaboration.
Speakers
Salam Baniahmed, VELCO
Salam Baniahmed, PhD is the Director of Operational Technology at Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO), leading the growth and implementation of their OT strategy. Salam has led and co-led multidisciplinary technology development portfolios on clean energy systems and their cyber-physical advancement. His career features persistent efforts to harmonize the cyber and physical layers of the critical energy infrastructure, and is split among leadership, academic research, and industrial innovation.
Kent Stafford, Legacy Power
Phil Thomas, SMA America
Phil Thomas is a Senior Applications Engineer at SMA America, focusing on utility and distribution-scale projects. With an emphasis on greenfield PV, he also specializes in repowering projects, a sector that has been gaining significant momentum in recent years. Phil brings ten years of renewables experience rooted in PV operations and maintenance and has gone on to play a leading role in SMA’s solution engineering for repowering initiatives. Passionate about sustainability, he is eager to exchange ideas on advancing grid reliability, optimizing system performance, and ensuring the long-term success of renewable energy assets.