• CERAWEEK
  • March 10 - 14, 2025

Ashley Smith

AES Corporation

Chief Technology Innovation Officer

Ashley Smith is Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at AES and has worked in the energy transition for the past two decades. At AES, Ashley sets AES’ innovation agenda and oversees a portfolio of renewables, electrification, and digital innovations.

Prior to joining AES, Ashley was part of Shell’s renewables business, where she led the transformation of Shell’s European power sales and trading group, drove strategic renewables investments, and led Shell’s energy transition venture capital activities in Europe.

Before Shell, Ashley co-founded and ran Centrica’s venture capital group, and led the acquisition of a high growth tech company that became the backbone of Centrica’s Connected Home business. Earlier in her career, Ashley worked at CT Investment Partners, Franklin Templeton Investments, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Ashley has a B.S. from McGill University and an MBA from Wharton.

Sessions With Ashley Smith

Thursday, 21 March

  • 07:15am - 08:20am (CST) / 21/mar/2024 12:15 pm - 21/mar/2024 01:20 pm

    How to Assure Power System Flexibility
    Power/Clean Power

    The widespread uptake of renewable power generation is creating new variability and system reliability issues for operators to manage. Power markets are addressing the challenge in different ways, from ramping gas or coal fleets up and down, to enhancing transmission interconnections, leveraging pumped hydro or batteries storage and innovating demand-side management. Policies and market mechanisms are poised to evolve to reward flexible power supply, particularly for zero-carbon solutions. But what are the risks? What changes need to be made to create commercial opportunities for flexibility suppliers? In a transforming energy system, what are the sources of future flexibility?