Derrick Cherry, Ph.D. of Alabama Power Company

This presentation will provide an overview of Alabama Power Renewable Program options. 

Biography:

Derrick joined the company in 2008 as a Protection & Controls Application Engineer in APC/SCS Transmission.  In 2013, Derrick began working as a Senior Transmission Planning Engineer in SCS Transmission.  In 2014, Derrick joined Southern Power to help contribute to net income growth by performing transmission related due diligence and risk assessments on acquisition/development projects in key Energy Markets across the country (e.g., CAISO, ERCOT, ISO-NE, MISO, SPP, etc.).  In 2017, Derrick joined Major Accounts at Alabama Power Company and was responsible for achieving net income growth by supporting the commercial sales team with electric service requests, service reliability, contracts, sales and company policy & procedures. In 2020, Derrick joined the Alabama Power Birmingham Division and served as the Account Manager for 30+ Commercial & Industrial customers.

Derrick currently serves as the Customer Renewables Manager at Alabama Power Company.  In this role, Derrick is responsible for leading a team to assist customers with generator interconnection requests, manage existing renewable programs, develop new renewable programs that help customers meet their renewable/sustainability goals and assist with the development and implementation of the Company’s policies and guidelines related to Distributed Energy Resources. The team is also responsible for increasing awareness of our renewable efforts and improving the overall customer experience with renewable related issues. 

Derrick was a member of the Alabama Power Leadership Development Graduating Class of 2018-2019.  Derrick serves as a mentor for the Mississippi State University IMAGE Program (Increasing Minority Access to Graduate Education) and serves as a Member of the MSU Electrical & Computer Engineering Department Advisory Board where he assists in developing the overall strategic direction of the academic and research programs and helps to support the mission of the department, college and university.  Derrick served four years as the chair of the IEEE Alabama Chapter Power and Energy Society and volunteered as a mentor at Wenonah High School where he helped to develop a robotics program for the students to participant in local and regional robotics competitions. 

Derrick attended Alcorn State University for two years in the pre-engineering program and later transferred to Mississippi State University to study electrical engineering. Derrick holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Mississippi State University with a minor in business and industrial engineering.  Derrick and his wife, Hillary, reside in Birmingham.