First IEEE PES Student Congress

By nchandler

11 November, 2014

Organized and hosted and by the IEEE METU Student Branch

By Uzay Kas, Congress Chair and Ceren Durmaz, METU Student Branch

IEEE METU Student Branch, IEEE Power and Energy Society and Middle East Technical University Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department organized the First IEEE PES Student Congress on August 29-31, 2014 at METU, Ankara, Turkey. The congress covered technical lectures, a fair, IEEE/PES non-technical workshops, both technical and historical field trips and was sponsored by domestic electrical companies. 40 students from 22 different countries and six speakers from five countries were together for three days and increased their professional network.

After the opening ceremony by Uzay Kas (Congress Chair), Frank Lambert (PES VP Chapters) and Prof. Gozde Bozdagi Akar (IEEE Turkey Section Chair), two sessions were delivered by Congress sponsors: Hüseyin Arabul, CEO of Emek Electric Industries and Timur Ketene, Business Development Director of BEST Transformers.

studentcongress3 — Hüseyin Arabul, Emek Electric Industries

studentcongress4 — Timur Ketene, BEST Transformers

Later, participants visited the Anıtkabir Mausoleum and learned more about history of the Turkish Republic.

After the visit, all of the student chapters presented posters to share a wide variety of Branch activities.

Meliha Selak, IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer, made a presentation on IEEE/PES Chapters program.

studentcongress7 — Meliha Selak, IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer

The day ended with a Gala Dinner.

The second day of Congress included the technical presentations by PES DLP lecturers.

studentcongress9 — “Electric Power Industry Visions and Experiences from an IEEE Power & Energy Society Past President”, Wanda Reder, Vice President of the Power Systems Solutions at S&C Electric Company, Chicago (USA), IEEE Board Member, Division VII Director.

studentcongress10 — “Power Flow Control”, Frank Lambert (USA),Director, National Electric Energy Testing Research and Applications Center (NEETRAC),Georgia Tech (Atlanta), IEEE PES Governing Board, VP Chapters.

studentcongress11 — “Future of Solar Energy in Middle East”, Bander Allaf (Saudi Arabia),CEO of Juffali Solar Energy, Saudi Arabia, Chair, IEEE PES Western Saudi Arabia

studentcongress12 — “An overview of SCADA in Power systems and the Power automation Laboratories at JMI”, Prof. Mini Thomas (India), Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, India.

studentcongress13 — “Smart Grid- Where We Are”, Meliha Selak (Canada) Consultant, Power System Protection and Control (Canada), IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer Program (DLP).

studentcongress14 — “Probabilistic Risk Assessment for Nuclear Power Plants”, Prof. Zdenko Simic (Croatia), Associate professor at University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (Croatia), Past president of the Croatian Nuclear Society

After the lectures, students participated in a project management workshop, “Best Practices of Student Chapters”.

The day ended with a Multicultural Night where students present their traditional apparel, music, and food.

During the last day of the Congress, students visited a 154 kV, +/-50MVAr Cascaded Multilevel Based Transmission STATCOM at the Sincan Transformer Substation, the National Power Quality Monitoring Center General Directorate of Electricity Transmission Co. of Turkey and the Wind Electric Power Monitoring and Forecast Center, General Directorate of Renewable Energy of Turkey.

All of the participants and organizers are looking forward to the next PES Student Congress which is being planned for 2016.

Khalid M. Ahmed, a Congress participant via Facebook:

“The congress wasn’t only technical programs !!! ,,, but a chance to meet new people, see different traditions & cultures , sharing activities between different branches, discussing technical ideas, technical tours, career advancement, humanitarian work and tackling challenges with peers ,,,,

Don’t forget … having fun as well…. Gala Dinner