For me, the past year has been a flood of memories, as well as a glimpse into promising opportunities that lie ahead.

My wife Betsy and I attended a milestone reunion at St. Columba’s High School in Delhi. The picture below is of my high school class many decades ago. I am in the front row, third from the left. Many of our physical appearances (including yours truly) have changed and I could barely recognize nary a handful of classmates.

We also visited my alma mater, IIT Madras in Chennai, and were given a grand tour by the alumni association. Betsy saw my old dorm room, where I spent five years engaged in a demanding Electrical Engineering program. This is where I began my power engineering career. At that time, digital computers were just becoming affordable, so I decided to focus on ‘application of digital computers to solve complex power system problems.’ This became my enduring metier and still remains one of my passions.

The past year also provided opportunities to meet with a large number of PES members from around the world.

• The IEEE General Meeting is a traditional event to meet PES colleagues from around the world. This has been an annual reunion since my graduate school days in Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY. The PES members have been family; one constant, regardless of where I was professionally employed.
• I attended a number of other meetings, such as university research programs and university advisory boards, Cigre, DoE, NASPI, NSF reviews, to mention a few.
• At IEEE ISGT in Istanbul, I was honoured to teach a half-day course on ‘Evolution of the EMS Control Center – Benefits of Synchrophasor Solutions.” I had the opportunity to meet many more PES engineers of all ages of the 50 attendees from across Europe and other countries.
• Thanks to the IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer Program (DLP), I had the opportunity to give presentations in India and Sri Lanka. This was a ten-day whirlwind visit to four cities – Colombo, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Delhi – meeting over 300 attendees in all. The amazing hospitality of all the local PES chapters is something I will never forget. Here is a brief snapshot of each visit.

o   In Hyderabad, at the Narayanamma Engineering Women’s College, of the over 90 attendees, about 60 of them were women engineering students. It was nice to see so many young women engineering students interested in power, especially since our PES leadership is actively encouraging greater participation by women. Faculty from neighboring cities also attended.

o   I gave two presentations in Bangalore. One, a DLP at the Southern region EMS control center, and the other at the annual PES chapter workshop at GE’s Jack Welch Center.

o   The Colombo DLP was attended by staff from utilities, faculty, researchers and students from the region. They were all very interested in learning about some of the latest advances in PES control center solutions.

o   The Delhi presentation was organized by Prof. Mini Thomas and was hosted by Mr V.K. Agrawal of POSOCO at the Indian National Control Center. Mini’s report noted, “The lecture was attended by 46 people in person (18 IEEE members) and around 30 people from WRLDC, ERLDC and NRLDC by video conferencing.” At this national control center they monitor real-time conditions across the entire Indian grid. This is one of the largest interconnections in the world, and POSOCO is responsible for providing electricity to over a billion people. The picture below is from Delhi.

All of the presentations I gave as part of the IEEE PES DLP focused on how synchrophasor measurements from Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) are radically changing real-time power grid management at the EMS control center.

I tried to convey the theme that tomorrow’s grid management will be more effective, prompt, decisive, and automated. By marrying fast-acting FACTS devices with sub-second PMU measurements, we can bridge the invisible grid control gap, with fast automated actions. This is shown in the figure below.

This figure above represents response time frames related to managing grid disturbance phenomena. The range is from 16 milliseconds to hours.

• ‘Protection’ (on the left-side) is a mature solution space. Time frame is from around 16 milliseconds to 200 milliseconds. These are local power grid equipment protection schemes which have been in existence since they were first deployed. Here local measurements are used to implement local controls.
• ‘Control Room EMS & WAMS’ (on the right-side) are also established solutions; established since the 1970s. Time frame is from around 15 minutes to hours. Here wide-area measurements from across the grid are used to implement wide-area controls. These controls are usually in the minutes to hours’ time frame, and typically have an operator in the loop.
• ‘Automated Grid Control’ (in the middle) is the invisible region today. Time frame is from around 200 milliseconds to 15 minutes. Disturbances that develop in this region are only detected they have grown and, over time, manifest themselves in the Protection and/or Control Room time frames. Often, this may be too late to prevent a compromise of grid integrity.

Here smart solutions can be developed by integrating the growing number of PMU measurements with thyristor-based, fast-acting FACTs devices. This involves using regional measurements (local and wide-area) coupled with regional controls (local and wide-area), and is a potentially fertile space for developing creative new solutions. These solutions are designed to quickly address dynamic disturbances that begin and emanate from this region.

With these new solutions, the entire spectrum of grid dynamic phenomena would be addressed, so that we could promptly nip problems in the bud, before they grow and jeopardize grid integrity.

Finally, Intelect is another very promising and exciting event. Intelect is a marquee conference and exhibition that will be held in Mumbai, India, January 21 – 24, 2015. It promises to be an important event which addresses solutions for the future grid. It is co-sponsored by three IEEE societies (Power Engineering, Computers, and Communications) and IEEMA (the Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Association). Details can be found at

www.-ii-intelect.org. The Figure below illustrates the breadth of the themes of the Intelect conference:

As the Intelect technical program chair, I have had the privilege to reach out to experts across these three IEEE societies and IEEMA to organize panel sessions along four technical tracks:

1. Building Automation (Homes and Buildings)
2. Rural Electrification & Microgrids
3. Smart Cities
4. Humanitarian Impact of Smart Cities

IEEE staff in the US and India have provided wonderful support throughout the organizing process. We strongly invite participation at Intelect by IEEE and PES members.

Overall, 2014 has been incredibly stimulating, exhilarating and nostalgic. It brought back many memories from decades past and also provided a glimpse into the promise of the future power engineering workforce and emerging technology trends and opportunities. I met many PES members of all ages, and from many different countries. I also learned more about cross-cutting advanced technology solutions to help ensure a secure and reliable future grid.