Since early 2015, we have been communicating the on-going changes to the Technical Committees with the IEEE Power & Energy Society.  This is the result of work started in 2012 to review overlap and gaps in technology. The Technical Committee reorganization has resulted in twenty coordinating and technical committees as shown below.   The PES Governing Board approved these changes (14 January 2016).  The committees are working on transitioning to this new organization.  As each committee meets under separate schedules, each committee may have a slightly different time frame, but expect to have all necessary changes complete by the close of the 2016 General Meeting in Boston.  Starting with the 2017 General Meeting in Chicago, technical sessions, technical papers and other technical activities will follow this new organization.  Therefore the call for papers to be released later this year will be under the new structure.  We look forward to seeing exciting new panels and papers addressing these new activities.

Participation is encourage by all.  Please visit the designated web page or contact one of the officers for further information.

The following is a summary of those changes.  At the same time, we are pleased to announce the new officers for these newly formed committees. Look for more details on each of the new committees in forthcoming issues of the eNews in the new future.

• Intelligent Grid & Emerging Technology Coordinating Committee – A merger of the Intelligent Grid and Emerging Technologies Coordinating Committees.  This committee will continue to cover the emerging technologies that are developing within Smart Grid.

• Analytic Methods for Power Systems Committee – (Formerly the PES Power System Analysis, Computing and Economics Committee [ewh.ieee.org] – PSACE).  This committee will cover the modeling, analysis, computational and control methodologies pertaining to power systems. The Economics portion of the previous committee will now reside in the new Power System Operation, Planning & Economics Committee.

• Energy Development & Power Generation Committee [ewh.ieee.org] – The energy storage scope will now be in the new Energy Storage and Stationary Battery Committee.  Also, the scope is being revised to incorporate the “Integration of Renewable Energy into the Transmission and Distribution Grids Subcommittee” from the Transmission and Distribution Committee into the newly named “Integration of Renewables Subcommittee”. No change of officers.

• Energy Storage & Stationary Battery Committee[ewh.ieee.org] – This is a NEW committee which is being formed from the original Stationary Battery Committee with the addition of Energy Storage technologies to provide a reliable backup and energy storage solution for integrating legacy, renewables and distributed grid  infrastructure.

• Power Systems Communications & Cybersecurity Committee – This is a NEW Committee that will combine the Power System Communication Committee with work from the Substations and Power System Relaying Committees to cover grid communications and cybersecurity. The new committee will cover aspects of communications including the physical layer, protocols, interoperability, profiles and mapping, architecture, and security – both physical and cyber.

• Power System Operation, Planning & Economics Committee – A NEW Committee which is the merger of the Power System Operations Committee, Power Systems Planning & Implementation Committee, and the System Economics subcommittee of PSACE.

• Power Systems Relaying & Control Committee[pes-psrc.org] – (Formerly the Power Systems Relaying Committee)  The scope is being revised to allow incorporation of working groups from Substations C0 Subcommittee on Data Acquisition, Processing & Control Systems.  Some working groups from the Relaying Communications (H) Subcommittee are being relocated to the Power Systems Communications and Cybersecurity Committee. No change of officers.

• Smart Buildings, Loads & Customer Systems Committee – A New committee that will address Microgrids, transactive energy, home area networks and home energy management systems as well as automatic metering infrastructure and electric vehicles.     Call for volunteer announcement[ieee-pes.org].

• Substations Committee[ewh.ieee.org] – The scope is being revised to reflect the work of the Data Acquisition, Processing & Controls (C0) Subcommittee being relocated to two other committees. Some working groups are moving to Power Systems Relaying and Control Committee, requiring a change in the PSR scope and renaming to the PSRC as noted above.  The remaining C0 working groups will move to the new Power Systems Communication & Cybersecurity Committee. No change of officers.
• Transformers Committee[transformerscommittee.org] – The scope is being revised to include coupling capacitive voltage transformers (CCVTs). No change of officers.

• Transmission & Distribution Committee[grouper.ieee.org] – The scope is being revised to move the “Integration of Renewable Energy into the Transmission & Distribution Grids Subcommittee” to the Energy Development and Power Generation Committee, and to move the General Systems Subcommittee to the Analytic Methods for Power Systems Committee. No change of officers.

The organization and scope of the following committees will not be changing:

• Electric Machinery Committee[ewh.ieee.org]
• Marine Systems Coordinating Committee[ewh.ieee.org]
• Nuclear Power Engineering Committee[grouper.ieee.org]
• Power System Dynamic Performance Committee[ewh.ieee.org]
• Surge Protective Devices Committee[pes-spdc.org]
• Switchgear Committee[ewh.ieee.org]

Miriam P. Sanders, PE
VP Technical Activities, IEEE PES Governing Board
Chair, Technical Council 2015-2017