Paving the Way for Grid Modernization

More than 3200 PES members and energy industry enthusiasts converged on Boston on July 17-21, 2016 to experience the next chapter in the society’s long history of hosting exceptional meetings and events. Similar to the 2015 GM in Denver, the expectation from attendees was for an outstanding opening plenary session—with prestigious speakers including:

• Damir Novosel, PES President and President of Quanta Technology

• Miroslav Begovic, PES Past President and Head Professor of the Texas A&M ECE Department

• Babak Enayati, Chair of the 2016 IEEE PES GM Local Organizing Committee and Lead RD&D Engineer with National Grid

• Cheryl LaFleur, Commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

• Marcy Reed, President of National Grid (Massachusetts Jurisdiction)

• David L. Geier, Vice President of Electric Transmission & System Engineering with San Diego Gas & Electric

• Juan de Bedout, Chief Technology Officer for General Electric’s Energy Connections Business

PES President Novosel gave a rousing PES Member Meeting opening session and provided the crowd with a “state of the society” address. Past President Begovic then provided support and introductions for the various nominations and appointments for the upcoming election. And then Babak Enayati introduced the plenary session panelists who each provided detailed industry presentations followed by a question and answer session for the attending assembly.

Following the GM’s theme, “Paving the Way for Grid Modernization,” attendees had the opportunity to be present for additional panel sessions covering topics like transformer resiliency and physical security, impacts of environmental regulations on power markets, power grid resilience, and so much more.

Paper and poster sessions are also a popular attraction for GM-goers. From an overview of the best conference papers on power system stability and protection to an emerging technologies poster session, the prospects to get involved were numerous. And that was just the first couple days. Days two and three were chock-full of panels and poster sessions on microgrids, grid planning, DER, big data, sustainable energy, smart buildings, smart cities, flexible energy systems, and energy policy—to name a handful.

To cap the event, PES announced the recipients of its Society-Level Awards—all recognized and honored during a formal ceremony in Boston. The PES Society-Level Awards recognize and credit important technical, educational and service contributions by the global power and energy community. And PES members can nominate their colleagues for these awards, by visiting http://www.ieee-pes.org/pes-communities/awards.

As another GM came to a close, PES members and many others looked forward to the 2017 IEEE PES General Meeting in Chicago, scheduled for July 16-20. The 2017 GM theme is “Energizing a More Secure, Resilient and Adaptable Grid.” Visit http://pes-gm.org/2017/ for more information and to participate in a call for papers and other opportunities.

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