Dear PES members:

As your president for 2018 and 2019, it is my privilege to write to you about some of the newer items the Power & Energy Society is focusing on. In order to make PES more relevant to the working engineer and help grow the power engineering workforce, we are working on several new initiatives. These include: corporate engagement, corporate membership, providing technical support to government agencies in many countries, and PES Scholarship program. These areas are also of interest to IEEE as a whole, and our efforts are well recognized across the Institute. I am providing brief summaries of activities along these lines. If you would like to know more about any of these programs, please write to us at pes@ieee.org.

Corporate Engagement

By actively engaging with PES, corporations can facilitate how their employees can stay up to date on the latest advances including renewable energy system design and integration, smart-grid technologies, electric vehicles, wholesale market design and operation and asset management, to name a few. By interacting with the IEEE Power & Energy Society through conferences, committee work, the distinguished lecture program, etc., employees of an organization can have many opportunities to engage professionally with their peers all over the world. Active negotiations are ongoing with several US electric utilities in this area. This model will be expanded globally.

Corporate Membership

This program allows an organization (company, university, a government entity, etc.) to pay for a certain number of IEEE & PES membership and receive benefits under the PES corporate engagement program. An MoU text has been developed by IEEE Corporate to help with the process of broader engagement with the power and energy community.

In the first week of November 2017, I met with the IEEE India office director in New Delhi and presented to them the new IEEE & PES corporate membership program. IEEE India office, which is now known as Global IEEE, believes that corporations – both private and public – will be interested in this program. They will discuss this membership program opportunity with Indian corporations working in the power sector. During my next trip to India in March 2018, I plan to have face-to-face discussions with the electric utility leadership there to discuss further collaboration.

I signed the first Corporate Membership Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between IEEE and the State Grid Corporation of China on 27 November in Beijing. Under this MoU, SGCC has agreed to pay the dues for 150 IEEE and PES members on an annual basis starting in 2018. I signed a second Corporate Membership MoU with Northeast China Electric Power University in Jilin City, China on 30 November 2017. NEEPU has agreed to pay for 50 regular IEEE and PES members and 50 more student members annually. I visited the Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China on 01 December and presented IEEE PES Corporate Membership opportunity to the university administration. They are also interested to pay for a block of IEEE & PES membership under this program. They are now discussing the details with the IEEE China office.

In the second week of December I visited Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where I spoke at the Saudi Arabia Smart Grid Conference. There I met with several directors/vice presidents of the Saudi Electric Company and presented to them the IEEE & PES corporate membership opportunity. They are very interested to participate in this program and we expect to move quickly on this.

In this new year, we are planning to start similar discussions about corporate membership in Europe, North Africa, Australia and several Asian countries where there is significant IEEE presence.

PES Scholarship Program

After its initial launch in the USA several years ago, the IEEE PES scholarship program is now global. The program is now active in Italy, India and discussions are going on for launching in Australia. Our region directors outside North America have more information about this program in other parts of the world.

Best wishes,
Saifur Rahman
President, IEEE Power & Energy Society