The impact of renewables is one of the greatest challenges facing the power industry today and Region 1, in the Northeastern part of the United States, is still no exception this year as in previous years.

Several States in the region continue to introduce legislation on renewable energy for example:

Massachusetts

  • Proposals to set a target of 1.77 GW of energy storage by 2025
  • The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities has reviewed proposals for 5,000 electric vehicle Level 2 ports and 140 direct current fast chargers

New York

  • A state-wide energy storage deployment target of 1,500MW by 2025
  • New York City’s to install at least 100 publicly available curbside chargers

In recent times Region 1 has seen the first offshore wind farm in the United States come on line, a number of solar facilities integrated with battery storage, microgrids and many other clean energy projects.

The Chapters in Region 1 are well positioned to help engineers understand these new challenges and the new technology that comes with them. Many of the monthly Technical meetings are focused on renewable energy related technology subjects.

New Chapters

Region 1 was very excited to introduce two new Chapters in 2017
Providence Rhode Island – Chair Debo Onifade
New York State College-Buffalo Power & Energy Society Student Branch Chapter – Chair Ilya Grinberg

Boston Chapter

The Boston Chapter held nine nine technical meetings and, an Annual Banquet.  They provided two popular technical courses, co-sponsored the 2017 US-CA IEEE Student Conference, cosponsored a dinner meeting for Women in Power, and held a joint meeting with Boston IAS. The Chapter continues to work with PES Student Chapters at Tufts University, Northeastern University, and UMass Lowell. The Chapter contributed $10,000 to the IEEE PES Scholarship Fund and promoted the scholarship to increase awareness and local support for donations, mentorships and internships.

Boston Chapter Annual Awards Dinner with Guest Speaker Rudy Winter, President & COO FERC Regulated Business and New Energy Solutions, National Grid

The Vermont (Green Mountain Section) Chapter

The Vermont (Green Mountain Section) Power & Energy Society Chapter is relatively small of about 70 members, but is the largest IEEE society (chapter) in the Green Mountain Section, which has approximately 450 members.

In late September an event was offered discussing Synchronized Phasor Measurements and State Estimation was held at the University of Vermont.  Ali Abur, Professor of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for Northeastern University, provided the lecture.

The Chapter held their annual Awards Banquet (Nov 3nd 2017); below are images of the award winners each receiving their PES certificate or plaque from our Section Chair, Jeff Carrara.

During the GMS Section Awards Ceremony, Lori Boisjoli the Director of IS Clinical and Business Systems at University of Vermont Medical Center gave the keynote presentation on “Innovations of IS Security at UVM Medical Center”.  The presentation gave insights into the UVM Medical Center is doing to advance the technological needs of a hospital while keeping in mind the difficulties of maintaining patient information security and regulations.  She also covered the how the new Miller Building at the UVM Medical Center will incorporated patient comfort and allow for better patient to doctor interactions using new interactive technology measures.

North New Jersey PES chapter

The North New Jersey PES chapter continues to focus on increasing student membership and encouraging colleges to include power engineering courses in their curriculum.  The PES Chapter participated in IEEE Region 1 Membership Development (MD) webcasts and teleconference call meetings to learn more about IEEE membership development efforts and have made suggestions to enhance benefits for members and to recognize the efforts of member volunteers during these webcasts.  Membership materials have been handed out & distributed at various PES Chapter meetings and presentations.  Members of the PES Chapter Membership Committee have also participated in the various Engineering Expos, where the focus is on pre-university students (middle school & high school) interested in science and engineering.

This year we concentrated on the student chapter at New Jersey Institute of Technology and their challenge to build a solar vehicle.  The NJIT Solar Car Team is a student-run organization formed in the spring of 2017.The team is an interdisciplinary, project-based learning community which seeks to provide undergraduate and graduate students of all majors in all departments with real-world experience in systems engineering.

In order to prepare our students to be the innovators of tomorrow, our team emphasizes sustainable energy, taking initiative, providing experience for future career preparation, and the development of technical and soft skills in engineering, research, design, and business.

The NJIT Solar Car Team will compete with other collegiate teams and their electric vehicles in the summer of 2018 in their first competition called “The American Solar Challenge,” a 2,000 mile cross-country time/distance rally event.

For this purpose the Chapter has given a grant of $5,000.00 to the student chapter of the PES.

The solar car team at NJIT is a student run organization of more than 50 passionate, enthusiastic students from various disciplines and backgrounds. We’ve come together to design, build, and race a fully functional solar powered vehicle. With more than half of our members below the junior level, our young members are set to gain valuable hands-on experience in advanced design, systems engineering, business management, and critical thinking, with the design and construction of our car.

The Chapter continues to support STEM programs and other student activities.

The popular paradigm of STEM education and how having a STEM-savvy workforce matters in the global economy. Throughout his 45-year engineering career, Harry Roman has worked with schools to bring the excitement of engineering, technology and invention into the classroom.  Harry talked before the Chapter about the popular paradigm of STEM education, and how having a STEM-savvy workforce matters in the global economy. Harry co-teaches graduate level STEM courses at Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ. His most recent resource book is, How an Engineer Uses Math (Gifted Education Press, 2016). To date, Harry has published 35 STEM-related books, over 100 feature magazine articles, and 12 math card games. Every month, approximately 250,000 educators read his articles in national magazines and newsletters. He is an educational advisor for the Edison Innovation Foundation; and an avid e-book publisher for IEEE.

STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach.

Young Professions: The PES Chapter activity recruits from recent graduates in its effect to be inclusive of the Young Professions Chapter members for service on the various committees.  A separate membership list is maintained and programs of special interest to this group are held regularly.  The hours of meetings and agenda items are designed to enhance participation knowing that younger members have special social and family commitments that need to be addressed in this highly competitive business environment.

Finally the Chapter continues to support the Student Poster competition at Fairleigh Dickinson.

Student abstracts on recent work, research results and cutting edge developing technologies in engineering and related fields.  The poster presentation consists of a visual display of research findings combined with an interactive question and answer period with a panel of judges.  A total of 10-15 finalists will showcase their posters.  A panel of internal and external judges will vote on each presentation based on the criteria outlined above.  All participants will be recognized at an Award Ceremony to be held at the conclusion of the Symposium.  There outstanding posters were chosen to receive the 2017 IEEE North Jersey Poster Award cash prizes.

Winners of the Section contest went to Region 1 Student Conference and Competition and won the following awards:

2017 IEEE Region 1 Annual Student Conference

FDU team of five won the following prizes: Paper Competition: 1st Place – Daniel Clarke; 2nd Place – Morgan Issa Engineering Ethics: 2nd Place and T-Shirt: 1st Place

Maine PES/IAS Joint Chapter

2017 was a great year for the IEEE Maine PES/IAS Joint Chapter.  The year was started with a full officer slate and supporting Members at Large, which can be a challenge in our geographically disperse and comparatively low population state.  A couple of the officers have multiple roles in IEEE, including the Maine Section YP representative and WIE representative, which allowed synergies among local society and affinity groups.  A few highlights from the year include: The Chapter supported the University of Maine Orono’s student branch at an annual BBQ by donating a TI-89 calculator to be raffled to encourage student involvement in IEEE.  This BBQ was in conjunction with a tour of the University’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center, Advanced Manufacturing Center and the Steam Plant.  The Chapter gathered individuals with expertise in the realm of Distributed Energy Resources to discuss various topics of increasing importance: penetration strategies, system impact study processes and equipment design considerations.  Year end was culminated with a combined Maine Section general meeting and PES/IAS Chapter planned presentation given by Introspective Systems where they presented their innovative research.  At this event, Kevin Mahoney of Casco Systems was presented the Maine Section PES/IAS Joint Chapter PES Outstanding Engineer Award.  Members, and non-Members alike, were able to learn from area experts, and recognize the accomplishments of co-workers through the activities of the year.  The goal is to continue the moment of 2017 into 2018 and beyond.

Springfield Chapter

Springfield Chapter has successfully hosted two dinner meetings in 2018 with technical talks given by prestigious scholars on January 22 and February 26, respectively.

The first speaker, Dr. Luigi Vanfretti, is currently an assistant professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He made a presentation on Monitoring of Power Transmission and Distribution Grids using Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs). In this talk, Dr. Vanfretti discussed how different technical means can facilitate interactions between TSOs (transmission system operators) and DSOs (distribution system operators) with the utilization of GPS-time-synchronized phasor measurements with millisecond reporting resolution. He proposed to use high-sampled data across operational boundaries to extract information related to different time-scales; making it possible to address the operational challenges that renewables will bring at all voltage levels. Around 20 people attended this meeting; 15 of them are IEEE members.

The second speaker, Dr. Mark B. Ketchen, is currently an independent technical consultant (www.octevue.com) working with clients at IBM, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Stanford, Cornell and other institutions. Dr. Ketchen was an officer for four years in the US Nuclear Navy and spent 36 years in research and management at IBM. The topic of the talk is “Superconducting Digital Technology: Scientific Curiosity or Enabler of Future Generations of Supercomputers?” In this seminar, Dr. Ketchen introduced the history of superconducting technology based supercomputers and his development/management experience at IBM. He also discussed the advantages, the shortcomings, current status and future prospects of this type of supercomputers. The seminar was hosted in Hanger building on the UMass Amherst campus. 12 people attended this dinner meeting; 11 of them are IEEE members.