Vision 2020 – Changes are coming and coming quickly!

Great News…our PES Membership exceeded 40,000 at the end of 2019!  We’re going to need EVERYONE working together to prepare for ALL of the CHANGES that are coming!

The traditional Power System with central station generation, transmission networks, and radial distribution networks IS going to change.  The only question is the pace of change.  Rooftop solar and PV farms are popping up everywhere depending on local regulations. A number of pilots are also already underway with microgrids designed to enhance resiliency and community microgrids designed to share renewable resources within the neighborhood.

We held our 3rd Annual Energy Thought Leaders Symposium, “ENERGY TRANSITIONS – The Coming Decade”, at the Center for Distributed Energy (CDE) at Georgia Tech last August.  There is now a consensus that CHANGE is like a ‘freight train’ – tough to stop, and coming fast. Some examples of change discussed at the Symposium included:

Electrification of Transportation:

  • EV deployment across the globe is growing at 40-60% YoY, including EVs, buses, trucks, semis
  • A fast charging infrastructure is needed for urban, low-income, rural EVs, and truck/bus fleets
  • In five years, EVs will be a major load on the US grid – grid coordination/integration will be key

Data Centers:

  • Data centers are growing fast, with large new centers consuming 100 MW+
  • In five years, data centers are expected to grow to 10% of US electrical energy consumption

PV, Wind, Storage, and Other Renewable Resources:

  • PV and wind energy, including 4 hours of energy storage, were priced in 2019 at $32/MWHr and $24/MWHr respectively – dispatchable and at much lower cost than base generation
  • Strong interest from commercial, industrial and residential users in clean renewable energy
  • Need for dynamic balancing of the grid under DER variability, and the need for storage to deliver time-shifted energy back to the grid
  • Ability to operate microgrids connected to or islanded from the grid offers new opportunity and challenges

IEEE PES is leading the effort to understand these changes and develop standards to make them work effectively and safely with the existing grid.  Please consider joining one of our Technical Committees and get involved: https://www.ieee-pes.org/technical-activities

PES has a wide range of volunteer opportunities to serve and if you are interested please feel free to fill up the form https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/7b602c2eae344c99ba18dc36e91015f8

PES University has recently been launched to help engineers develop and deploy the grid of the future, to keep current with new developments and to earn CEUs / PDHs for their Professional Engineer requirements. These resources can be found at https://www.ieee-pes.org/professional-development/pes-university.The PES Resource Center, http://resourcecenter.ieee-pes.org/, is also available to our members with a multitude of technical resources.

We’re going to NEED EVERYONE WORKING TOGETHER to be able to adapt to all of the CHANGES that are a Coming!