IEEE PES Student Branch Chapter at the University of Manchester (UoM) in collaboration with IEEE PES Women in Power UK & Ireland chapter joined the global IEEE PES community in celebrating the annual ‘PES Day’ by hosting a webinar on Thursday the 22nd April 2021. The webinar took place on Zoom platform and lasted around 2 hours. This event attracted 65 registrations, among whom 30 are IEEE members and 27 are PES members. While the theme of PES Day 2021 is ‘Clean Energy Evolution’, the webinar focused on enlightening the participants about the membership benefits of IEEE PES, PES Women in Power initiatives, and a technical presentation on attaining sustainable power grid systems. These sessions were presented by three invited female speakers: Dr. Jessica Bian, Prof. Edvina Uzunovic, and Prof. Lina Bertling Tjernberg.


Figure 1. Event Flyer

In the first talk, Dr. Jessica Bian stressed the need for more women participation in IEEE PES activities and the importance of the Women in Power (WiP) community. According to Dr. Bian, the WiP serves ambitious, professional women in the PES who are looking for leadership positions and career advancement, and the WiP is also a platform that can be beneficial to students and anyone in the industry who is interested in professional development in terms of skills acquisition, networking and mentorship.


Figure 2. Talk 1: PES WiP Initiative by Dr Jessica Bian

Prof. Edvina Uzunovic in the second talk shared her story on how IEEE PES shaped her professional career and how the PES opportunities and educational resources, available on offer, can be of immense benefit to all the participants. She encouraged everyone to get actively involved in PES organized activities by volunteering. She also briefed the PES membership benefit resources including IEEE PES University and IEEE PES Resource Center.


Figure 3. Talk 2: PES & Education by Prof Edvina Uzunovic

The technical session on sustainable power grids by Prof. Lina Bertling Tjernberg provided an overview on how the power grid can become more sustainable in the future by drawing on her current research activities and the on-goings in the Swedish national grid system. Discussion on the state-of-art techniques was conducted during a Q&A session.


Figure 4. Talk 3: Sustainable Power Grids by Prof Lina Bertling Tjernberg

The webinar was well received with positive feedback, especially on the content and discussions during Q&A sessions. Many attendees commented that this event was “well-organized” with a good variety of presentations”. The PES Day 2021 presentation slides are available on our PES Day 2021 webpage, and the video recordings can be found on our YouTube page.

Omoniyi Akinpelumi, Keyi Wang
IEEE PES Student Branch Chapter at the University of Manchester