The IEEE PES Region 6 has 22 PES Chapters in the western U.S. Geographically, it covers the states of AK, AZ, CA, NM, NV, UT, OR, ID, and WA. Most PES chapters in the region 6 are very active to provide technical and social service to local members, showing the benefits of being a PES member. The evidences of these chapter activities includes following aspects:

Chapter Awards

For the past three years, the chapters in R6 won many chapter awards in all award categories: (1)for outstanding chapter awards, Richland chapter was awarded in 2011 for the small chapter category and Phoenix won the award in 2012 for the large chapter category; (2)for High Performance Chapter Program (HPCP) awards, 6 chapters won the HPCP award in 2011; (3)for membership growth contest award, Richland Chapter and Santa Clara chapters won the 1^st place for the small chapter category in 2009 and 2010, respectively, and San Diego chapter won the 3^rdplace for large chapter in 2012. These awards show how active the R6 chapters are in general.

Chapter activities in 2012

In the year of 2012, there were 13 chapters submitted their annual report, 15 chapter chairs attended the chapter chair training during the PES General Meeting at San Diego, 5 chapters presented the outstanding engineer award to recognize their local PES member. There were also three large events supported by the PES chapters in the Region 6: (1) San Diego Chapter put tremendous efforts in the success of IEEE PES General meeting; and (2) Seattle chapter helped to organize the IEEE-Northwest Energy Systems Symposium (NWESS) which is dedicated to the emerging technologies in the area of renewable energy, smart grid and end-use energy applications; (3) Central coast chapter supported the Cal Poly Power and Energy Conference which was full day free conference that drew ~250 attendees from industry, faculty and students. The highlights of the chapter activity can be found below:

Alaska Chapter

Seven technical/administrative meetings, including two tours to Southcentral power plant and JBER landfill gas power plant. OEA presented.

Boise Chapter

Two technical meetings were held on the topic of Pacific Southwest Cascading Event Causes and Findings, and a presentation of “Powering the future for the next generation”.

Central Coast Chapter

Seven technical meeting were held, with more than 500 attendees. The topics of these meetings include “Basics of PV systems for Grid Tied Applications”, “PV Site Analysis and System Sizing”, and “Substations: Efficiently, Safely and Reliably Transforming Voltage Levels from Generation to the Transmission and Distribution Power System”. The chapter sponsored Cal Poly Power and Energy Conference which was full day free conference that drew ~250 attendees from industry, faculty and students.

Foothill Chapter

Held one technical meeting and one technical workshop in 2012.

Las Vegas Chapter

Six meeting were held, including 4 technical ones on the topics of “integration of Solar Resources in Southern Nevada”, “Essentials of Grid-interactive PV Inverters” and “Substation Engineering in Nevada”. A new chapter website was launched.

Eastern Montana Chapter

Six technical meetings were held, with the topics varying from “Utility Infrastructure Growth in North Dakota due to the oil boom” to “MicroGids”. The chapter co-sponsored the Billings Engineer’s club banquet, night golf to raise money for student scholarships and co-sponsored the Joint Engineers Conference in Helena.

Oakland/East Bay Chapter

Twelve meetings were held in the year of 2012, including three tours toFinelite Company, Brocade Data Center and the Underwriter’s Laboratory. The meeting topics “The Drive for Electric Vehicles”, “Experience the Power with Generac Demo Trailer”, “What about Nuclear Energy”, and “Forum on Motivating Our Students to Become Engineers: How to Make It Happen”.

Orange County Chapter

Eleven meetings, including 6 technical, 2 administrative and 3 educational, were held in 2012. The technical presentations include “load Shedding System Applications”, “IEC 61850 and Substation Automation”, “Fundamentals of Motor Protection”, “Designing Solar PV Power Systems for Commercial Applications”, “Designing Power Quality Filtering Systems for VFD Applications” and “Alternative Energy-Solar, Wind and Fusion”.

Oregon Chapter

The Oregon’s PES chapter holds monthly technicalmeetings except for the months of June, July, and August due to summer vacations. Therefore, nine technical meetings were held in the year of 2012. The topics cover the topic of:”The Energy Gateway’s background, challenges and successes at PacifiCorp”, “Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order No. 1000, Impacts on Transmission Planning and Cost Allocation”,” Wayside Energy Storage Technologies for Rail Transit Applications”,” Forensic Investigation Subsequent to Catastrophic Failure of a 230 KV CCVT”,” High Voltage Power Circuit Breaker application”, “Metrics Motivate Behavior:  Choose Wisely”, “TresAmigas – Large Scale USA Application of Voltage Source Converter (VSC) Technology in a Back to Back HVDC Converter Arrangement”, “Nuclear Energy &Decommissioning of Trojan Power Plant – Operation and Comprehensive Decommissioning Steps”, and “Nuclear Energy – The Basics The New Nuclear Plant Technology  Challenges including the Fukushima Tragedy”.

Phoenix Chapter

Phoenix chapter was the most active chapter in the Region 6 in the year of 2012. There were 26 events reported: the Chapter held monthly executive committee meeting (12 meetings), 8 technical meeting, annual fundraiser Golf tournament, which generated over 10K in revenue for the Chapter, and annual IEEE Awards Banquet with more than 100 attendees. The technical meetings include “PV Solar Penetration into the Grid”, “Battery Storage Advancements in Technology”, “Lightning Protection/Grounding”, “Recent Advances in Power Electronics”,  and “Impact of Electrical Vehicle”.

In addition to the meetings above, the Phoenix Chapter also provided outreach program at ASU joint sponsored by ASU and IEEE Phoenix PES – over 300 Students in Power and Engineering attended. The chapter not only presented outstanding engineer award, but also supported two student scholarships ($2,500 each). They are currently working with AZ Science Center to provide Electrical Engineering Programs for students and visitors to the center. The chapter website is updated monthly to keep the members well informed about the chapter activities.

Richland Chapter

Richland chapter is another strong chapter in the Region 6. It has won the HPCP award for 5 times in a row. The chapter is the recipient of the 2007 and 2011 Outstanding Chapter Award and the first place of the membership growth contest for small chapter in 2010. In the year of 2012, the chapter organized a tour to Handford B-reactor, presented OEA award and emphasized the GOLD and WIE activities: The PES GOLD members held a joint Picnic event with WIE. And the PES members are heavily involved into the WIE. All WIE chief officers are the PES members.

Santa Carla Chapter

Santa Carla Chapter has month committee meetings to plan chapter events and regular technical meetings on third Wednesdays of each month, excluding summer and December. There were 15 meetings reported in 2012. The technical meetings covered the following topics: “Electric Vehicle Charging Stations”, “The Future of the Electric Grid”, “Chevron MicroGrid at Santa Rita Jail”, “Public Utility Challenges in the 21st Century”, “Medium Voltage UPS”, and “Bloom Energy and Fuel Cells for Critical Facilities”. The chapter also held a technical tour to Stanford Linear Accelerator.

Seattle Chapter

Seattle chapter held 10 technical meetings, 1 technical tour to substation, 1 administrative meeting and 1 membership benefits meeting in the year of 2012. The technical presentations include “Enhanced Electric Power Grid Operations with Synchrophasor”, “Classifying Reliability into Normal, Major Event and Catastrophic Days”, “LED Lighting Standards”, “Power to the People: The Role of the Power Engineer in Alleviating Energy Poverty”, “Moisture in Transformers – Sources Effects and Detection”, “The Catastrophic Day Identification Problem in Distribution Reliability Calculations, and the Robust Estimation Approach”, “Stochastic Unit Commitment”, “Transactive Control in the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration”, and “Practical PMU Applications for Utilities”. The Seattle PES Chapter explored different venues for meetings, holding them in Bellevue, Redmond and Seattle. In addition, the chapter participated in the Executive Roundtable event, which is an Initiative sponsored by the PES Governing Board, and sponsored the Northwest Energy Systems Symposium, which focuses on a wide range of topics and provides information on how to best address some of the most pressing energy issues facing the region of Northwest.

Student Chapter Activities

Besides the strong activities in PES Chapters in Region 6, the student chapters are also did a great job. For example, the Cal Poly Student chapter was active in 2012. The chapter setups the goal to empower students interested in the Power Engineering field with the knowledge and awareness of industry standards, technology, and practices.

PES Scholarship Awards

In the year of 2011, in the region 6, there were 20 scholarships from 14 schools were selected from the PES Scholarship Plus Program. 50% of them are female. In the year of 2012, the number of scholarships in the region 6 increased to 44, from 20 schools. 30% of them are female.  14 of the awardees have been selected by SEL to be recognized at Schweitzer Meritorious Scholars.

In General, the PES Chapters in Region 6 did a great job in 2012. And it is expecting that the momentum will continue in 2013 to further improve the chapter activities to provide more benefits to our PES members.