PAST PES Young Professionals Events

2014 IEEE PES General Meeting in National Harbor, MD

1. PES Young Professionals Seminar and Reception

The PES YP reception and seminar continues to be a popular event with over 125 PES members in attendance. This event provided an excellent networking opportunity and provided attendees with an overview of the PES YP program, to include the new regional representative initiative.

2. PES Young Professionals Networking Event

The annual PES YP social event at the General Meeting was held at the Public House in National Harbor. The turnout rivaled last year’s event. There were many familiar faces from previous events and even more new ones.

3. PES Young Professionals Panel Session

This year’s PES YP panel session consisted of three YP speakers, two from industry and one from academia. Topics ranges from power system relay coordination, to integration of smart inverters, and development of a smart home microgrid for residential applications.

Bhavana Keshavamurthy [Read her interview here]

Ms. Bhavana Keshavamurthy is a Senior Business Solutions Engineer in the Applied Solutions department at PJM Interconnection. She has about ten years of work experience in PJM Markets Services and Operations Support divisions. Ms. Keshavamurthy earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Bangalore University and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from Drexel University.

Presentation Summary:

Enhanced inverters: a RTO perspective Federal and state policies have incentivized the growth of renewables all across the US. However, increased renewables on the system and retirement of traditional coal generation can cause some operational challenges for RTO’s, especially in high penetration scenarios. Enhanced or “smart inverters” can potentially be a solution for some of these challenges. This talk covered PJM efforts to proactively address some of these challenges and harness the capabilities of these smart inverters.

Kevin Maynard [Read his interview here]

Kevin Maynard PE / Eaton Corporation / Kevin is a power systems study engineer for over 10 years he has completed short circuit coordination, arc flash selective coordination, harmonic analysis, power quality investigation, motor starting and ground grid design for multiple industrial, hospital, manufacturing and water treatment clients.  Kevin is a long standing IEEE member and is a registered professional engineer in 7 states.

Presentation Summary

“Power systems Studies – the fusion of equipment design and operation”.  Engineering has always been considered the application of ground breaking science to current needs and desires of the end users.  This talk covered the evaluations that can be performed to ensure safe operation of power systems, optimize system performance and help explain why when everyone is scratching their head.  Brief discussions as to the profession and exposure an engineer can see as well as the practical applications of the more common power system studies such as short circuit, coordination, arc flash, selective coordination, motor starting and harmonic analysis were discussed.

Philip Diefenderfer

Philip Diefenderfer, Bucknell University. Philip is an Electrical Engineering Masters Student working smart microgrid technologies. His background includes controls and robotics which he is working to the automation techniques towards a smart residential microgrid as part of his Master’s Thesis. Philip has a B.S. in computer engineering from Bucknell University.

Presentation Summary

As we push the limits of how much intermittent renewable technology the power grid can reliable receive the role of storage and control become increasingly important. There is no doubt that under high penetrations the grid is struggling to keep up with the technological advances driving the exponential growth in the intermittent renewable power sector. In our research we are applying the lessons learned in controls, sensors and automation to a residential sized micro-grid to create a smarter, more resilient power grid overall. Starting with the end use, one potential avenue of our research is the development of a smarter residential microgrid. This smart microgrid is complete with a smart metering infrastructure, a basic load management system, onsite distributed generation, and energy storage. This system is being installed in an existing home as a retrofit operation and once complete the home will be a functional microgrid. The load management and smart metering are being implemented at a coarse level on a breaker basis for some of the larger loads.

The load management system also controls the home’s HVAC system through a smart thermostat. The smart metering monitors the distributed power produced by an onsite PV system and makes decisions about how to use the energy in the most economically effective manner. Energy is stored electrically using a small battery bank connected through a hybrid inverter and thermally in the home as a thermal mass using the HVAC system. Finally, a natural gas generator is onsite that is controlled to ensure that reliability is maintained when no PV power is present during a grid outage. Balancing supply sources and demand instantaneously represents one of the non-trivial challenges of the research program.

2013 IEEE PES General Meeting in Vancouver

1. PES GOLD Seminar and Reception:

The Graduates of the Last Decade reception and seminar was the highest attended PES GOLD event on record! There were over 175 PES members in attendance. This event provided an excellent networking opportunity and provided attendees with an overview of the PES GOLD program and PES Careers. Additionally, a detailed discussion of PES GOLD program goals, to include feedback and interest from the GOLD member community in attendance was led by Dennis Ray.

2. PES GOLD Networking Event:

The annual PES GOLD social event at the General Meeting was held at Steamworks Brewing Co. in Vancouver and well attended by thirty-seven PES GOLD members. A special thanks to Steamworks for accommodating thirty-seven of us with a private room, without a reservation. Our server even split the check up for individuals.

 3. PES GOLD Technical Session

A new PES GOLD Panel Session was held at the 2013 PES General Meeting.  The session was conducted on Monday 22 July. There were five invited PES Gold members from academia and industry that presented their work at this well attended event.

Download Full Presentation here: (2013-7-22) GOLD Presentation

Ska-Hiish Manuel

Ska-Hiish Manuel is Secwepemc (Shuswap), a Neskonlith Indian Band member, and an IEEE GOLD member. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration (Economics) from Thompson Rivers University in 2006 and a Bachelor of Applied Science (Electrical Engineering) from UBC-Okanagan in 2011. Since September 2011, he has been working at BC Hydro in the Engineer-in-Training program and has worked in the non-integrated areas, distribution planning, and protection and control planning departments. He is also enrolled in the Master of Applied Science Program at UBC-Okanagan and expects to graduate August 2013. His research interests are (1) electronic materials for photovoltaics and (2) algorithms used for power system optimization, analysis, and simulations. He enjoys the identification, comparison, and selection of trade-offs that balance the social, economic, environmental, and technological needs of power system engineering projects that make society better-off now and into the future.

Presentation Summary

[Download Full Presentation here: sManuel PVMaterialsConfiguration 22July2013 IEEE PES 2013 Vancouver]

Throughout history, societies have used the controlled transformation of energy carriers within a system to make the society better-off. The energy carriers can be divided into two parts: (1) primary energy carriers which have undergone no or limited energy transformation, and (2) useful energy carriers which are ready for consumption by (a) firms to produce goods and services and (b) households for cooking, heating, lighting, and entertainment. Photovoltaic solar cells convert energy directly from the sun and are considered a promising technology for providing a primary source of energy. Photovoltaics may not have the characteristics to supply firm energy to power systems, but may benefit remote communities and communities with an inadequate electricity supply or even for peak shaving for summer peaking areas.

At present there are essentially two types of photovoltaic solar cells: (1) crystalline silicon based photovoltaic solar cells and (2) thin-film based photovoltaic solar cells. While crystalline silicon based photovoltaic solar cells offer high efficiencies, they are expensive because they are typically made out of crystalline wafers. However, inexpensive materials for photovoltaics have a high level of impurities that result in a short diffusion length. The short diffusion length reduces the absorption rate of photons which contribute to the photoelectric effect. In addition, the diffusion length decreases as the temperature increases. New geometries such as radial p-n junctions and new materials can reduce the need for expensive crystalline wafers and increase efficiencies for materials with low diffusion lengths. This presentation explores the characteristics of planar and radial solar cells with various materials.

Nicole Segal [Affiliation: Drexel University]

Nicole Segal (S’05) received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is currently a PhD candidate  in  the  Electrical  and  Computer  Engineering  Department, Drexel University. Her research interests include electric power distribution system optimization and electric energy policy.

Presentation Summary: “Realizable Constraint Driven Control Sequences of Select Distribution Network Components for Voltage Spread Reduction”

There is a continued focus on advancing and diversifying the US electric energy sector. Some federal and state initiatives have been imposed to: (i) reduce peak load, (ii) increase the amount of renewable generators (e.g. solar), and (iii) increase the number of demand response participants.In distribution systems, various combinations of network components (e.g. capacitors, distributed generators, loads) can be controlled to achieve a reduction in peak load. Historically, capacitors have been installed and employed by system operators for reactive power compensation, voltage regulation, power factor correction and energy loss reduction. Here, capacitors coupled with other emerging control options are considered; realizable constraint driven control sequences for voltage spread reduction are presented.

Rafael Segundo [Affiliation: KTH – Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden]

Rafael received his BSc in electrical engineering from the Instituto Tecnologico de Morelia in 2004, his MSc in automatic control from the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon in 2007 both in Mexico. He received his PhD from Imperial College London, UK in 2013. In 2008, he spent one year in ABB corporate research, Switzerland where he work as assistant modeling and analyzing power systems. Since February 2013 he is at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden where he works as postdoctoral research fellow. His research interests include power systems dynamics and stability, robust and fault tolerant control, system and parameter identification.

Presentation Summary: 

[Download Full Presentation Here: FRSS_PES_GM_Vancouver_v1]

Power systems dynamic simulations provide time series in state space. After performing a dynamic simulation, is possible to check if the sequence will converge to a safe and stable equilibrium point and also to measure the quality of the stability or severity of the instability. This can be done by calculating different indices using the dynamic simulation results of a specific contingency. In this presentation, a set of different indices used to capture static (overload and overvoltage) and dynamic (small-signal, voltage and transient) problems will be presented.

Kelly Stich & Colin MacIntosh [Affiliation: BC Hydro]

Download Full Presentation here: 2013.07.22 – IEEE PES – High Speed Distribution Protection Scheme

Kelly Stich is a senior engineer in the Protection and Control Planning department of BC Hydro Transmission Engineering. He has seven years of experience in transmission and distribution engineering. He is a Professional Engineer in BC and a member of IEEE – Power and Energy Society (PES). Kelly was a co-presenter of this presentation at DistribuTECH 2013, and participated in the protection scheme design for the Vancouver open loop system.

Colin is an intermediate engineer with BC Hydro’s Distribution Standards department, where he supports faulted circuit indicators, distribution sensors, and Distribution Automation devices, including recloser controls and automated switchgear. Colin has been with BC Hydro for 4 years, with experience in Transmission, Distribution, and Generation. He is registered as a Professional Engineer in the Province of British Columbia, and is a member of the IEEE PES.

Presentation Summary:

This presentation discussed a distribution open loop system planned for Downtown Vancouver. The open loop system will have groups of approximately four feeder circuits interconnected through automated switchgear. The new open loop control system and switchgear configuration will be discussed. A communication-assisted directional comparison blocking scheme will be used to provide high speed clearing of faults. The blocking signals will be transmitted using the IEC 61850 GOOSE messaging protocol over a fibre optic Ethernet network.

2012 IEEE PES General Meeting in San Diego:

1. PES GOLD Seminar and Reception:
The Graduates of the Last Decade reception and seminar was attended by over 130 PES members. This event provided an excellent networking opportunity and provided attendees with an overview of the PES GOLD program and PES Careers.

PowerCon 2012 in Auckland, New Zealand

Objective: Increase awareness and participation towards IEEE PES Society activities in New Zealand by sharing and exchanging knowledge, and showcasing Kiwi ingenuity.

Vision: Provide students and young professionals a platform to share knowledge, present research; discuss stimulating ideas in a formal & informal forum with leading power systems specialists and educators in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Region 10 GOLD Members, headed up by Noel Gomes, carried out the most comprehensive PES GOLD program at PowerCon 2012. The GOLD program was run in conjunction with the Student and Women in Engineering (WIE) program and included:

• WIE/GOLD Joint Networking Event
• WIE/GOLD sponsored Industry Lunch
• WIE/GOLD Leadership workshop
• Poster Session
• WIE/GOLD Breakfast and Panel Discussion with CEO’s

[!] Video: GOLD members Josheel and Noel showing PES their Gangam style

For more updates and photographs, check out https://www.facebook.com/powercon2012

2012 IEEE PES Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exhibition in Orlando

PES GOLD sponsored a social event at O’Shucks Billiard & Pub during the 2012 T&D conference in Orlando. Billiards and refreshments were provided to all PES GOLD members in attendance. This was another successful networking event towards building a stronger PES GOLD community.

2011 IEEE PES General Meeting in Detroit

PES GOLD was very active at the 2011 General Meeting in Detroit. The committee helped with the organization and execution of the job fair in addition to running two GOLD events at the meeting. A GOLD Seminar/networking event was attended by over 100 GOLD members in addition to other PES members from academia and industry. This was followed by a social event later in the evening at Garden Bowl. Bowling and refreshments were provided for 46 GOLD members. Both events exceeded expectations and spurred additional PES member involvement in GOLD activities. More importantly these events are helping build a vibrant network of young PES GOLD members.

Featured PES GOLD Members:

Two featured GOLD members profiles are included in separate documents.

Help Planning GOLD Events:

The PES GOLD committee can provide assistance in planning and execution of GOLD related events. This includes, but is not limited to, conference and local PES chapter events. Please complete the online form to contact the committee for assistance.

Click here to go to form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1IvPJoKLutUJS8XwzKjFDQwIJkEO5tC2EdIjUtfwJJD0/viewform