IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2014 - 16

leader's corner

Miroslav Begovic

looking toward growth
strategic thinking ahead

EvEry so oftEn pEoplE, families, and companies look to evaluate
their accomplishments, where they
stand, and where they are going. the
last part is strategic thinking, which
i wrote about in an earlier column.
that was at the time when we started
the process in the iEEE power &
Energy society (pEs) and endeavored to develop a vision and strategy,
as well as an implementation plan,
for the society in the coming years.
the new plan, which addresses many
aspects of pEs activities, was approved
at the pEs Governing Board's January
meeting, and it will represent the core
resource in formulating the new activities and shaping our future directions.
part of the document provides a widesweeping overview of pEs membership, Chapters, and related activities
from the past five years, and i will liberally borrow from that text to provide
information to you about our members
while the strategic plan is on its path to
becoming a public document.
pEs membership reached an all-time
record of 31,400 members at the end of
2013. there were about 190 Chapters
in 2007, and we are now approaching
230. there is a growing trend in creating
student Branch Chapters, and the interest of student members in pEs (with the
likelihood of joining the society upon
graduation) has greatly increased. pEs
has always maintained strong support for
student participation in its various conferences (many enjoy sponsored student
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2014.2304332
Date of publication: 17 April 2014

ieee power & energy magazine

participation, which is facilitated by the
power Engineering Education Committee). the growth and value of membership and support for Chapter activities
continues to be one of the dominant concerns of pEs leadership. also, 39 new
Chapters have been created since 2007,
many in region 8.
the growth is attributed to rebranding of the society to
be more inclusive of
professionals involved in the area of
focus-increased
worldwide interest
in energy and new
energy technologies
such as renewable
energy, smart grid,
and electric vehicles-as well as changing workforce demographics.
our current membership is the largest the society has ever reached; it
increased rapidly from 2007 to 2010
and remains steady to this day. it should
be mentioned that the previous peak of
membership, reached in the early 1990s,
was about 25,000 members. the subsequent decade of membership decline
reached a minimum of slightly over
20,000 members in 2005, followed by
the rapid growth we are enjoying today.
looking forward, the potential for membership growth is great in regions 8-10,
and moderate growth is possible in
regions 1-7, but this should be accompanied by the appropriate development
of value-added membership services
and the globalization of iEEE culture
for pEs to become truly global.

our revenue-generating activities
have increased by more than 60% over
the last six years, exceeding Us$17 million in 2012. the largest contributors to
revenue are conferences and publications. pEs has continued to grow during
one of the largest economic downturns
in modern history.
part of it is due to the
growing awareness
of the importance of
energy issues and the
need to continue to
transform and modernize power systems globally. at the
present time, pEs is
sponsoring some 40
conferences around
the world annually.
three new publications, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, IEEE Transactions
on Sustainable Energy, and IEEE Electrification Magazine, have been successfully launched. the annual budgets are
still following a two-year cycle due, in
large part, to the nonuniform revenue
from conferences such as the transmission & Distribution (t&D) Conference,
which is biennial. pEs annual reserves
contributions have grown to Us$1.3
million, and our current reserves exceed
Us$11 million. the figures represent
85% of the society's yearly average expenses, and our reserves are in considerable excess of the iEEE requirement
of 50%.
another interesting perspective is
provided by an overview of the age
demographics of our membership
(see figure 1). the dominant groups

PES membership
reached an
all-time record
of 31,400
members at the
end of 2013.

may/june 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2014