IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2019 - 10

leader's corner

T

THE POWER INDUSTRY IS GOING
through an unprecedented evolution,
and the IEEE Power & Energy Society
(PES) is leading the way. We are seeing
the effects of climate change as never
before, with major weather events devastating towns and cities in what is, unfortunately, becoming a new normal. The
cyberphysical vulnerability is growing
ever more apparent, while the grid edge
is transforming and evolving into the
main site of extraordinary innovation.
Through all of this, the significance of
power engineering's ability to devise and
deploy technologies that can solve today's problems is clearer than ever. PES
brings together the best of ideas and
the brightest of thinkers to collaborate
in developing solutions that respond to
these ever-increasing challenges.
Solving the complex questions drives
all of us and makes PES such a vibrant
force for change. At the IEEE PES
Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition, scheduled for April
2020 in Chicago, there will be an executive summit to provide an opportunity
for key stakeholders within the energy
space to realign the industry's common
needs and establish a vision and direction for the future. What makes this
alignment significant is that the challenges that confront us require not individual effort but common purpose.
What we need is a new level not only
of coordination among companies but
also partnerships of stakeholders across
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2019.2932818
Date of current version: 18 October 2019

10

ieee power & energy magazine

Shay Bahramirad

powering a new future
ready for the energy sector revolution

the globe brought together by shared challenges and common goals. At the 2019
U.S. Conference of Mayors in Hawai'i,
PES leaders presented the work our
members are doing to deploy the technological innovations
that not only make the
grid more resilient and
sustainable but also allow
communities, including
those historically underserved, to see the impact
of those advances. At the
2019 United Nations Science, Technology, and
Innovation Forum in
New York, PES leaders
discussed the progress
that our members have
made and presented a
vision of what we will
be able to do as policy
makers collaborate with
engineers to make what
is technically possible into a reality. When
the West Australian government needed
insight about how to enable the higher
levels of advanced energy technologies
that will equip its residents with the lowcarbon, reliable, and resilient future they
expect, PES leaders provided the objective expertise to support the mitigation of
the region's urgent needs and facilitate its
policy aspirations.
We are committed to making these
technologies tangible, solving real societal problems, and strengthening our
ties with policy makers to whom some
of these technologies may feel a bit
foreign. That's why it is so crucial that

PES takes the lead in smart grids and
smart cities, identifying the solutions
that have worked, developing ones that
could work, and deploying them where
the benefits are all too clear, to engineers and policy makers alike. This is what
we're doing when we
install microgrids that
serve as the foundation
of smart cities, deploy
electric vehicle mobility projects that help
people commute in a
sustainable fashion, and
implement the STEM
education programs
that support underserved communities.
We ensure continued
technological innovation to meet whatever
challenge emerges.
The challenges we
face are considerable, but seeing the
talent that the PES brings to bear and
recognizing the leadership that we
benefit from, I am confident that we
are ready for the energy sector evolution ahead of us through a partnership
of industry, academia, policy makers,
and the rest of our membership.

The significance
of power
engineering's
ability to devise
and deploy
technologies that
can solve today's
problems is
clearer than
ever.

Opportunity for Growth
An Open Letter to the PES
Membership From the
Executive Advisory Committee
The PES Executive Advisory Committee
(EAC) for Regions 1-7 was established to
november/december 2019
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2019

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