Tag Archives: IEEE

Jan '23 IEEE Publications' Roles Updates, News

IEEE Publications’ roles updates Jan. ’23

January 2023

Prof. Fran Li, the EiC of the IEEE Open Access Journal of Power & Energy (OAJPE), kindly informed me I have been awarded the Outstanding Associate Editor (AE) recognition for 2022. It is always exciting to realize you are doing your job well, let alone in a nascent publication with exciting trajectory, immense potential and a respectful and strong Open Access policy. I would have not received this recognition without the expert Reviewers that accept my invitations and contribute their thoughtful and in-depth comments on the manuscripts submitted to the IEEE OAJPE. To my dear Reviewers, thank you for putting up with me and taking on my assignments!

Another very exciting development is that I have been nominated by the IEEE Young Professionals (YP) for the position of the YP representative with voting rights at the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board (PSPB). This is a special honor and, also, acknowledgement of all my efforts to improve and enhance the quality of scientific publications, especially in my field of power and energy systems. Beyond my own personal experience, I have been lucky that many friends and colleagues who are Authors, Reviewers and Associate Editors across multiple publications have trusted me with their concerns and ideas. I plan to make the best of this opportunity and all input I have received during my 2023 term at the PSPB, aiming for positive and valuable changes.

In the context of both these updates, please, do not hesitate to contact me with your availability to review papers in the scope of your expertise and also tell me of any concerns and ideas you got for the improvement of publications. I will treat all input as confidential and I am thankful in advance for your interest!

IEEE TPWRS paper on fire-detecting digital twin of overhead line, News

IEEE TPWRS Paper on Digital Twin of Overhead Lines for Fire Detection

March 2022

Extending some of my previous work, I developed a digital twin for overhead conductors that detects an approaching forest fire and de-energizes the affected lines in a timely manner and not preemptively. The work has just been accepted in the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems (preprint here).

In California (CA) and elsewhere, the risk of overhead conductors igniting forest fires or adding seats to on-going ones is very real and extensive. In CA, PG&E’s overhead conductor equipment was determined to be the reason for the 2018 Camp fire, leading to law suits that caused the utility’s bankruptcy. After restructuring, the company updated its practices with preemptive disconnections of large parts of its grid during days of high risk of fire. The new practice disrupted service to thousands of customers, in most cases unnecessarily. Hundreds of new suits threatened PG&E with a second bankruptcy in 3 years.

Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) have been widely adopted across grids. PMUs may be installed along a line in distances as close as a 1-2 miles in between. This gives rise and basis to the idea of real-time monitoring of line impedance for any reasons of variation. As resistance increases with ambient temperature (not proportionally), steep decreases in the inductance/resistance ratio (tangent of the impedance phasor – tanδ in the figure) of an overhead conductor may indicate that a forest fire burns near said conductor and it should, thus, be disconnected.

Behavior of moving average of impedance phasor as a forest fire approaches an overhead conductor and affects its resistance. Such a behavior should control the disconnection of this conductor.

The in silico testing under numerous worst case scenario conditions (no solar heating effect, broad measurement error intervals, synchronization errors, etc.), showed that the proposed method detects some cases of a forest fire approaching a conductor, in sub-second times and at extremely low false positive rates. In the next steps, I plan a collaboration with interested utilities and the US Forest Service for field testing.

I want to thank CMU ECE’s MSc student (at that time) and co-author Uday Sriram for his help in setting up the tests, Dan Dietmeyer from SDG&E for informing me about PMU deployments in CA, Farnoosh Rahmatian from NuGrid Power for lending his expertise on instrument transformers and Jeff Dagle from PNNL for his crucial comments in the earlier stages of this work.

IEEE Standard 2660.1 Published, News

Standard IEEE 2660.1-2020 Published

February 2021

After many efforts over about a 5-year period I am happy to report the publication of the IEEE Standard 2660.1-2020 titled “Recommended Practice for Industrial Agents.” You can find it here. We are moving fast into an IoT era where local decision making either in the form of optimization, control action or system assessment, becomes critical and widespread. The most typical software entity that performs some type of any activity at a local level and in the form of a module is the ‘agent.’ Agents have been the backbone of many approaches, paradigms and architectures in dozens of applications. However, there is little information or methodology of how an agent should be deployed for a certain purpose, how to interact with other agents or the equipment it drives and the data it collects. This standard introduces exactly that. An algorithm (in the abstract sense) that takes into account the premises of an application and ranks according to various metrics which type of programming, organizing and communication protocols would fit best the said application.

This standard represents a major step forward in opening up a wide and clearly specified path for agents to be deployed in applications of the buildings, industrial, power, energy and other sectors. Stakeholders in these fields can employ this standard to best define the value of every different agent implementation in light of each application scoped.

I have been fortunate to work with great collaborators and honored to serve as the subgroup chair for the Energy & Power systems applications.

 

News, Regional Editor IET RPG

Appointed Regional Editor at IET RPG Journal

January 2021

I am delighted to report that the Editor- and Deputy-Editor-in-Chief at the Institute of Engineering & Technology (IET) Renewable Power Generation (RPG) journal have appointed me Regional Editor of these publications for North America. I am humbled by the role and will work hard to promote the activities of the journal.

This appointment follows that of the Associate Editor in the same journal and on the subject of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems, as of my expertise on Virtual Power Plants. Although, as you may know, I am senior member, volunteer and ‘big fan’ of the IEEE, I cannot contain my enthusiasm about how the IET RPG devotes a subject and editorial team on the broader subject of hybrid renewable energy systems, especially given the fact that virtual power plants (either including renewables or not) are on the rise (see OhmConnect, Enbala, SunRun, Enel X, Stem).

Please, contact me to propose Special Issues or for questions about submissions under the subject of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems. I will be glad to help!

Member IEEE USA EPC, News

Appointed to the IEEE-USA Energy Policy Committee

December 2020

I am joining the IEEE USA Energy Policy Committee (EPC), following the particularly honoring nomination by Prof. Parisini, President of the IEEE Control Systems Society. I am looking forward to serve my role in resolving the energy challenges in the US by offering my best technical counsel.

The IEEE-USA EPC publishes position statements and white papers targeted at the legislative and executive branches of the US government and revolves around the matters of energy modernization and diversification, workforce training and advancement, security of infrastructure, promoting technology innovations, and reducing barriers in implementing all of the above.