Swasti Khuntia
LAYOUT EDITOR

The third annual Great Lakes
Symposium on Smart Grid and the New Energy
Economy was organized at the Illinois Institute
of Technology last week from the September 23
to 25. Continuing the trend set from last year,
this year was also a grand success with attendees
from all over the globe.

Dr. Mohammed Shahidehpour,
Bodine Chair of the Electrical and Computer
Engineering (ECE) Department and also
the Director of Galvin Center for Electricity
Innovation thanked everyone for the grand
success of the international symposium,

attended by international researchers, experts,"

scientists and people from industries included

. keynote speeches, plenary sessions, technical
presentations, and tutorials on smart grid and
its applications.

The organizers described the Great
lakes Symposium as a one-of-a-kind event that
breaks new ground in smart grid design and
development and showcases smart grid‘best
practices from around the country along with
new technologies and ideas that are spurring
innovation, growing state economies, reducing
emissions and empowering consumers to

 

   

conserve and save.

Although the dates announced were
the 23rd to 25th September, the symposium
organized a short course on 22nd September
on various aspects of smart grids, i.e., its
implementation, creation of its roadmap,
security aspects and distribution automation.

The official opening of the symposium featured.

keynote speech followed by plenary sessions.
Dr. Shahidehpour welcomed all the attendees
by addressing the crowd about the symposium
agenda and then it was followed by a plenary
discussion on “Smart Grid Innovations in
Illinois.”

The other plenary discussion on
“Virgin Islands Solar PV Initiative” was an
interesting topic. This is because Veriown, a
Chicago based solar-energy startup has offered
the University of the Virgin Islands a slash
down of the Island’s incapacitating energy

costs. Veriown has collaborated with the Galvin '

Center for Electricity Innovation at the Illinois
Institute .of Technology to develop the next
generation of microgrids. Another interactive
session was a panel discussion on “Will Smart
Grid Create New Jobs?” This session was more
focused on job creation in Illinois since there
were speakers from ComEd, Illinois Green
Economy Network and two community

V: ainpusi@t I hinewsgiicfiom

Great Lakes Symposium covers economic energy, Smart Grid

colleges, i.e., Lewis and Clark Community
College and Lake Land Community College.
The second day too had a variety
of topics starting from microgrid evolution,
enhancement, grid modernization, etc. The day
started with keynote speech by Iianhui Wang
from Argonne National laboratory and Steve

Pullins, President of Horizon Energy Group

The talk was about “Microgrid Evaluation
in Distribution Service Restoration After
a Blackout.” It was followed by a plenary
session on “Microgrids for Enhancing the
Grid Resiliency” by people from S&C Electric,
University of Luleo-Sweden, Electric Power
Research Institute, MIT, Horizon Energy Group
and National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It
was indeed a very informative session.

' The plenary was followed by a series
of simultaneous panel session on “Wind Energy
from the Windy City”, “Grid Modernization
for Power System Enhancement” and “Clean
Energy Manufacturing.” The afternoon plenary
session was another informative one, discussing
the topic “Electricity Market and Regulations.”
After the discussion, there were two panel
sessions and one paper session. Both the panel
discussions were more industry oriented while
the paper session had student participation. The

TechNews | Tuesday, October 1, 2013

theme for paper session was “microgrids” and
it had papers on various novel and interesting
areas of microgrids.

The third and last day was pretty
short, comprised of a keynote speech, plenary
and paper sessions and two panel discussions.
The keynote session on “Building Resilience
into the Smart Grid” by William Sanders from
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
gave a broad and clear prospect about the
research they’re doing at their university. He
also gave an insight about Trustworthy Cyber
Infrastructure for the Power Grid (TCIPG), the
research group at University of Illinois where
they collaborate with other universities to work
on improving the national power grid making
it more reliable, secure and safe. Following
this was the plenary session on “Increasing
Adoption: Intelligent and Trustworthy Smart
Grid.” The day ended with two simultaneous
panel discussion on “Big Data in Smart Grids”
and “Advanced Electric Vehicle Technology”, -
and paper session on “Power System Operation
and Control.”

Apart from the sessions, companies
like S&C Electric, ComEd and Ameren Illinois
had their stalls in the Herman Hall to attract the
crowd.

Photos courtesy of Galvin Center of Electricity Innovation