IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - 10

and recognize our most active members.
We have a number of awards (http://
www.ieee-pes.org/pes-communities/
awards) to accomplish this goal. We need
to make sure that the great efforts and contributions of our members are recognized,
so please nominate your colleagues. It
will mean a lot to them. during the pes
General meeting in Boston, where we announced the awards, I hope you thought
about well-deserving colleagues who
should be nominated.
Why are we so passionate about the
importance of pes's role for the benefit
of society? The electric power grid is considered a marvel of engineering and one
of the most critical infrastructures in the
development of the human culture. everything from information technology to
banking, transportation, and water treatment is dependent upon the power grid.
modern society has reached a point where
virtually every economic and social function depends on a secure and reliable grid
operation. our industry has been experiencing significant changes caused by new

technology trends, environmental drivers
and weather patterns, changing public
needs, regulatory requirements, and security concerns.
In the coming decades, the electric
power and energy industry will be vastly
different from what it is today. access to
electricity is a gateway to the freedoms
that the developed world has known and
received since the days of edison and
Tesla. yet, worldwide, 1.3 billion people
lack access to electricity. as we contemplate what the grid of the future will
look like and how it will meet society's
demands, it is important that we learn
from previous years of energy development and recognize that the initiatives
we undertake today will affect the way
we live in the future.
The first electrical systems started as
distributed systems with electric power
plants delivering power to a local load.
Within a few decades, the transmission system was created and spread to
every corner of the globe, with many
new applications. The grid continued

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to interconnect over the years, while
focusing on generating power from central generating stations to achieve costeffectiveness, reliability, and safety and,
most recently, to serve open markets. It
is interesting to note that the first wind
generator produced electricity in 1887
in scotland, the first electric car was
on the road in the united states in 1891,
and a third of the cars on the road were
electrical by 1904. While these trends
did not continue at that time, the proliferation of wind generation and electrical vehicles has dramatically increased
in the last few decades.
major technological innovations in
areas such as renewable energy resources, storage, electric vehicles, automation, measurement devices, protection
and control, materials, dc technology,
and robotics resulted in a paradigm shift
of how we use electricity. Those innovations have enabled the development of
new "smarter" electrical systems, using
diverse energy resources with both central and distributed generation schemes.
These achievements have combined to
enable fundamental changes in how we
use and store electric energy to serve the
growing needs of society.
It is predicted that electrical resources, such solar, wind and other
renewables, will continue to be the best
untapped clean energy sources required
to meet increased societal and environmental needs. The electrical power and
energy sector will continue evolving
as consumer expectations and options
change, technology breakthroughs happen, and energy sources and their usage
are transformed. electricity demand is
expected to grow even with improvements in energy efficiency.
Globally, electrical energy will replace other forms of energy (e.g., using
gasoline for transportation), and it will
be a main source of energy for years to
come. Ieee was established in 1884
(originally as the american Institute
of electrical engineers). now, 132
years later, the Ieee pes is looking
forward to advance a more connected,
empowered world by helping both our
industry and society chart the course
for the future.
p&e

http://http:// http://www.ieee-pes.org/pes-communities/ http://www.reefindustries.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016