Research and development initiatives of more than 50 Texas A&M University faculty members were highlighted at the inaugural smart grid workshop sponsored by the university and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) to help facilitate team-building and cooperation leading to more effective operations of the nation’s power grids in transmitting electricity.
The workshop included presentations by key governmental and private-sector leaders in the smart-grid, Dr. George W. Arnold, national coordinator for Smart Grid Interoperability at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, John D. McDonald, director for technical strategy and policy development at GE Digital Energy, and Pat Wood, III, principal of Wood3 Resources and chairman of the board for Dynegy Inc.
The goal of the workshop was to bring together faculty, staff and students to increase awareness, facilitate scientific exchange leading to collaborative proposal teams and improve the teaching, research and development activities across disciplines in electric transmission, alternative generation sources, storage, grid monitoring, cyber-physical security, policy, economics and other related fields. More than 150 people participated in the workshop, which included 58 faculty members from Texas A&M. The plan is to make this workshop an annual event.
The workshop is a Community of Scholars event, sponsored in part by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice President for Research and organized by the Smart Grid Center, which is part of TEES.