IEEE 1547 DER - Standards and Conformity Assessment Workshop

Michael Coddington – NREL, Principle Electrical Engineer, IEEE Senior Member 
Michael Coddington is a Principal Engineer and Principal Investigator with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Before coming to NREL in 2007, Michael worked as an Electric Distribution Planning and System Planning Engineer, a Key Account Executive, and several other positions at two electric utility companies.

 

His work at NREL has focused on the integration of distributed energy resources (DER) to the electric distribution system, with a focus on high penetration photovoltaic system interconnection. He has authored and collaborated on dozens of technical reports and papers focusing on integrating distributed generation systems onto the grid in a safe, reliable and cost-effective manner. Michael supports the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium (GMLC) with an emphasis on advanced electric distribution planning and tool development (Project 1.4.25).

 

Michael is active in standards and codes development, is a Senior Member of the IEEE, was Secretary of IEEE 1547.6, was the leader of Clause 9, DER on secondary networks, and has assisted in the development of the National Electrical Code (NEC) article 691 (utility scale PV) and other relevant articles and is a voting member of the UL 3741 Standards Technical Panel (STP). He is active in New England as a member of the ISO NE Distributed Generation Forecasting Group and is a voting member and the government representative of the Massachusetts Technical Standards Review Group (TSRG). Michael received his electrical engineering degree from Colorado State University, is a licensed master electrician and licensed electrical contractor in the State of Colorado and is a licensed commercial electrical inspector.

Robert Cummings – NERC, Senior Director of Engineering and Reliability Initiatives 
Mr. Cummings joined NERC in 1996 and has extensive experience in the industry in system planning, operations engineering, and wide area planning. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Power System Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and is an IEEE Senior Member.

 

He is a member of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Electricity Advisory Committee, and its Energy Storage and Smart Grid Subcommittees. Cummings is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of CURENT (Center for Ultra‐wide Area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks), a National Science Foundation and Department of Energy Engineering Research Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

 

His geographically diverse experience includes Central Vermont Public Service Corporation in System Planning (generation and transmission), Public Service Company of New Mexico (Operations Engineering and Wide Area Planning), and the East Central Area Reliability Coordination Agreement (ECAR), a former regional office of NERC.

 

He was a principal investigator of the 2003 Northeast Blackout and the more recent September 8, 2011 Arizona‐Southern California Outage, leading multiple event analysis teams in the sequence of events development, modeling and studies (powerflow and dynamics analysis), and transmission/generation performance areas. He directed the NERC Event Analysis program for five years, leading or working on 12 major disturbance analyses.

 

Mr. Cummings is the senior staff technical advisor for the NERC System Analysis and Modeling and the System Protection and Controls Subcommittees, and is the technical advisor to the North American Synchro‐Phasor Initiative. He is also the technical director of the NERC System Protection Improvement Initiative, 

Babak Enayati, PhD, PE - National Grid, Lead R&D Engineer, Co-Chair IEEE 1547™ Revision, IEEE PES Board of Governor Member 
Mr. Enayati received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY in 2009. He is currently a Lead Research Development and Demonstration Engineer at National Grid, Waltham, MA. He joined IEEE in 2006 and currently is Senior Member, IEEE and the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Governing Board Member-At-Large. Babak is the Vice Chair of the IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 21 (SCC21) and IEEE 1547™, Standard for Interconnecting Distributed Resources with Electric Power Systems. Babak is also the Chair of IEEE PES Distributed Resources Integration working group. Babak is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in the state of Massachusetts.

Jason Allnutt – IEEE-Standards Association, Program Manager, IEEE Conformity Assessment Program (ICAP) 
Jason currently serves as program manager for four IEEE Conformity Assessment Programs (ICAP) all in the Power and Energy sector. His duties include oversight of the Conformity Assessment Steering Committees for each program as well as providing technical input when necessary. Prior to joining IEEE SA Jason spent five years at a Nationally Recognized Test Lab (NRTL) where he performed military and FCC style Electromagnetic (EMC) Testing. Jason received his undergraduate Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh where he concentrated in Power Systems.

Kevin Chen - Duke Energy, Lead Engineer, DER Technical Standards, Distributed Energy Technologies

Kevin is currently a lead engineer in the DER technical standards group of Distribution Energy Technologies department at Duke Energy, Raleigh, NC. His duties include leading the Inspection & Commissioning Program for distribution-connected DER facilities, development of DER system protection standards, and providing technical assistance for DER interconnection studies. Prior to joining Duke Energy, Kevin was a senior consulting engineer at DNV GL with experience in a variety of areas, including DER integration, energy storage technology and application, smart grid and microgrid modeling, T&D system modeling and analysis, etc. Kevin Chen is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of North Carolina.

Lauren “Bubba” McDonald
Chairman 2018-2020
Commissioner Since: January 1, 2009
Elected: 1998, 2008; Re-elected: 2014
Serves Through: December 31, 2020
Republican, Clarkesville, Georgia 

 

2018 Georgia Public Service Commission

McDonald, who served 20 years as a state Representative, was appointed to the Commission in June 1998 by Governor Zell Miller to fill a vacated post and then re-elected in a special mid-term election in November 1998. He held the seat until 2002. In 2008 and in 2014, Georgians again elected McDonald to serve on the Commission.

 

McDonald has a deep knowledge of the energy industry. He puts that knowledge to work as a member of the Electric Committee of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and as an executive member of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition. During his time on the Commission he has been a strong proponent of adding solar energy to the state’s utility infrastructure in a conservative and thoughtful manner without putting upward pressure on rates. In 2013 he was able to garner support to add 525 megawatts of solar energy to the portfolio of the state’s investor owned utility. Since then, McDonald has supported the conservative addition of more solar power to Georgia’s energy mix, resulting in the state becoming one of the top five fastest growing states in the nation for solar energy. He has also supported the construction of solar facilities at six of Georgia’s military bases, contributing to national security and helping to protect the bases from future base closure proposals.

 

McDonald is a graduate of the University of Georgia with a BBA in Business. He also served six years in the Georgia Air National Guard.  He owns businesses in the private sector and is married to Shelley McDonald. He was married to the late Sunny Nivens McDonald for 45 years. He has a son, Lauren and three grandchildren.