Fortnightly Magazine - October 2024

Awards Named for Great Innovators of the Past

Top Innovators

Edith Clarke’s pioneering engineering and mathematical work in the 1920s and 1930s made it possible to build transmission lines longer than 200 miles or longer, essential for electrifying the western U.S. We named the Top Innovator Award in Reliability after her.

AES: Power Delivery Predictive Model

Top Innovators

Francis Upton Top Innovator in Analytics for Utility Service: “The new approach addresses issues where history is not a good predictor of the future due to innovative changes in reliability programs. We developed methods for defining accurate targets by accounting for all changes to make optimal decisions for allocation of financial and human resources."

Ameren: Project REACH, Project SiLVERS

Top Innovators

 

George Westinghouse Top Innovator in Leadership in Innovation: “Project REACH stands for Realizing Equitable Access to Cybersecurity in High School. Under this program, the federal government allocated dollars to historically black colleges and universities or HBCUs, for them to reach out to K-12 schools and help bring those students into computer science programs.” William Hammer Top Innovator in Electrification: “SiLVERS stands for St. Louis Vehicle Electrification Rides for Seniors. The goal was to introduce EVs and electrification into environmental justice communities and integrate electrification into the nonprofit operations.”

CMS Energy: RNG Cost Recovery Mechanism

Top Innovators

John Beggs Top Innovator in Energy Transition: “The specific regulatory innovation is the cost recovery mechanism allowing the regulated utility to own, operate, and maintain RNG plants across Michigan and recover costs through both full-service voluntary customer subscriptions and open market sales.”

Exelon - BGE: Hazard and Strategic Trees Optimization

Top Innovators

Edith Clarke Top Innovator in Reliability of Electric Service: “The Vegetation Management Team came up with a list of hazard trees and asked BGE’s data science team to develop a tree risk analytic model. We wanted them to create an analytic model that could prioritize each hazard tree based on customer impact.”

Exelon - Pepco: Electric Bus Microgrid

Top Innovators

Maria Telkes Top Innovator in Distributed Energy: “This project is a 6.5 MW microgrid. It was one of the first microgrids, the first BESS system on the system for PHI. We used new and creative technology to figure out how to get this project connected safely and reliably.”
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