Andres Carvallo Receives Computerworld Honors Laureate Award

My Smart Grid leadership and work at Austin Energy was recognized on Monday June 1st, 2009 at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC by the Computerworld Honors Program in a ceremony that started at 4pm and lasted until 10pm. 159 Laureates in ten categories were recognized and inducted into the program archives. From the 159 Laureates only 50 made it to Finalist (five from each category). And then to make it even more dramatic, the judges picked a single winner of each category to receive the 21st Century Achievement Award. 159 Laureates, 50 Finalists, and 10 (ten) 21st Century Achievement Award winners.

To my surprise, I walked out of the building with three awards and being the sole winner of the Environmental, Energy & Agriculture category in 2009 for the Utility of the Future work at Austin Energy that we have been executing like clockwork since 2003.

Established in 1988, The Computerworld Honors Program brings together the principals of the world's foremost information technology companies to recognize and document the achievements of the men, women, organizations and institutions around the world, whose visionary applications of information technology promote positive social, economic and educational change.

Each year, members of the Computerworld Honors Chairmen's Committee, a group of 100 Chairmen/CEOs from leading global IT companies, submit nominations for organizations they feel demonstrated extraordinary use of information technology in 10 distinct categories of industry-related endeavor. The categories are: Business & Related Services; Education & Academia; Environment; Energy & Agriculture; Finance, Insurance and Real Estate; Government; Healthcare; Manufacturing; Media, Arts & Entertainment; Non-Profit Organizations; and Transportation.

Nominees are then asked to contribute a Case Study for submission to the Computerworld Honors Program Global Archives. Each Case Study includes a detailed description of the project, its benefits to society, the role played by information technology in furthering the project, and the ways in which this use of information technology is original or innovative. The Laureates may also submit accompanying digital photographs, video or other supporting materials. Once their documentation has been reviewed and accepted, the nominees become Program Laureates, and their Case Studies become part of the Program's Global Archives. The information becomes available to researchers, students and scholars through http://www.cwhonors.org/, and through digital records housed in national archives in over 100 universities, museums and research institutions throughout the world.

Laureates' achievements are recognized at two distinct events, which occur on the same day in June. During the Laureate Medal Ceremony, Case Studies are formally inducted into the Program's International Archives, and honorees are presented with a medallion inscribed with the Program's mission, "A Search for New Heroes." Later that day, Laureates join members of the Chairmen's Committee and other industry luminaries for the Gala Awards Evening. At that evening event, additional honors are given to 50 Finalists - 5 Laureates from each of the 10 categories, whose Case Studies were selected by Program Judges to be outstanding innovations within the information technology field. That field is narrowed further with the presentation of the 21st Century Achievement Awards. These awards are given to only one Finalist in each category, singled out for special recognition by the Program Judges to be the very best among their peers.

Austin Energy Launches Customer Outage Portal

We have launched our Customer Outage Portal, called "Austin Energy Storm Center" to further improve our customer services and help the media quickly and easily understand when and where there are outages in our service territory.

The Storm Center can be viewed via any Computer and Smart Phone (with a full HTML browser).

The Storm Center provides a “Summary” tab that will show the total number of outages in the utility’s service area and the total number of customers without power at any given time. Users can see the total number of customers currently without power by ZIP code as well as the total number of customers served within each ZIP code.

The Storm Center displays a map of our entire service area, with outages coded to illustrate a small outage (1-200 customers), medium outage (210-500 customers), and large outage (more than 500 customers). Other features include the time the outage began, the estimated restoration time, and total number of customers without power, all zoomable down to street level.

With the Storm Center, customers can see visually what is going on in the Austin Energy service territory, they can check for a specific outage, they can report an outage, and they can contact us.

This project was a great team effort from multiple divisions within Austin Energy. Congratulations to all !

http://my.austinenergy.com/outages/

Andres Carvallo named Technical Chair for NIST's Smart Grid Standards Process

The purpose of the Smart Grid Interoperability Workshop on May 19-20 2009 is to provide an opportunity for the industry stakeholders to meet face to face for a second time to continue the consensus building process for a Smart Grid Standards Interoperability Interim Roadmap.

The key objective of this exercise is to use this consensus based process to select a particular set of interoperable standards for each interface between adjacent Smart Grid environments that support certain high priority Smart Grid applications such as Demand Response, Wide Area Situational Awareness, Electric Storage, and Electric Transportation.

There will be six workshops to define standards for:

1.Demand Response & Consumer Energy Efficiency
2.Wide Area Situational Awareness
3.Electric Storage
4.Electric Transportation
5.Advanced Metering Infrastructure
6.Distribution grid management initiatives, including Distributed Energy Resource (DER) integration, distribution automation, volt/var control, and remote sensing that enables improvements in reliability and improves the efficiency of the distribution system.

In recognition for my industry experience and knowledge, I have been invited to play the role of Technical Moderator and Lead in the Wide Area Situational Awareness, Advanced Metering Infrastructure, and Distribution Grid Management workshops, and Technical Chair for the Application and Data Integration workshop of the Smart Grid Standards Interim Roadmap workshop next week.

Andres Carvallo to Speak at GE's Smart Grid Executive Summit

GE’s Smart Grid Executive Summit will explore the challenges and opportunities of smart grid deployments, as well as the necessary policy and regulatory measures needed to deliver on the promises of a more intelligent electrical network. The event will include the participation of executives from American Electric Power, Ameren, Austin Energy, CNT-Energy, Dominion, Duke Energy, EPRI, FERC, FPL, GE, Galvin Electricity Initiative, Georgia Power, Google, Harvard University, IBM, McKinsey & Company, PG&E, Salt River Project, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern Company, Xcel Energy, and World Resource Institute.

In addition to the Smart Grid Executive Summit, GE will host its first Smart Grid Advisory Board, to which Andres Carvallo has been named.

Andres will attend the Smart Grid Advisory Board meeting and speak at the first annual GE Smart Grid Executive Summit.

GE’s Smart Grid Advisory Board is comprised of executive representatives from five US utilities. The advice and perspectives shared by these board members will help guide GE’s technology development efforts, and these individuals will play a key role in defining the overall GE Smart Grid strategy.

NERC CEO Testifies at Senate Hearing on Cyber Security

Written Testimony of Rick Sergel, NERC President & CEO Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Hearing on Joint Staff Draft Related to Cybersecurity and Critical Electricity Infrastructure May 7, 2009

"The cyber security of the bulk power system in North America remains an important concern for our nation. When I last spoke in front of a Congressional committee in September 2008, my organization, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), had just launched a major initiative to improve its response to cyber security challenges. I am pleased to report significant progress on this front, which is a clear indication that the framework established under Section 215 of the Federal Power Act is producing results. But I remain firm in the message I communicated nine months ago: the Federal government should be given additional, carefully crafted, emergency authority to address specific, imminent cyber security threats.

"My testimony today will focus on the steps NERC has taken to enhance protection of the North American bulk power system from cyber security threats, and offer NERC’s views on the Joint Staff Draft, which would provide the needed federal authority."

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Note:

Rick Sergel and his team have done a great job to accelerate the NERC CIP adoption and verification processes. All utilities are hard at work to be fully compliant, if they are not already.

The real challenge is that we find ourselves balancing the forces of Functionality/Convenience vs. Security vs. Affordability. In the end, my second law of Information Technology says: "When balancing the forces of Functionality/Convenience vs. Security vs. Affordability, one must pick only two forces to drive the project and achieve compliant results." Trying to achieve the three forces at once does not deliver sustainable results. Some grid users feel that Security must trump everything else. While other grid users feel that Functionality/Convenience comes first. And yet other grid users want Affordability to be the focus.

My first law of Information Technology says: "When balancing the forces of Cheaper vs. Faster vs. Better, one must pick only two forces to drive the project and achieve sustainable results."