March 29, 2023 – The Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG), a nonprofit organization that marshals the expertise of the electricity industry’s technical community to support grid transformation and energy systems integration, recently announced the recipients of its 2023 Excellence Awards.
These awards recognize energy professionals from around the world for their contributions and accomplishments toward the planning and operation of energy systems across multiple pathways and geographical scales in ways that are reliable, economic and sustainable.
The awards were presented during a ceremony as part of ESIG’s annual Spring Technical Workshop, held in Tucson, Arizona.
“My greatest honor is to be able to recognize the significant accomplishments of individuals and organizations in the energy industry,” said Mark Ahlstrom, ESIG Board of Directors President. “We are pleased to recognize each of these individuals for their hard work and accomplishments.”
Lifetime Excellence Awards were presented to:
Ahmad Faruqui, The Brattle Group – For a lifetime of leadership in time-varying and dynamic rates
Stan Benjamin, NOAA Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) – For sustained contributions to atmospheric modeling and weather prediction for improved forecasting of renewable energy
Dave Edelson, NYISO; For sustained contributions to NYISO and the ESIG Forecasting Workshop
Excellence Award recipients include:
For pioneering work on defining and procuring new stability services and development of technical specifications for grid forming resources
- Dechao Kong, Antony Johnson, Shurooque Baloch, Xiaoyao Zhou and Nicholas Harvey, National Grid ESO
For cooperation on the SPP-MISO Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue (JTIQ) Study, identifying significant transmission limitations near the SPP-MISO seam which, if relieved, could provide consequential economic benefits and unlock tens of gigawatts of new interconnection projects
- Aubrey Johnson, Andy Witmeier, Sumit Brar, Jeremy Nash, MISO
- Antoine Lucas, David Kelley, Kelsey Allen and Clint Savoy, SPP
For development of the IEEE Standard for Transmission System Interconnection of Inverter-Based Resources
- Jens C. Boemer, EPRI
- Bob Cummings, Red Yucca Power Consulting
- Babak Enayati, New Leaf Energy
- Ross Guttromson, Sandia National Laboratories
- Mahesh Morjaria, Terabase Energy
- Chenhui Niu, State Grid Electric Power Research Institute
- Manish Patel, Southern Company
- Diwakar Tewari, LS Power
- Rajat Majumder, Invenergy
- Wesley Baker, Southern Company
- Shun Hsien (Fred) Huang, ERCOT
- Ramesh Hariharan, GE Renewable Energy
- Kamal Garg, SEL
- Michael Jensen, PG&E
- Shazreen Meor Danial, AES Clean Energy
- Andy Hoke, NREL
For groundbreaking work and global knowledge sharing in the field of deployment of grid forming inverter-based resources
- Li Yu and Jason Reyes, HECO
For development of very large-scale EMT models and application of novel techniques in improvement of simulation speed and efficiency
- James Guest, AEMO
- Lukas Unruh, Electranix
For leadership of the NERC System Planning Impacts from DERs Working Group (SPIDERWG) in studying the impacts of DER on the bulk power system
- John “JP” Skeath, NERC
For his lifetime accomplishments in the advancement of renewable energy through teaching, lecturing, research, writing and consulting in support of the clean energy transformation
- Thomas Ackermann, Energynautics
For his advancement of education in the field of renewable energy through a career of teaching at Northern Arizona University, including addressing the industry manpower shortage through the development of course work with a focus on enrolling underrepresented minorities
- Tom Acker, Salt River Project
For advances in the field of economics and operation of deregulated electricity markets and market designs for co-optimization of wholesale natural gas and electric markets
- Aleksandr Rudkevich, Newton Energy Group
For technical contributions and leadership in grid energy storage technology and service to the science and engineering community
- Babu Chalamala, Sandia National Laboratories
For pioneering leadership and innovation to accelerate the energy transition through advanced renewable energy technology deployment, energy systems integration and thought leadership across the global energy industry
- Danielle Merfeld, Qcells, formerly GE Renewable Energy
For leadership in the evolution and applications of tools and methodologies to enable utilities to decarbonize their systems
- Arne Olson, Energy and Environmental Economics (E3)
For his pioneering efforts to build transmission infrastructure to unlock the nations wind energy resources
- Michael Skelly, Grid United
Service Award recipients include:
For 11 years of faithful service to the ESIG Board of Directors
- Mary Ann Zehr, Tri-State Generation & Transmission Assoc
For 3 years of faithful service to the ESIG Advisory Council
- Lloyd Linke, WAPA
For more information on ESIG, please visit www.esig.energy.
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