Date: May 9 and 10, 2022 – 8:00 – 12:00 pm each day.
Venue: Virtual (MS Teams and gather.town)
The 2022 APIC Forum is the third meeting to facilitate exchange of ideas and views among the industrial and academic partners working together on the Alliance Grant project Towards Future Interconnected Electric System. This project, supported by NSERC and the Alberta Power Industry Consortium (APIC) involves researchers and highly qualified personnel (HQP, i.e. graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows) from the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary. At the Forum, presenters from the APIC companies will deliver keynote talks on the experiences and new technologies in their organizations. Academic researchers and HQP trainees will provide introductions and updates on their individual sub-projects within the Alliance Grant project.
APIC Forum 2022 Agenda
Day 1, May 9, 2022
| Time | Activities and Speakers |
| 08:00 – 08:10 am | Opening Remarks APIC Board Chair |
| 08:10 – 08:50 am | Keynote 1: AltaLink DER Interconnections – Challenges and Solutions – Transmission Perspective Harjinder Sidhu, Principal Engineer Protection and Control |
| 08:50 – 09:30 am | Keynote 2: EPCOR Electrification of Transportation: Forecast & Impact Chris Chapelsky, Senior Manager Grid Transformation Shane Fraser, Manager Grid Transformation |
| 09:30 – 10:00 am | Break |
| 10:00 – 10:20 am | Energy Hackathon 2022 Winning Team Presentation Smart electric vehicle charging Nastaran Gholizadeh Chloe Zhou Vadim Avkhimenia Amirhossein Sohrabbeig |
| 10:20 – 11:00 am | Keynote 3: ENMAX Solar Network Export Project Pallavi Sehgal-Sidhu, Senior Engineer, Protection and Control Juval Bothe, Senior Engineer, Grid Innovation |
| 11:00 – 12:00 pm | Drop-in poster session #1 (gather.town) |
Day 2, May 10, 2022
| Time | Activities and Speakers |
| 08:00 – 08:10 am | Welcome Remarks Academic Director |
| 08:10 – 08:50 am | Keynote 4: Unlocking customers participation: the Platone concept Prof. Antonello Monti, RWTH Aachen University and Fraunhofer FIT |
| 08:50 – 09:30 am | Keynote 5: ATCO Electric Wildfire Mitigation Trevor Tkach Glenn Buckmaster |
| 09:30 – 10:00 am | Break |
| 10:00 – 10:40 am | Keynote 6: AESO Operational Challenges of the Evolving AIES • Fast Frequency Response for Loss of Supply • Operation of Inverter Based Resources (IBRs) in Weak Grid Conditions David Waenink, P.Eng., Senior Engineer, Operations Engineering Siavash Zoroofi, Ph.D., P.Eng. Senior Engineer Specialist, Operations Engineering |
| 10:40 – 11: 20 am | Keynote 7: FortisAlberta Lessons Learned from 10 Years of Distribution Automation Michael Roles, Sr SCADA Engineer |
| 11:20 – 11:30 am | Closing Remarks |
| 11:30 – 12:30 pm | Drop-in poster session #2 (gather.town) |
Keynotes
ATCO
Glenn Buckmaster
Glenn Buckmaster has been part of ATCO Electric’s Forestry Planning team for over 8 years. He is currently in the role of Senior Planner and is responsible for developing the use of remote sensing technologies and data analysis techniques within ATCO’s vegetation management planning processes. Glenn thoroughly enjoys his current role as it provides him with an opportunity to help ATCO by utilizing his background in Biostatistics, Optimization modelling, and his over 20 years of experience in the sustainable management of forested landscapes. His desire is to continue to assist his work colleagues to integrate reliable risk-based data sources into their business practices.
Trevor Tkach
Trevor Tkach has worked in a number challenging and innovative roles over his nearly 35-year career at ATCO. He oversees ATCO’s Innovation portfolio, helped launch the company’s EV Centre of Excellence and supports our decarbonization/microgrid initiatives. In his current role as a specialist engineer, Trevor oversees ATCO’s distribution technical support and standards team. Over the last three years, Trevor has been working closely with our Forestry Planning team focusing on a grid resiliency and wildfire mitigation program for the Jasper National Park.
AltaLink
Harjinder Sidhu
Harjinder Sidhu is Principal Engineer for Protection and Control at AltaLink in Calgary. His role is to develop and maintain philosophy for engineering and design of protection systems for safe, economic and reliable operation of the power system. He joined AltaLink in 2007 and has held varieties of diverse roles including Engineering Manager, Protection and Control Engineer, Project Engineer and Project Manager. Prior to joining AltaLink, he worked as Technical Specialist at General Electric. He received Master of Science Degree in Power System Protection from the University of Saskatchewan. As a Research Assistant, he investigated application of traveling waves for accurate estimation of location of faults on transmission lines. He is registered as a Professional Engineer in the province of Alberta and is active member of WECC RWG and IEEE Power and Energy Society.
FortisAlberta
Michael Roles
Michael Roles started his career with FortisAlberta after receiving a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Calgary. Michael spent two years as an EIT with the Customer Planning group before moving to the SCADA group where he has worked for the past four years.
EPCOR
Chris Chapelsky
Chris Chapelsky is the Senior Manager of Grid Transformation at EPCOR Distribution and Transmission, Inc. Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science degree specializing in power systems from the University of Alberta. In 11 years with EPCOR, Chris has held progressive technical and leadership positions within Distribution and System Operations in roles focusing on automation, grid control, smart grid, geographic information systems, grid operations, and ADMS (Advanced Distribution Management Systems). He now leads a dedicated cross-functional team focused on building EDTI’s future grid-transformation portfolio including grid modernization, adaptation to electric vehicle charging, and other transformational activities to guide EDTI through increased electrification and the de-carbonization of energy.
Shane Fraser
Shane Fraser is the Manager of Grid Transformation at EPCOR Distribution & Transmission Inc. (EDTI). In this role, he leads and coordinates our teams and consultants in investigating and supporting the modernization of the electrical distribution grid to address the changing needs of our customers. Holding a B.Sc. with distinction from the University of Alberta in Civil Engineering, Shane is also a customer who is personally interested in the electrification of building heating, and transportation electrification. In his previous role as EDTI’s CES Manager, Shane led a team of engineers, designers, and planners who assist customers in connecting, upgrading, or changing their electrical service connections. This experience has provided him with a field level view of the challenges our customers are facing with implementing new technologies. Customers are increasing their adoption of distributed generation, installation of batteries, purchasing of EVs, and moving to the electrification of home heating.
ENMAX
Pallavi Sehgal-Sidhu
Pallavi Sehgal-Sidhu is a Senior Engineer in Operations Planning and Protection group at ENMAX Power Corporation. She completed her master’s degree in Power System Protection from University of Saskatchewan. She has over 16 years of Transmission & Distribution utility experience and has been with ENMAX for 10 years.
Juval Bothe
Juval Bothe P.Eng, is a Sr. Engineer for ENMAX Power Corporation’s Grid Innovation team which supports the delivery of ENMAX’s ESG targets, innovation investments and ENMAX Power’s 2030 Vision. He completed his B.Sc in Electrical Engineering from University of Alberta. He has worked in the Utility industry for 15 years with a focus on Distribution Systems and Distributed Energy Resource integration.
The Platone Concept
Antonello Monti
Antonello Monti received his Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 1994. He started his career with Ansaldo Industria and then moved in 1995 to the Politecnico di Milano as an Assistant Professor. In 2000, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA, as an Associate Professor and then Full Professor. Since 2008, he has been the Director of the Institute for Automation of Complex Power System, E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Since 2019 he has a joined appointment at Fraunhofer FIT, Center for Digital Energy Aachen.
AESO
David Waenink
David Waenink is a Senior Engineer in the AESO’s Operation Engineering team. He started at the AESO in 2015 in the New Graduate Program, followed by the last five years with Operations Engineering. His recent contributions are mainly focused on frequency and dispatching studies such as LSSi, regulation volumes and net-demand variability. Mr. Waenink holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and is a registered professional engineer in Alberta.
Siavash Zoroofi
Siavash Zoroofi is a Senior Engineer Specialist, Power System Transients & Dynamics in the AESO’s Operation Engineering team. He has over 19 years of experience with a focus on HVDC and FACTS devices. He joined the AESO’s Customer Grid Access team in 2015 from Transgrid Solutions Inc. in Winnipeg. His main areas of expertise are in the development of controls for HVDC, FACTS, and power system simulations, particularly in the area of time-domain electromagnetic transient modelling. Mr. Zoroofi holds a Ph.D in electrical engineering and is a registered professional engineer in Alberta.
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