Deepak Divan is a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Founding Director of the Intelligent Power Infrastructure Consortium at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, one of the leading engineering schools in the world. He is Chairman and CTO for Innovolt Inc., a company specializing in energy management and energy efficient technologies. He is a Director for Asian Electronics Limited, a public company listed on the Mumbai Stock Exchange. He is Chairman of Integral Technologies, Pune, India, a company specializing in energy efficient lighting technologies using LEDs. From 1995-2004, he was Chairman and CEO/CTO of Soft Switching Technologies, a company in the industrial power quality market. From 1985-95, he was a Professor in Electrical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He is President of the IEEE Power Electronics Society for 2009 and 2010. He was Conference Chair for a new global conference on sustainable energy – IEEE Energy 2030, held in Atlanta on Nov 17/18, 2008. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and was the recipient of the 2006 IEEE William E Newell Field Award for contributions in power electronics technology. He has over 250 papers and 35 issued and pending patents. His research interests are in sustainable energy, improving grid reliability and utilization, renewable energy, and the application of power electronics for power delivery, power quality, power reliability and industrial applications.

 

Smart Grid: An Enabler for Sustainable Energy

 Abstract: As the world moves towards increasing sustainability and lower carbon emissions, it is becoming increasingly clear that the future is likely to be increasingly electrified. Adding a variable renewable energy generation mix and the loading of an electrified transportation fleet onto an already straining power grid will create unprecedented problems. A smart grid, infused with intelligence, communications and dynamic control capability, can provide a cost-effective approach to achieving this objective. This paper will present major sustainability objectives for both the developed and emerging nations, and show smart grid solutions that can help in achieving these objectives.