Townhall Session
Technology and Applications in Europe
Renata Rubesa
Assistant Director at HOPS Croatian Transmission System Operator
Croatia
Renata Rubeša received her B.Sc.E.E degree in 2005. in electrical engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing University of Zagreb in 2005, and the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Zagreb, Croatia in 2015. Since 2005. she has been with the Croatian transmission system Operator, where she started working as a relay protection engineer. Since 2007 she is with the Department for support to power system control, responsible for maintenance, development and integration of SCADA, EMS, AGC and WAM systems. She is currently head of department for the support to power system control in HOPS. She has participated in several projects and conferences involving development of WAM system in Croatia and international CIGRE working groups for the integration of WAMS in the control room. She is Member of IEEE, member of CIGRE Croatia study committee C2 Power system operation and control and chair of Croatian CIGRE study committee B5 Protection and automation. She has participated in several research and development projects funded by the EU. Since 2017 she is technical lead for the integration and development of an automated Volt Var control system in Croatia, as part of the Sincro.Grid project co-funded by the European Commission in the field of smart grids. Her main topics of interest are transmission system protection, wide area monitoring and energy management systems.
Technology and Applications in North America
Mark Lauby
Senior Vice President and Chief Engineer at NERC
United States
Mark G. Lauby is the senior vice president and chief engineer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Mr. Lauby joined NERC in January 2007 and has held several positions. Prior to joining NERC, Mr. Lauby worked for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) for 20 years. Mr. Lauby began his electric industry career in 1979 at the Mid-Continent Area Power Pool in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His responsibilities included transmission planning, power system reliability assessment and probabilistic evaluation.
In 2012, Mr. Lauby was elected to the North American Energy Standards Board and was appointed to the Department of Energy’s Electric Advisory Committee by the Secretary of Energy in 2014. He has been recognized for his technical achievements including the 1992 IEEE Walter Fee Young Engineer of the Year Award. He was named a Fellow by IEEE in November 2011, and in 2014, Mr. Lauby was awarded the IEEE Power and Energy Society’s Roy Billinton Power System Reliability Award. In 2020, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) elected Mr. Lauby as a member, citing his development and application of techniques for electric grid reliability analysis.
Mr. Lauby is the author of more than 150 technical papers about power system reliability, expert systems, transmission system planning, and power system numerical analysis techniques. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. In addition, Mr. Lauby attended the London Business School Accelerated Development Program as well as the Executive Leadership Program at Harvard Business School.
Damir Novosel
President of Quanta Technology
United States
Damir Novosel is president and founder of Quanta Technology. Previously, he was vice president of ABB Automation Products and president of KEMA T&D U.S. Dr. Novosel served on various boards and is presently a member of the Sandia National Laboratories Energy and Homeland Security External Advisory Board and Mississippi State University Industry Advisory Board. Dr. Novosel is also an adjunct professor at North Carolina State University. Dr. Novosel holds 18 US and international patents, published over 200 articles and reports, and contributed to 8 books.
Damir, a member of the US National Academy of Engineers and IEEE Fellow and Life Fellow, served on the IEEE Standards Board and number of committees, as IEEE Smart Cities Chair, and IEEE PES President, VP of Technology, Executive Advisory Council secretary, and Industry Technical Support Leadership Committee chair. He received the IEEE PES Meritorious Service and Leadership in Power awards. Damir is CIGRE US National Committee VP of Nominations and received the CIGRE Philip Sporn, Attwood Associate, and Distinguished Member awards.
Damir holds PhD, MSc, and BSc degrees in electrical engineering from Mississippi State University (where he was a Fulbright scholar), the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and the University of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively. Dr. Novosel was selected as Mississippi State University Distinguished Engineering Fellow and received the Distinguished Alumni Award.
Farnoosh Rahmatian,
President of NuGrid Power Corp.
United States
Dr. Rahmatian is the founder and president of NuGrid Power Corp. He is a Professional
Engineer and a Fellow of the IEEE for contribution to optical voltage and current sensors. He is
also a Distinguished Member of CIGRE. He is a past Chair of the IEEE Power & Energy Society’s
(PES) Technical Council, active at PES Power System Relaying and Control as well as Power
System Instrumentation and Measurements Committees. He is also active in CIGRE A3, B5, and
B3 study committees, and IEC TC 38, TC 57, and TC 95. His present focus is on grid resiliency,
optical sensors, synchronized measurement systems, digital substations, integration of
distributed energy resources, accurate event location, and high-speed measurement of voltage
and current on the grid. He has contributed to several techniques for power system measurement
and automation over the past 35 years. Farnoosh has over 100 technical papers and 14 patents to
his credit.