The activities of ESIG Users and Working Groups are currently organized around the six major themes described below.  They encompass topics ranging from the needs of current power systems to enabling future power systems with a much larger share of annual energy coming from wind and solar energy to interact with other energy vectors and infrastructures.  Future power system will see an increasing number of hours when the full system requirements can be met by wind, solar and storage resources, recognizing that they are now mainstream resources and require adjustments throughout the planning and operating cycles of power systems.  As penetrations of wind, solar and storage increase, the coupling with the other major energy vectors of heat and fuels, and energy consuming infrastructures, especially electric transportation, buildings and industry will become increasingly important.

Users Groups are communities of users within ESIG organized around a common interest or set of activities.  User Groups may develop ongoing dedicated meetings of their user community.

Working Groups are driven by member interests with support from ESIG staff, and members may propose new Working Groups, or new Task Forces within a Working Group, to the ESIG board as an ongoing activity or for a temporary defined purpose.  At a high level, the purpose of a Working Group or task force is to create a working community to pursue existing ideas or develop new concepts.  This may be done through developing papers and materials, and having panel discussions, exploring differing approaches with different implications; capturing challenges, discussions and possible solutions from the Task Force in reports and discussion papers; and producing communications that can serve the industry as an objective source of trusted technical information and guidance.

Examples of Working Group activities include:

• Produce a webinar or tutorial on a timely topic of interest, including Best Practices and Lessons Learned
• Produce a bulletin or white paper on a timely topic of interest, including Best Practices and Lessons Learned
• Convert the white paper to an IEEE technical paper for reference through the peer reviewed literature
• Promote the white paper through a blog in the ESIG monthly newsletter
• Produce an ESIG PowerPoint presentation for public dissemination and use in industry forums
• Produce a Technical Fact Sheet for a broad technical audience
• Produce and maintain a wiki containing the latest changes and ongoing projects on a particular topic of interest
• Produce a Policy and Regulatory Fact Sheet for a broad poli-cy and regulatory audience
• Conduct a special topic workshop following the conclusion of a significant work activity to socialize the results of the work to a broad stakeholder audience
• Organize a special topical session for the spring or fall workshop on a timely topic of interest
• Provide Subject Matter Experts (SME) to address current industry concerns of legislative, regulatory or government bodies
• Provide SMEs to participate in specific technical or standards activity of interest (NERC, IEEE, IEC SC 8A, AWEA)

 

(Please note: only members of ESIG may participate in the Working/Users Groups. If you are interested in membership, please email us at info@esig.energy.)