A whirl of activity

IEEE activities related to wind power and other alternate energy technologies were under the purview of the Energy Development Subcommittee (EDS) of the Energy Development and Power Generation Committee (EDPG) from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Wind power spans the areas of interest of many technical committees within the Power & Energy Society (PES). Given the exponential growth in wind power during the past decade, PES established the Wind Power Coordinating Committee to provide focus. PES has responded with more working groups, task forces, panel sessions and tutorial related to wind power. This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, with new PES activities in additional technical areas related to wind power (e.g., transformers, power system relaying, surge protection, operations, and market structure). Now, it is up to the power system engineers to understand the technical challenges and develop workable methods for integrating increasing levels of wind generation in power grids.