Introduction to IEEE Std 1547-2018: Connecting Distributed Energy Resources

Mr. Mark Siira is director of utility compliance and solutions for ComRent. Mr. Siira is a senior member of IEEE, and the chair of the IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 21 which focuses on Interconnection and interoperability standards for fuel cell, photovoltaics, dispersed generation and energy storage.
Mr. Siira is vice chair of the IEEE 1547-2018 Interconnection Standards and the IEEE Power Systems Relaying Committee K10. He’s also a member of the UL standards technical panels. Lastly, Dr. Siira is sub-group chair of the EPRI energy storage integration council.
Mr. Siira’s education includes a Bachelor’s of Mechanical Engineering Degree from GMI Engineering and Management Institute and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Ropp is the President and Principal Engineer of Northern Plains Power Technologies, Brookings SD, where he directs engineering, research and development on low-inertia system controls, protection and modeling.
Dr. Ropp is Co-chair of the IEEE 1547 unintentional and intentional islanding sub-group, and currently co-chairs the fault-current characterization subgroup of IEEE 1547.1.
He has over 20 years’ experience in power systems, power electronics and photovoltaics, with particular experience regarding detection of unintentional islands and the dynamics of low-inertia systems such as microgrids.
Dr. Ropp has a BS in Music from the University of Nebraska; an MSEE and PhD from Georgia Tech. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a member of numerous other professional societies, program committees, and boards. Lastly, he is a licensed professional engineer in South Dakota and Hawaii.

Dr. Jens Boemer leads EPRI’s strategic research on integrated T&D planning and operations, including projects on the grid integration of renewable and distributed energy resources. His areas of expertise include interconnection guidelines, aggregated modeling of distributed solar photovoltaics for bulk power system reliability studies, and DER communications and control. Dr. Boemer has gained industry reputation for leading the timely revisions of IEEE Standards 1547 and 1547.1.

Dr. Boemer joined EPRI in November 2014 with 10 years of experience in technical and regulatory requirements that helped to facilitate the German energy transition. He earned his Ph.D from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, in 2016. Dr. Boemer is a member of IEEE, CIGRÉ, and VDE.

Brian Seal is the Senior Program Manager for Distributed Energy Resource Integration at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). He is responsible for directing the technical staff and managing a portfolio of research that address the challenges of integrating solar, storage, and other DERs with the grid.

Babak Enayati received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY in 2009. He joined National Grid, USA in 2010 and is currently the Manager of the Technology Deployment team, which is responsible for development and implementation of the Transmission Network modernization strategy. He joined Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2006 and currently is a Senior IEEE Member. Dr. Babak currently serves as the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Governing Board Member-at-Large. He is also the Vice Chair of the IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 21 (SCC21) and IEEE 1547, Standard for Interconnecting Distributed Energy Resources with Electric Power Systems. Dr. Babak is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in the state of Massachusetts.