One of the
employees—Bruce Fardanesh, NYPA’s chief electrical engineer—was notified late
last year of his election by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) as an IEEE Fellow, effective Jan. 1, in recognition of his
achievements in developing and integrating advanced technologies for enhanced
operation and control of power systems as demonstrated on NYPA’s power grid.
Only 298 individuals out of 400,000 worldwide IEEE members were selected for this
prestigious power engineering honorific for 2013.
The five other employees
honored by NYPA at Tuesday’s Trustees’ meeting are among the national
recipients of 2012 Technology Transfer Awards from the Electric Power Research
Institute (EPRI), the electric utility industry's premier collaborative
research organization. EPRI recognized them for contributions involving
electric power generation, power utilization and the environment. The
individuals are John Markowitz of Ossining, N.Y, Jonathon Mayette of
Waddington, N.Y., John Nolan of Wantagh, N.Y., John Nowicki of Colton, N.Y.,
and Jiankang Zhu of White Plains, N.Y.
“The Power Authority
trustees and executive management can point with pride every day to the
achievements of our statewide work force, and are especially proud of the six
individuals we’re honoring with Certificates of Appreciation at today’s NYPA
trustees’ meeting,” John R. Koelmel, NYPA chairman, said.
“The accomplishments of
these stellar employees reflect the emphasis by the New York Power Authority
under Governor Cuomo’s leadership to integrate innovative technologies to
bolster our performance and support a clean environment,” Gil C. Quiniones,
NYPA president and chief executive officer, said.
Fardanesh, a 22-year
veteran employee, working out of NYPA’s White Plains Office, has been
instrumental in NYPA’s installation of phasor measurement technologies at
generating facilities and substations to enhance real-time situational
awareness of transmission conditions, to anticipate potential problems and take
effective action to ensure reliability.
Fardanesh, of Bergen
County, N.J., holds three patents and has published numerous technical papers
and reports. He will be honored at the IEEE’s Power Engineering Society’s
general meeting in July.
“The IEEE Grade of
Fellow is a highly esteemed distinction reserved for an extremely small
percentage of our institute’s membership,” Noel N. Schulz, president of the
IEEE Power & Energy Society, said. “The conferring of this
distinction upon Bruce Fardanesh by the IEEE Board of Directors, through a
rigorous peer nomination and review process, is a great testament to Bruce’s
accomplishments for enhanced operation of the power grid.”
The NYPA awardees of the
2012 EPRI Technology Awards were recognized for their work in the following
areas:
- John Markowitz, lead research and technology engineer,
NYPA White Plains Office, was recognized for his contribution to one of
the first major collaborations between the automotive and utility
industries, in the area of modern, plug-in vehicle technology, through
NYPA’s demonstration of the Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle
(PHEV) program. The team incorporated a plug-in hybrid prototype vehicle
into NYPA’s vehicle fleet and applied EPRI analyses in demonstrating the
use of the plug-ins in conjunction with “smart charging”—software,
networks and devices—that can manage vehicle recharging to minimize the
impact on the electric power grid and maximize use of clean power sources.
- Jonathon Mayette, environmental scientist, St.
Lawrence-FDR Power Project; John Nolan, environmental engineer, White
Plains Office; and John Nowicki, safety, health and fire protection
administrator, St. Lawrence-FDR, were recognized for their collaborative
work in applying advanced software developed through EPRI efforts for
assessing potential scenarios involving mineral oil spills at substations,
to expedite cleanup.
- Jiankang Zhu, research and development engineer,
White Plains Office, was recognized for the successful implementation of
an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) for measurements of water
current velocities. The ADCP system provides insights into control system
enhancements that could increase the operating efficiency of hydroelectric
facilities.
“The
2012 Technology Transfer Award winners have shown exceptional application of
EPRI research and technology, solving a problem of size and significance;
championing a technology for their companies and the industry; driving progress
in the electricity sector; and providing meaningful benefits for their
stakeholders and society,” said Bryan Hannegan, vice president of environment
and renewable energy at EPRI.
