Dr. Mladen Kezunovic, Regents Professor and the Eugene E. Webb Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been appointed to serve on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC).
“The Electricity Advisory Committee is critically important to ensuring our nation’s energy infrastructure and delivery system is secure, resilient and reliable,” said Dr. M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES). “Dr. Kezunovic’s expertise in the modernization and resiliency of the smart grid will be a strong contribution to this high-level group of energy experts.”
Kezunovic, director of the TEES Smart Grid Center, also currently serves as the site director of the Power Engineering Research Center, a consortium of 40 industry and 13 university members. As an EAC advisory board committee member, he will help the DOE define a strategy on long-range planning and priorities for the nation’s electricity system. He joins 23 other members, including state government officials, industry executives, consumer advocates and environmentalists charged with providing advice on implementing the Energy Policy Act of 2005, executing the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and modernizing the nation’s electricity delivery infrastructure.
“I am quite honored and privileged to serve on this committee as it will give me a chance to learn about the nation’s energy priorities and provide advice based on over 40 years of my experience in conducting focused research and consulting on innovative applications in the electricity grids aimed at more reliable grid operation,” Kezunovic said.
Kezunovic’s expertise is in protective relaying, automated power system disturbance analysis, computational intelligence and data analytics, and smart grids. Before joining Texas A&M in 1986 Kezunovic worked for Westinghouse Electric Corp and Energoinvest in Europe.
Among his many honors, Kezunovic has been named an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Life Fellow and a Council on Large Electric Systems (CIGRE) Fellow and Honorary Member. He has published more than 550 papers in journals and conference proceedings and was invited to give more than 120 lectures worldwide. He is also listed as a distinguished speaker of the IEEE Power Engineering Society. While at Texas A&M he has been the principal investigator on more than 100 research projects and supervised more than 50 graduate students.
The EAC was established in 2008 to enhance leadership in the electricity delivery modernization and provide senior-level counsel to the DOE on ways in which the nation can meet the many challenges to moving forward, including the deployment of smart grid technologies, research and development of energy storage technologies, renewable energy resource system integration and new transmission infrastructure.