NREL News Release:

NREL Names Santiago Grijalva Director for Power Systems Engineering

Monday, July 01, 2013

Today, the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced a key hire to lead its Power Systems Engineering Center.

Santiago Grijalva comes to NREL with both industry and academic experience, most recently from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he held the position of Georgia Power Distinguished Professor and Strategic Energy Institute Associate Director for Electricity.

As part of the Energy Systems Integration team at NREL, Dr. Grijalva will provide leadership to develop the strategic direction of the Power Systems Engineering Center, enhance technical capabilities and steward core competencies that advance electric power technologies. He will also lead the execution of research, development and demonstration programs. NREL's power systems researchers work with the electric power transmission and distribution industries to optimize strategies for effectively interconnecting renewable resources within the existing electric power system and to provide improved management strategies for demand response and transportation electrification.

"Santiago is a pioneer in distributed power system controls and cyber-physical energy security systems and we are fortunate to have him join the Energy Systems Integration team at NREL," said Dana Christensen, NREL's Deputy Laboratory Director for Science and Technology.

While at Georgia Tech, Dr. Grijalva led research efforts on future electricity systems and smart grid for the Department of Energy, ARPA-E, Power Systems Engineering Research Center, Electric Power Research Institute, several DOE national laboratories, and industry partners. He has been a consultant on electricity systems for national and international leading organizations and a developer of advanced power system planning and operations software used today by control centers and utilities in many countries.

Dr. Grijalva holds a Ph.D. and a master of science in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and has published widely in the power system and smart grid literature.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for the Energy Department by The Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

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