Keynote Speakers
Keynote 1: SaskPower (Monday, October 23, 9:00 am)
Mike Marsh
President and Chief Executive Officer, SaskPower
Building a Sustainable Electricity Future for Saskatchewan: Business Impacts and Opportunities
Abstract:
SaskPower has committed to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40% below 2005 levels by 2030. To achieve this we will increase the amount of renewable generation in the province, from 25% today, up to 50% within that same timeframe. This presents both opportunities and challenges for our company.
We are also continuously rebuilding the province’s aging generation, transmission and distribution systems. Our customers expect improved reliability, environmentally focused operations, flexibility, and visibility – all while managing customer rate impacts.
In his keynote speech, SaskPower’s President and CEO Mike Marsh will present an overview of SaskPower’s vision and mission, its roadmap towards emission reductions, the need to modernize an aging electrical system, and enabling customer participation in the grid. SaskPower has been adopting and developing world leading technologies. The same innovative spirit that allowed SaskPower to build the first commercial grade Carbon Capture and Sequestration project is present in all aspects of the renewing company.
A number of business impacts and opportunities will be discussed including: the impact of reducing carbon-based generation, regulatory challenges: associated risks and customer participation as a prosumer, etc.
It is an exciting time to work in the electrical utility industry. Ever since generating stations were first interconnected more than a century ago, we as an industry have not faced as much change to technology, expectations, and business model. We value the contributions our employees and research partners bring to our renewal, and look forward to further cooperation between industry and academia.
Bio:
Mike Marsh was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer in April 2015. He joined SaskPower in 1991, following 12 years in the construction industry in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
At SaskPower, Mr. Marsh began his career at Boundary Dam Power Station in engineering and maintenance. He went on to various positions in the company, notably as Manager of Business and Financial Planning and Vice-President of Transmission and Distribution. In 2012, he became Vice-President of Operations and Chief Operations Officer, responsible for all operational areas including Power Production, Transmission Services and Distribution Services.
Mr. Marsh attended the University of Saskatchewan, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He later studied at Queen’s School of Business and obtained a Master of Business Administration. He is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS).
He is a Board member of the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA), and is Past Chair of the CEA Transmission Council. He has also held positions on the CEA Distribution Council and Occupational Health and Safety Task Group.
Mr. Marsh is a Past President of Canadian Progress Club – Regina Centre Chapter. This service organization offers financial assistance to charities supporting children and wellness.
Keynote 2 : Deepa Kundur (Tuesday, October 24, 9:00 am)
Deepa Kundur, Ph.D., P.Eng., F.I.E.E.E., F.C.A.E.
Professor, The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and
Chair, Division of Engineering Science
University of Toronto, Canada
Cyber-Physical Security and Resilience of Energy Infrastructure
Abstract:
The scale and complexity of the smart grid, along with its increased connectivity and automation, make the task of its cyber protection challenging. Moreover, grid protection remains daunting to asset owners because of resources limitations. Important questions arise when identifying priorities for design and protection: Which cyber components, if compromised, can lead to significant power delivery disruption? What grid topologies are inherently robust to classes of cyber attack? How can cyber and physical grid entities be coordinated to enhance system resilience? We assert that a key research challenge in addressing these fundamental questions lies in the effective understanding and modeling of the cyber-physical interaction of the smart grid. This gives rise to the field of cyber-physical system security. In this talk, we introduce modern cybersecurity challenges for the power grid, we discuss strategies for smart grid protection that exploit inherent and coordinated cyber-physical synergies, and present a future outlook for the field.
Bio:
Deepa Kundur currently serves as Chair of the Division of Engineering Science and as Professor and Director of the Centre for Power & Information in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. Professor Kundur’s research interests lie at the interface of cyber security, signal processing and complex dynamical networks. She is an author of over 150 journal and conference papers. She currently serves as a TPC Co-Chair for IEEE SmartGridComm 2018. Recently, she also served as Symposium Co-Chair for the Communications for the Smart Grid Track of ICC 2017, General Chair for the Workshop on Communications, Computation and Control for Resilient Smart Energy Systems at ACM e-Energy 2016, General Chair for the Workshop on Cyber-Physical Smart Grid Security and Resilience at Globecom 2016 and General Chair for the Symposium on Signal and Information Processing for Smart Grid Infrastructures at GlobalSIP 2016. Professor Kundur’s research has received best paper recognitions at a variety of venues including the 2015 IEEE Smart Grid Communications Conference and the 2015 IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference. She is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.
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