The U.S. Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has announced a key hire to lead its power systems engineering center.
Santiago Grijalva comes to NREL with 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, 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 in the 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.
At Georgia Tech, Grijalva led research efforts on future electricity systems and smart grid for the Department of Energy, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-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 leading national and international organizations and a developer of advanced power system planning and operations software used by control centers and utilities in many countries.
Grijalva holds a Ph.D. and an MSc in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and has published widely in power system and smart grid literature.
