Ge Energy Executive Named to U.S. Doe’s Electricity Advisory Committee
John D. McDonald, P.E., general manager of marketing for GE Energy’s transmission and distribution (T&D) business, has been invited by U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman to serve a one-year term as a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC).
The EAC, which reports to the Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, is being established to enhance leadership in electricity delivery modernization and provide senior-level counsel to the DOE on ways in which the U.S. can overcome the many barriers 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.
The mission of the EAC is to assist the DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) in implementing the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and modernizing the nation’s electricity delivery infrastructure. The EAC has been established under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
In his 34 years of experience in the electric utility industry, McDonald has developed power application software for both supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)/ energy management system (EMS) and SCADA/distribution management system (DMS) applications, developed distribution automation and load management systems, managed SCADA/EMS and SCADA/DMS projects and assisted intelligent electronic device (IED) suppliers in the automation of their IEDs.
McDonald is past president of the IEEE PES, co-vice chair of the IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 36, member of the IEC Technical Committee 57 Working Groups 3 and 10, a member of CIGRE and past chair of the IEEE PES Substations Committee. McDonald is the IEEE Division VII Director in 2008-2009 and is a member of the advisory committee for the annual DistribuTECH Conference as well as a charter member of Electricity Today magazine’s International Editorial Advisory Board.