About The Chapter

The crowd settles in before a Chapter lecture meeting on engineering for alternative energy

In these days of declining oil reservers, concerns about the effect burning fossil fuels has on the global climate, and increasing energy prices, power electronics can play an important role in making best of all the sources of energy the world has available to it. From higher energy efficiency hybrid and all-electric vehicles to higher efficiency refrigerators and air conditioners to higher efficiency lighting - none could happen without contribution from power electronics engineers.

To promote power electronics and support power electronics professionals in the Denver section area, the Denver Chapter of the IEEE Power Electronics Society was founded in the fall of 2004. The Chapter been successful and active with regular meetings and special events including hosting a special seminar by Dr. R. D. Middlebrook to a hands-on seminar "Microcontrollers For Power Supply And Other Analog Engineers". The most recent major event sponsored by the Chapter was the IEEE Colorado Symposium on Electronics for Sustainable Energy, held on Saturday, 17 May 2008, in Boulder, Colorado.

We invite you to attend any of out regular meetings and to participate in any of our special events - You do not have to be a member of the IEEE to attend or participate! We rotate the meetings around the Front Range so you should be able to join us once or twice a year without having to travel too far!

Regular Meetings Are Open To The Public!

We welcome any interested person at our regular meetings - you do NOT have to be a member of the IEEE or Power Electronics Society to come to the meetings! In fact, our meetings are a great place to meet and network with other folks in the power electronics business in the Denver area. You never know what you might learn about good work going on in the Denver area, new information on technology, or even what companies might be looking to hire!

Announcements

Next Meeting: Considerations on IEEE 519 Standard as Regarding Smart-Grid and Power Electronics Issues in the Distribution System
K. McBee, Colorado School of Mines, Golden Colorado

Tuesday, 13 December 2011, 6 pm
Colorado School of Mines (CSM)
General Research Laboratory (GRL) building
1310 Maple Street
Golden, CO 80401

Abstract

In the last ten years utility distribution systems have seen a continuous increase in the number of nonlinear devices that are served. The increased utilization of these devices, which can result in system level harmonic voltages that exceed threshold limits set by IEEE Std. 519, should be considered when specifying the location and size of capacitor banks located throughout a distribution system. This presentation reviews the validity of existing approaches to size/locate capacitor banks in regards to future nonlinear device usage. Also described in the presentation are the results of a study that investigated how system voltage and harmonic resonance conditions will be affected as nonlinear devices become more abundant on the distribution system.

Meeting Specials: Dinner And Tour Of Geology Museum

The meeting will start at 6:00 pm with a nice end of the year dinner (food is TBD, pending RSVP headcount). We will then tour the CSM Geology Museum starting at 7:00 pm. The technical presentation will start at 7:45 pm.

For all the details, including driving directions and information on the free parking, see the Meetings page.

Future Meeting

Stay tuned for an announcement of future meetings.

Send Your Comments And Feedback To The Chapter

The Contact Web page now has a form through which you can send us your comments and feedback about the chapter. Anything is fair game including:

• Topics you would like to see presented at a meeting
• A particular speaker you would like to see
• A new location for a meeting
• "I'm tired of pizza!"
• A topic for an extended seminar like the microcontroller seminar held in April 2007

Please feel free to let us know what is on your mind or how we can serve you better.

Presentations From Previous Meetings Now Available

Some (but not all) speakers have granted the Chapter permission to publish their presentations on the Chapter Web site. See the Presentations And Downloads page for the available presentations. All presentations are in Adobe Acrobat format.

Announcements last updated: 5 December 2011