Reflections on Twenty Years of Electric Power Research at HICSS
Robert J. Thomas
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
rjt1@cornell.edu
Abstract
The Electric Power Track activities at HICSS
began twenty years ago. This is an account of its
history, its focus, and its impact over those years.
1. Introduction
This paper is being written as an account
of my recollections of the twenty-year
evolution of the Electric Power Systems
(EPS) Track at HICSS on the occasion
of the celebration of the half-century of
the Conference. I initiated the Track in
1996 and as a result, the first set of
papers were presented at HICSS-30 in
January of 1997 on the Big Island of
Hawaii. These recollections are very
personal and as such they contain all the
distortions that time and memory recall
creates. Since these are my recollections
(my written records are not as complete
as I would have liked) there are bound to
be some omissions and inaccuracies for
which I apologize. Also, I am a
technical writer and writing this type of
historical narrative is unfamiliar to me.
Nevertheless, it is my hope that the
passion and enthusiasm I felt for the
activity that took place over the past
twenty years will be apparent.
To begin with some context, the
Hawaiian International Conference on
Systems Sciences (HICSS) held it’s first
meeting on Oahu, Hawaii in January of
1968. Its organizers were all involved in
the evolution of what we refer to today
as the Internet. While I have always
been involved in the electric power
business, and while many of the HICSS
founders were schooled as electric
engineers in curricula that included
electric power, they became known for
their contributions to the new field of
computer communications. The
ALOHAnet, a pioneering computer
networking system developed at the
University of Hawaii, became
operational in June 1971, and was the
first public demonstration of a wireless
packet data network. Development of the
ALOHA network was begun in
September 1968 at the University of
Hawaii under the leadership of Norman
Abramson along with Franklin Kuo,
Wes Peterson and others. According to
[1], “The genesis of the Hawaii
International Conference on System
Sciences (HICSS) according to Norm
Abramson, one of it founders, was to
address a concern among a number of
people intimately involved in computing
at the University of Hawai’i that Hawai’i
might be considered too remote by many
people and somehow left out of the
mainstream of activity in this exciting
field. He and a small group of colleagues
decided to start a conference to “bring
potential collaborators and colleagues to
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Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2017
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/41546
ISBN: 978-0-9981331-0-2
CC-BY-NC-ND
Hawai’i and make sure they were not
left isolated out in the Pacific Ocean.”
While its founders were especially
interested in computer and
communication subjects, over time
HICSS has evolved to a general-purpose
conference that provides “ a forum for
the exchange of ideas, research results,
development activities, and applications”
and “brings together qualified
interdisciplinary professionals in a
highly interactive environment.” It was
into this environment that the topic of
electric power was eventually integrated
as a Track some thirty years later.
2. A Short History of the evolution of
the Electric Power Track at HICSS
In 1996 (HICSS-29) there were 5 Tracks,
one of them was entitled Digital
Documents. This Track was chaired and
organized by M. Stuart Lynn who I
knew from his days at Cornell
University as Vice President for
Information Technologies. Immediately
prior to HICSS-29 Stuart had left
Cornell to head the Office of
Information Resources &
Communications in the University of
California’s Office of the President. The
invitation to attend HICSS-29 to present
work in the next years Track on Digital
Documents came as a result of work a
colleague, Arvid Eide, who was then
Associate Dean of Engineering at Iowa
State, and I were doing in conjunction
with a major 5-year NSF educational
initiative [2]. At the end of the 1996
HICSS conference Ralph Sprague, who
was slated to become the sole HICSS
Conference Chair the following year
(and until two years ago was the only
HICSS Conference chair I ever knew),
asked me if I would like to organize next
years session on Digital Documents. I
said no, but that I would like to organize
a new Track on electric power. After
some discussion Ralph agreed that I
could organize a track-like activity to be
embedded in an incubator track. It was
clear that Ralph was interested in re-
inventing HICSS by expanding its scope,
improving its quality image, and in
general growing the Conference. So the
organization of a power session to be
held in 1997 began.
In 1997 (HICSS 30) Ralph Sprague
became the sole HICSS Conference
Chair and, in addition to those duties he
also chaired two of the five Tracks at the
Conference, one entitled “Digital
Documents” and another entitled
“Advanced Technologies”. The
Advanced Technology Track was
divided into four areas: Engineering
Complex Computer Systems; Modeling
Technologies and Information Systems;
Restructuring the Electric Power
Industry: Emerging Issues, Methods and
Tools; and Techniques for Safety
Critical Software Development. The
Advanced Technologies Track was the
Track where Electric Power first
appeared at the Conference and I was its
Coordinator. It was in effect a 16-paper
mini-track with the title “Restructuring
the Electric Power Industry: Emerging
Issues, Methods and Tools”.
The focus of the papers presented in this
mini-track collectively involved a cross-
disciplinary look at issues associated
with the worldwide movement to
restructure electric power systems. The
call for papers for this mini-track
indicated that it was “especially
interested in identifying the effects and
impacts of institutional change
(proposed or in place). It is especially
interested in new tools and methodology,
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that is, the technical underpinnings
needed to transition the system from the
old to the new. Therefore, papers on
topics related to the affected elements of
restructuring of an electric power
industry were of special interest.” The
papers presented covered a range of
issues from institutional to technical and
from policy to educational. The first
paper in the session described four
possible scenarios for future systems and
makes the point that the future US
electric power system may contain
versions of all of them and not just one.
It also laid the foundation for technical
work that would need to be done to see
these scenarios emerge in an orderly
fashion. Ten of the remaining sixteen
papers dealt with various elements of
these technical issues. One paper
addressed the educational challenges of
a curriculum for the restructured
industry. The remaining papers focused
on technical challenges that existed
because the system was comprised of
certain elements and needed to operate
in harmony regardless of the institutional
arrangements that govern the people
who plan and operate the system.
It is also important to understand the
general state of the electric power
business in the U.S. prior to 1997 when
the first “power track” began at HICSS-
30. A watershed event for the electric
power industry occurred in 1965 with
the occurrence Northeast blackout.
Widespread outages such as this were
previously unheard of. At the time all
US utilities were vertically integrated,
highly regulated, and were for the most
part, very reliable and economic.
University research programs in electric
power were almost non-existent. In
1977 another blackout occurred just as
the US Department of Energy began
operation on October 21, 1977.
University power programs in the US
were beginning to re-vitalize because a
US DOE predecessor, the Energy
Research and Development
Administration (ERDA), had initiated a
program called Systems Engineering for
Power pioneered by Lester Fink. His
vision was that certain key areas of
electric power needed attention and they
needed the expertise of disciplines other
that electric power engineering,
especially the area of control and
information systems. Many of today’s
elder statespersons work in the field of
electric power today because of that
program.
I participated in the development of the
Systems Engineering for Power program
by spending my first sabbatical leave
from Cornell in Washington, DC at
Lester’s request in 1979-80. Seven years
later, from 1987–88, I went to the
National Science Foundation at their
request to establish a new program in
electric power systems research (which
is still in existence) and in 1996 I
became the Founding Director of the
newly established Power Systems
Engineering Research Center (PSerc), a
National Science Foundation
Industry/University Cooperative
Research Center. The Center was
established as an NSF I/UCRC by
myself (Cornell), Peter Sauer (Illinois),
Robert Lasseter (Wisconsin), Felix
Wu/Shmuel Oren (Berkeley) and James
Momoh (Howard). PSerc is also still in
existence today as a 13-school
consortium.
As the Director of the new Center I was
looking for several ways to foster the
fledgling community of researchers, to
focus the work, and to make the work of
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the PSerc center and the wider
community available to the power
industry through publication of results in
a recognized and accessible forum. In
1996 Ralph Sprague offered me one
opportunity by allowing me to organize
what today is the Electric Energy Track
(EES) at HICSS.
The PSerc leadership and the five
member school researchers
enthusiastically supported the idea. The
first electric power session was held in
1997 at HICSS-30 with 16 papers being
presented. Over the next five years,
from 1996 to 2001, PSerc grew to twelve
schools and as member schools were
added so were researchers. In addition,
a wider network of industry consultants,
industry engineers, National Laboratory
researchers, and others who were
associates or collaborators with PSerc
researchers began to submit papers to the
activity. We were well on our way to
establishing a sustainable HICSS Track.
3. Organization of the Track
From the beginning a Track planning
process was established that has been
used every year to plan the program for
the following year. This process has
contributed strongly to the creation of
the talented pool of HICSS Electric
Energy System Track alumni. The EPS
Track (a term I use here to refer to the
Track with its several titles used over the
years) has always consisted of two days
of sessions, eight sessions in all, with
three or four papers per one-and-one-
half-hour session. That structure limits
the total paper count to a maximum of
thirty-two papers. The planning process
consists of a nominal two-hour session
the morning of the fourth day of the
conference, after all Electric Power
Track papers have been presented. The
session is announced several times
during the formal Track paper sessions
and everyone is encouraged to attend.
The Track Chair is responsible for
running the meeting. The meeting
usually begins with a review of the basic
tenets under which the Track operates.
These tenets include: (1) everyone who
presents a paper must, to the extent
possible, attend the full two days of
paper presentations. Those who present
their paper and leave are not invited
back, (2) senior researchers should
present papers. Student presenters,
while allowed in certain circumstances,
should be by exception, (3) written
papers are required with few if any
exceptions and all papers will be
submitted to the review process, (4)
Minitrack Chairs are expect to actively
recruit papers from excellent researchers
in areas important to the conference and
(5) discussions and interchange is of
paramount importance during the
conference.
At that point statistics concerning the
just completed track session are
presented (paper acceptance rate,
number of conference and Track
attendees, session attendance numbers,
etc.) and the results evaluated through
open discussion. Next, new topics
deemed important for next year are
developed through discussion, the mini-
track chairs for next years meeting are
chosen, and the outline of next years
program is completed. This planning
session is usually attended by upwards
of 20 participants.
After the planning session is complete
the minitrack chairs write their proposal
for next year based on the discussion and
the Track Chair integrates them into a
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proposal that is submitted to the HICSS
leadership for consideration.
Electric power did not become a full-
fledged track until HICSS-34 in 2001.
The four years from 1997 to 2001 the
topic of electric power was embedded in
the Advanced Technologies Track and
then in the Emerging Technologies
Track for the next three years. By 1999,
HICSS-32, the structure of the electric
power activity looked essentially as it
does today. The number of sessions,
eight over 2 days, was the same but
historically the number of papers per
session was smaller. Today four papers
per session or 32 papers is the norm. In
the early days, that was rare. There were
22 papers in 1999 and I must admit, I
liked that leisurely pace and the
additional time for dialog it created.
The first formal electric power track held
in 2001 was called the Complex Systems
Track until 2005. In 2005 the track was
suspended by the HICSS Board for 2006
(HICSS-39). The activity was continued
as a “Symposium on Electric Power
Systems: Reliability, Control, and
Markets”. It was one of two Symposia
that year and therefore did not have
mini-tracks. When the dust settled the
following year and the data compiled,
thanks to Ralph Sprague electric power
was found to be a consistently top-notch
activity that brought status and visibility
to the conference. Many of the papers
were highly cited, the speakers were top
notch and included a Nobel Prize
winner
1
, Vernon Smith, and the sessions
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1
!Vernon Smith shared the 2002 Nobel
Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
with Daniel Kahneman. Vernon is
currently American professor of
economics at Chapman University's
Argyros School of Business and
were, and still are, the most consistently
well attended during the conference.
This was a major turning point for the
group. As a result in 2007 the Track was
re-established as the Electric Power
Systems Restructuring: Engineering,
Economics and Policy Track. It has
continued as a Track each year since
then under various names but always
involving electric power or electric
energy in the title.
In 2010 I invited Tom Overbye to co-
chair the track with the idea that he
would eventually assume the role of sole
Track Chair and he accepted. I was
planning on stepping down within three
years, as I was unsure of my ability to
continue to travel to Hawaii. I retired
from Cornell University in 2010 and had
limited travel resources. Yet, here it is,
2017, and I am still the track co-chair!
Evolution of Track themes – from
Restructuring to Transactive Energy
At the time the electric power HICSS
track activity began the electric power
industry was beginning to deal with a
major path of change. FERC orders 888
and 889 Final Rule was implemented on
April 24, 1996. Rule 888 ordered
transmission open access and the
promotion of wholesale competition
through open access non-discriminatory
transmission services by public utilities.
Order 888 mandated that utilities
unbundle their generation services,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Economics and School of Law in Orange,
California. Much of the research that
earned Smith the Nobel Memorial Prize
in Economic Sciences was conducted at
the University of Arizona between 1976
and 2001.
!
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