Superconducting digital circuits have been actively pursued and developed for many decades due to their outstanding properties with high speed and energy efficiency. Competing for technology space with CMOS circuits, superconducting digital circuits technology has exhibited considerable progress and offers advantages on a number of metrics. The first generation superconducting digital circuits started from latching circuits, progressed to rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ) circuits, and more recently are realized as energy efficient single flux quantum (SFQ) circuits, which include ERSFQ, eSFQ, LVSFQ, RQL, and AQFP. The recent rapid progress of the energy efficient SFQ circuit technology enables the realization of even larger digital circuits, such as digital processors, operating with previously envisioned low power consumption.

This session is dedicated to Fernand “Doc” Bedard, retired NSA Fellow and one of the first directors of the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, who passed away on June 21st, 2018 in Silver Springs, Maryland. Doc received his B.S. degree in Physics and Mathematics magna cum laude from Fordham University and his Ph.D. in Physics from Johns Hopkins University. During his career, he taught physics at the University of Cincinnati, American University, and the University of Maryland.

He spent most of his career at the National Security Agency, working in a wide variety of technologies and technology applications in Research and Engineering. His association with superconducting electronics stretched back to early research into Dudley Buck’s cryotron in the early 60’s. He was one of the leading advocates and investigators of application of superconducting electronics to high performance computing and networking systems, including central roles in the IBM Josephson Computer Technology project in the early 70’s, the Crossbar Switch demonstration in the mid-90’s and the Hybrid Technology Multi-Threaded (HTMT) petaflops project in the late 90’s. The legacy of his vision can be seen in the current IARPA Cryogenic Computing Complexity (C3) program.

Doc was not just a visionary sponsor of superconducting research, he was an accomplished and creative inventor and technologist. Doc was the inventor on 6 patents and the architect and first circuit designer of the 128×128 crossbar switch. In addition, he used his deep insight into electromagnetism to pioneer novel sensors across a variety of bandwidths.

During his career, Doc mentored many scientists and engineers. He was always willing to provide his insight into computing, circuits, cryogenics, materials, physics, and a broad panoply of technologies. He was active in the organization of many of the flagship conferences including the earliest Applied Superconductivity Conference, the establishment of the International Superconductive Electronics Conference. He was a founding organizer of the Workshop for Superconductive Devices, Circuits, and Systems (the JJ Workshop) and was still a member of the board at his passing.

In 2002, Doc received the IEEE Award for Continuing and Significant Contributions in the Field of Applied Superconductivity for his contributions within superconducting electronics.

While he had retired from professional activities, those who were in contact with Doc know that he was still working and creating, developing his inventions and ideas for commercial applications of superconducting electronics. Doc’s wisdom, energy, humor, and sharp insights will be sorely missed.

Special & Memorial Sessions

First IEEE ISGT Europe was hosted by Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Since the first ISGT Europe conference, there have been seven successful European conferences. In 2018 year, IEEE ISGT Europe will be organized in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
IEEE ISGT Europe 2018 is the 8th IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference sponsored by the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES). It focuses on industrial and manufacturing theory and applications for the wide use of information and communication technologies and integrated renewable and distributed energy resources on the electric grid. The conference aim is to attract IEEE and IEEE PES members as well as non-members (which we view as potential new PES members) who have an interest in Smart Grids. Also, ISGT Conference should be focused on attracting practicing engineers from manufacturers, utilities and R&D organizations who are involved in designing, building and demonstrating the envisioned Smart Grids. Nonetheless, ISGT conferences also cater for academia and, therefore, tracks for research papers should also be available, but should not be the main, and certainly not only feature of the conference.

IEEE ISGT Europe 2018 will be hosted by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Sarajevo (B&H) on October 21 – 25, 2018 at Hotel Holiday in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo is a charming city reflecting the perfect symbiosis of the past and the modern, a bridge between the East and the West, also referred to as the Jerusalem of Europe.
ISGT Europe 2018 will feature keynotes, plenary sessions, panels, industry exhibits, paper and poster presentation, and also tutorials by experts on smart grid applications and systems integration. The experts, researchers, practitioners and students around the world are kindly invited to submit papers for ISGT Europe 2018.
Authors may submit full papers up to six A4-sized pages in length, including figures, tables and references. Papers must be formatted in accordance with the full paper template for conference papers. All accepted and presented papers at the conference will be indexed by IEEE Xplore.

http://sites.ieee.org/isgt-europe-2018/registration/

The 3rd Africa Smart grid Forum, 2018 is co-organized by the Rwanda Development Board and Rwanda Standards Board in collaboration with the African Electrotechnical Standardization Commission (AFSEC) from 2-4 October 2018.

The Forum is composed of high level policy plenary sessions, followed by parallel technical sessions bringing together International and African technical experts. The Forum includes an exhibition for international and continental companies and organizations providing technology solutions and institutional support to enable smart grid implementation. The participants in this Forum will include industry and utilities leaders, experts, international, continental, and regional institutions, investors and development partners.

AFREC will co-locate the 1st AFREC Seminar on African Energy Efficiency: with the Theme: Smart Grid electricity Interconnection from 1-2 October 2018. Other pre-conference event are also being planned, including an ANSI workshop on power system interoperability standards, an IEC workshop on LVDC technology, a Cigre tutorial on telecommunication network infrastructure for
enabling smart grid.

This edition will include the International Panel SMART CITY/2018, aiming at congregating articulation associations for the deployment of intelligent networks in the various regions of the world, especially in urban areas. The 2018 Conference theme is “How the smart energy systems and its consumers are shaping the cities of the future”.

The main actors and stakeholders in the region have already participated in previous editions of the Forum, but especially in this edition, we will be working in an integrated way so that we can gather as many international participations as possible, also inviting the respective governments, regulators and local professional communities, aiming to receive the broader stakeholder’s possible matrix.

Themes such as Intelligent Cities, Connectivity, IoT, Blockchain, Public Lighting, Artificial Intelligence, among other technologies will be addressed at the Conference.

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Behaviour Change for Energy Efficiency: Opportunities for International Cooperation – 12 September 2018

G20 economies have agreed that behaviour change is an important part of realising global gains in energy efficiency. Now, they are seeking to determine how international collaboration on behaviour change within the G20, and beyond, could help to enhance national and regional efforts to scale up energy efficiency.

The workshop will:

• Introduce behaviour change for energy efficiency, covering: i) how behaviour change theory can be used to strengthen traditional energy efficiency policies such as standards and labelling schemes; and ii) new policy interventions to encourage energy efficient behaviour.
• Explore the particular opportunities and challenges faced in encouraging behaviour change across sectors and in different country contexts; and
• Identify possible topics for future collaboration as well as potential mechanisms and resources for collaboration, including the Task Groups under the G20 Energy Efficiency Leading Programme

Please register for this workshop here: https://survey2018.oecd.org/Survey.aspx?s=a4b43f64be994ceb9ab577b3a30de652

For questions concerning the online registration for this workshop please contact Paola Cajamarca (paola.cajamarca@iea.org).

We consult with our utility, industry and academic members to understand what is the pressing issue of the year and use our connections within the industry to bring you insight from leaders in Canada, the United States and abroad.

In 2013, we partnered with the conference producer Smart Grid Roadshow to bring together the multiple smart grid related events in Canada. By consolidating our smart grid events into a single premiere event, we can offers delegates and sponsors the best opportunity to connecting with the industry,

As we are a not-for-profit, we put the sponsorship money and attendance fees directly into the event. We select the best venue we can find and use the conference as an opportunity to show the industry our hospitality. Any profits go into doing more for the industry – research, advocacy and information sharing.

Now that smart grid is entering a state of maturity, our conference is looking to provide its audience with real-world learning from smart grid implementations both in Canada and around the world. SmartGrid Canada is hosting multiple inbound trade delegations from Europe, Asia and the Americas giving delegates an opportunity to understand new perspectives.

The conference will also be the platform from which we publish our 6th annual Smart Grid Consumer Research. This research has become the benchmark in the industry for understanding the customer and how we can engage them in the modernization of the electricity system.

http://sgcanada.org

Policy makers attending will have an opportunity to learn from their counterparts and leading innovators about the status and opportunities arising from emerging innovations. Innovators and innovative companies attending will have an opportunity to inform the strategies of a diverse range of policy makers, from around the world. Together policy makers and innovators will improve their mutual awareness of the opportunities and challenges created by emerging innovations and explore ways to broaden uptake.

In the two years since Innovation Week 2016, we have seen further remarkable cost reductions in renewable energy to the extent that many commercially available renewable power generation technologies will be competitive with conventional fuels by 2020. In parallel, we are witnessing transformative changes in the way energy systems are operated, driven by trends such as the growing digitalisation of systems, the increased decentralisation of electricity supply, the need for system flexibility, and the electrification of end-use sectors.

While the transformation of the power sector is well underway, the challenge now is to build on the potential of low-cost renewable power and ensure all countries can reliably integrate high shares in their power systems.

Find out more about Innovation Week 2018. Contact innovationweek@irena.org to express interest in attending.

Image credits: IRENA

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P.S. Look for more webinars on the technologies and tools available to you through the DOE|OE’s Advanced Grid Research group!