Just like doctors, teachers and police officers, engineers play a vital role in our everyday lives. From massive bridges to the iPhone in your pocket, engineers played a big part in creating all the products we rely on.
ComEd engineers’ innovations were on full display at the company’s annual engineering conference during National Engineers Week. Over 700 engineers from across the company gathered to share their innovations and exchange ideas for how to better serve customers.
One team of ComEd engineers — Aleksi Paaso, Vincent Westfallen and Calvin Zhang — received an award from a leading industry organization for identifying the appropriate smart inverter capabilities and settings that will support grid reliability and ensure that customers receive the optimal benefits enabled by this technology. The technology is being used to better integrate renewable generation like wind and solar, allowing customers to have a reduced carbon footprint without compromising reliability.
Another ComEd engineer, Ed Krembuszewski, also received an award for his innovation. Krembuszewski tested a cost-effective way for customers to control and monitor circuit breakers right from their smartphones.
This “smart” breaker would allow a customer to turn on and off certain circuits that are powering devices to save energy and money. One potential application would be the ability to see if the filter on your swimming pool pump is becoming clogged. In this situation, a customer’s phone would alert them that their pump’s energy consumption is increasing. Thanks to the “smart” breaker, they would have the ability to turn off the pump with the touch of a finger.
It’s clear that ComEd engineers approach innovation with customers’ needs in mind. As families and businesses gain increasing control over how, when and where they use electricity, ComEd engineers play an important role in shaping our energy future.
