• Number 435  |
• March 23, 2015

PNNL’s Jeff Dagle: Incorporating reliability and resiliency into the nation’s power grid

Being an engineer in a science-centric system can make it challenging to quantify research results.

“When you’re an engineer, your accomplishments are different than, say, a chemist. You measure impact differently,” said Jeff Dagle, P.E., an electrical engineer at DOE's  Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

“My brother is a chemical engineer at PNNL, so we have a lot of banter between the applied and fundamental research,” Dagle said. “I focus on grid reliability, so it’s hard to measure savings and impact. How do you take credit for blackouts that didn’t happen?”

Pulled in by PNNL power research

A college sophomore home for summer in 1987, it was an internship at PNNL — barely two miles up the street from his high school — that opened the door to his future.

“High-temperature superconductivity had just been discovered. I spent most of my internship going through research reports in high-temperature superconductivity and its applications to the grid,” Dagle said. “What really struck me was how the power system field had research and that things are still new. It’s not just 50-year-old dams and 50-year-old power lines.”

He landed a second PNNL internship in 1988 and had a job waiting for him in 1989 when he completed his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Washington State University. Then he worked full time while attending night classes at the nearby WSU Tri-Cities regional campus to earn his master of science degree in electrical engineering, graduating in 1994.

Dagle’s current role at PNNL includes Electricity Infrastructure subsector manager, co-lead of the Future Power Grid Initiative, and leader of the System Control and Power Flow team for DOE’s newly formed Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium. He holds four patents.

Innovations in grid infrastructure

“I’m interested in researching things related to the power grid and in using advanced technology to improve operations of the grid,” Dagle explained.

“I’ve done a lot in cybersecurity and infrastructure protection. I was in on the ground floor of grid security, before 9/11, before Y2K,” he said. “Five years ago, I realized the next thing is resilience. The ability for the grid to adapt and recover is as important as keeping the bad thing from happening in the first place.”

He’s especially proud of these accomplishments:

• The North American SynchroPhaser Initiative (NASPI), a DOE program run by PNNL that puts high-speed time-stamps on precise grid measurements to better analyze blackouts, share data, integrate renewable energy sources, and improve power system planning.
• “People are deploying it into substations and using it to make operational decisions,” Dagle said. He is the technical leader of NASPI, which unites international stakeholders from academia, government, research institutions, utilities, and vendors.
• The Grid Friendly™ Appliance Controller, conceptualized in the early 1990s, developed with funding from DOE, and patented by Battelle in 2008. It received a Federal Laboratory Consortium Award in 2007 and an R&D 100 Award in 2008.
• This low-cost electronic chip can easily be built into household appliances so they sense conditions on the grid and, in case of a power disruption, can automatically respond by briefly turning off. Even a few seconds can allow the grid to stabilize.
• “This was the first thing we did at PNNL for what we refer to today as ‘smart grid.’ ”
• The U.S.-Canada Power Systems Outage Task Force, a government-led team of 100 engineers investigating the 2003 blackout that cut power to 50 million people.

“The phone rang and instead of ‘hello,’ the caller asked, ‘How soon can you get here?’ I said that if DOE says yes, I’ll come. Five minutes later, my DOE client, Bill Parks, sent me a two-letter email: ‘GO.’ I was on the next plane out of here, a 10 a.m. flight.”

When he got to New Jersey, the task force director put Dagle in charge of organizing the data being requested and received from the utilities. The task grew into leading a team to build a database containing everything from power system computer models to operator voice recordings.

“It put me in the epicenter of everything, I was in the catbird seat of the investigation,” he said. “It was the coolest assignment possible for a power engineer. It led to a lot of things.”

Advice for a resilient career

Early career engineers should say yes to good opportunities to connect with colleagues and clients — even assignments that aren’t funded, like reviewing papers or getting involved in a professional organization, Dagle said.

He maintains a heavy travel schedule with about 20 trips a year. Back in 1998, he took a five-month detail in Washington, D.C., where one of his tasks was writing a speech for then-Under Secretary Ernie Moniz.

“Don’t worry about getting overloaded. Take them on and figure out how to delegate and build a team,” Dagle said. “Build out that network, internally and externally. That’s what lands you these assignments, the interpersonal relationships. It cascades. You get a reputation, which feeds more opportunities.”

“Manager” and “mentor” now are on his CV, and he’s respected in the industry for combining technical know-how with a spirit of collaboration. His professional involvement includes the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the International Society of Automation (ISA) and National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE). He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Washington and is a subject matter expert for the news media — including being quoted recently on the front page of USA Today.

Applying expertise in the community

It’s not all about work … anymore. “It was a transforming hobby,” Dagle said, remembering his first pilot lesson in 2000. “I got hooked. My wife, Heidi, will say that I used to come to work on Saturdays, but now I go flying instead.” His airtime includes volunteering with the Civil Air Patrol.

Dagle also applies his power engineer expertise for the good of the community, serving since 2005 on the City of Richland’s Utility Advisory Committee. The group advises the Richland City Council on operations for the five city-owned utilities.

“When I interviewed, the committee was concerned that I traveled too much and would miss the meetings. I reassured them that I would do everything possible to attend,” Dagle recalled.

“Then a week before my first committee meeting, I was asked to give a briefing on the grid to President George W. Bush. I couldn’t tell the committee why I would be absent. They were disappointed. But afterward, they thought it was cool and all was forgiven.” — by Melissa O’Neil Perdue

Submitted by DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory