Jeffrey D. Taft
Distinguished Engineer and Smart Grid Chief Architect
Smart Grid Business Unit
Cisco
Abstract: The electricity infrastructure delivering power from a variety of generating sources to our homes, businesses and communities is not suitable for today’s needs. The challenges that face our energy future simply cannot be met by our aging electric networks. Growing renewable energy capacity requirements, global climate change provisions, and the pressing need for more energy self-determination on behalf of customers all require a smarter, more intelligent grid. An intelligent grid incorporates networking technology to embed processing and communications into the power grid, enabling it to become more observable, controllable, automated, and integrated.
Biography: As the Smart Grid Chief Architect, Jeff develops new architectures for Cisco smart grid product offerings, and ties them to product development, ecosystem elements and market strategies. He also participates in relevant standards activities and supports client teams on selected technical issues.
Jeff is a veteran of the energy and technology sectors with over 25 years experience in his field. He began working in the smart grid area in 2001 and has held smart grid chief architect roles with Accenture and IBM. Jeff formerly worked for Westinghouse and consulted for HICO and also has experience in industrial automation, medical imaging, signal processing, and control systems.
Jeff has extensive experience in the areas of smart grid analytics, visualization of grid information, and distributed architectures. He has worked on several key smart grid projects since he first began to develop sensor architectures and analytics for distribution grids, and then became involved in the larger issues of end-to-end smart grid data management.
Jeff received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 1986, with a dual specialization in digital signal processing and digital control. He is a member of the IEEE Power and Energy Society.