Erich W. Gunther is the Chairman, Chief Technology Officer, and co-founder of EnerNex where he helps EnerNex clients define their strategic direction in basic R&D, technology, and product development.

Gunther has years of experience in design and development of innovative solutions to a wide array of power system problems, most notably ways to take advantage of communications networks and technology to improve the efficiency, operating practices, and security of the electric power system.

Erich was appointed by the US Department of Energy in 2004 to serve on the GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC) – a focused team of experts assembled to articulate the guiding principles that constitute the architecture of a future, intelligent, transactive, energy system. Mr. Gunther serves on the board of directors for Global Smart Infrastructures, and the Utility Communications Architecture International Users group. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Tennessee.

In 2007, EnerNex and Mr. Gunther were recognized by the Department of Energy and other organizers of the GridWeek conference by receiving the Smart Grid Implementation and Leadership Award. The award announcement stated: “Under Erich Gunther’s leadership, the EnerNex team has clearly driven how we implement and deploy smart grid technologies from coast to coast and everywhere in between”. Erich also received the individual Smart Grid Award for Technology Leadership at GridWeek 2008.

Mr. Gunther is presently consulting with the California Energy Commission and Southern California Edison on matters related to the development of smart grid applications including advanced utility systems automation and widely deployed advanced metering and demand response enabling infrastructure in California. He and EnerNex were recently appointed by the Illinois Commerce Commission to lead a two year effort to develop recommendations for deployment of smart grid technologies in Illinois.

Mr. Gunther was part of the original team that developed EPRI’s IntelliGrid Architecture and led the team that refined and documented the IntelliGrid Use Case based requirements development methodology through its first major application at Southern California Edison for their AMI and Smart Grid programs. He is presently the lead consultant for EPRI implementing IntelliGrid Architecture demonstration projects, providing coordination between IntelliGrid and other organizations, and implementing general IntelliGrid technology transfer activities. He is also working with EPRI to develop smart grid roadmaps for several utilities including Duke Energy, First Energy, Salt River Project, Southern Company, and others.

Erich is heavily involved in the identification and deployment of innovative communication technologies to provide pervasive connectivity to power system components. Pervasive connectivity is a precursor to deploying the IntelliGrid, GWAC, CEC, and other reference architectures for a modernized power grid. Mr. Gunther has recently completed wireless communication technology assessments for Alliant Energy, Southern California Edison, the DOE Modern Grid Initiative, EPRI’s Advanced Distribution Automation program, and other clients. These concepts have recently been deployed in remote measurement and control efforts for the Utility Wind Integration Group (UWIG) in Selawik Alaska, for DOE/NYSERDA in Delaware County New York, and wireless communications policy at TVA. Erich played a key role in the development and implementation of the Power Quality Data Interchange Format (IEEE 1159.3) and the Utility Communication Architecture (now IEC 61850).

He served as principal investigator for a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Small Business Innovative Research Phase I project examining the use of securable communication standards and protocols to secure electric power SCADA systems against cyber attack. He was the founding chairman of the AMI Security task force under the UCA International Users Group, and he lead the team that developed a secure methodology for delivering pricing and load control signals to low cost devices such as thermostats via one way broadcast methods.

Erich is a senior member of the IEEE and is actively involved in various working groups and committees including serving as the co-chair of the Power and Energy Society Intelligent Grid Coordinating Committee, chairman of the P1159.3 task force on power quality data interchange, vice chair of the harmonics working group, vice chair of the SCC-22 power quality standards coordinating committee and chairman of the interharmonic task force. Erich is the principal author and chapter chairman of the terms, definitions, and phenomena sections of the IEEE Guide to Monitoring Power Quality produced by the P1159 working group. He is also a member of various international technical groups involved in power quality related activities including serving as the convener of the CIGRE C4.1.06 working group on power quality measurement compliance and IEC TC 77a WG9 on power quality measurement methods. In addition to his power quality standards activities, Mr. Gunther is heavily involved in international standards development related to electric power communications architecture, information modeling, and cyber security.

Prior to co-founding EnerNex Corporation, Erich was the Vice President of Technology and Information Systems Development at Electrotek Concepts. There he was responsible for the development of hardware, software and systems technologies for use in products, research, and engineering studies. He was responsible for the design and implementation of Electrotek’s corporate network communications systems as well as providing similar services for Electrotek clients.

Erich has been involved in the application of various communication technologies in the utility industry, most notably for power monitoring applications. He deployed monitoring and communications systems at various wind farms as a part of research projects for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and he developed the communications infrastructure used to implement a distributed generation dispatch and aggregation system for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) emergency demand response program in New York City.

He was the chief architect of the Dranetz-BMI Signature System, a web-based power monitoring platform that has been deployed by a number of utilities and other organizations to monitor power systems. He was also involved in applying this platform for condition based maintenance applications and distributed generation control and management applications.

Erich was the principal investigator for a U.S. Department of Energy project to research ways to utilize the Internet in the electric power utility industry. This project (“A Practical and Cost Effective Demonstration of Efficient Energy Usage and Quality Management Using the National Information Infrastructure”) developed the basic principles used in the industry today for web based electric power measurement information systems.

He was also involved in the design and specification of the Dranetz-BMI 8010 PQNode, utilized as the data collection system for the EPRI Distribution Power Quality Project. He also designed the software that enabled the user to setup and obtain reports from the instrument. This data collection system consisted of over 200 PQNodes installed on the distribution systems of various utilities across the continental U.S.

He is the author of a number of Electrotek software programs including the harmonic simulation programSuperHarm and TOP, The Output Processor. He ported the EPRI/DCG version of the Electromagnetic Transients Program (EMTP) to run under the OS/2, Windows and Windows NT operating systems. He designed and co-developed the System Manager software for Square D’s Power Logic Circuit Monitor, BMI PASS software and authored several power systems analysis programs while at Cooper Power Systems. Erich designed, and lead the team that implemented the Electrotek Computing Infrastructure. He has provided similar services to clients in the electric power industry. Erich is also the author of a number of technical papers and other publications involving power quality, harmonic and transient analysis, and power system measurements.

Prior to joining Electrotek, he was employed by the systems engineering group of McGraw-Edison (now Cooper Industries) in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania and as an engineer and news photographer at WICU-TV Channel 12, an NBC affiliate, in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Recent Projects:

• Illinois Commerce Commission – Appointed to lead Smart Grid roadmap project
• Grove Farm Kauai – sustainable infrastructure roadmap development
• Southern California Edison - Advanced Meter Infrastructure Consulting
• Consumers Energy – AMI and Smart Grid requirements and architecture
• California Energy Commission - Demand Response Infrastructure Architecture
• EPRI IntelliGrid - Integrated Energy Communications System Infrastructure
  • Alliant Energy – Advanced Distribution Automation Architecture
  • TXU – Meter Data Management System requirements
  • TXU – Security policy for third party data access
  • SRP – substation automation
• Northeast Utilities – Transmission Switching Study
• New England ISO – Transmission Switching Study
• PacifiCorp
  • Flicker Meter Testing
  • Harmonic and Flicker Simulation Study
  • Satellite Communications for Remote IED’s
• Department of Homeland Security - Secure SCADA Gateway Development
• Public Service of New Mexico – Capacitor Switching Study

Standards and other Activities:

• Co-Chair of the IEEE PES Intelligent Grid Coordinating Committee
• Chairman of the C4.1.06 Cigré working group on measurement compliance
• Chairman of the IEEE interharmonics task force
• Chairman of the IEEE 1159.3 task force on power quality data interchange
• Chairman / Facilitator of UtilityAMI working group and OpenHAN task force
• Chairman of CEC Title 24 PCT Technical Working Group
• Vice Chairman of IEEE SCC-22 PQ standards coordinating committee
• Vice Chairman of the IEEE harmonics working group
• Member of IEEE Power Quality Subcommittee
• Member of IEEE 519 revision task force
• Member of IEEE 1159 working group on power quality monitoring
• Member of IEEE 1250 working group on voltage quality
• Member of IEEE 1453 task force on light flicker
• Member of IEEE 1459 working group on measurements in non-sinusoidal conditions
• Member of IEEE 1547.3 working group on DER communication
• Member of IEC TC 57 WG 10 PQTF on power quality communications models
• Member of IEC TC 57 WG 15 on secure IED communications
• Member of IEC TC 57 WG 17 on DER communication
• Member of IEC TC 77A US advisory group and WG 9 (PQ monitoring)