Change of Speaker!  The Long Island Chapter of the Association of Energy Engineers on Monday November 24, 2025 were pleased to welcome our own chapter President/founder Dr. Robert Amundsen, who presented on Grid Modernization: Infrastructure, Workforce and Reliability.

The power grid is a complex interface between generation sources and loads. Capacity has not kept pace with increasing demands due to manufacturing, data centers and electrification. Intermittent sources such as solar and wind have created a need for large-scale energy storage. Predictable large central power plants are being replaced with highly variable decentralized renewable sources. System operators need a power grid which is more flexible and can respond faster to changing conditions. The scale of necessary upgrades is unprecedented in scope and cost.

Dr. Robert N. Amundsen is the Director of the M.S. in Energy Management program at the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences of New York Institute of Technology. He earned a B.S. in Physics and Astronomy and a B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Rochester, followed by an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Energy Management and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He served as the Engineering Faculty Advisor for the NYIT Solar Decathlon Team. Dr. Amundsen was named a Fellow of the Association of Energy Engineers and has been elected to the AEE Energy Managers Hall of Fame.