Saman Alaeddini

Saman Alaeddini Vice President, Digital Transformation

Saman Alaeddini, Executive Advisor, Vice President, specializes in digital transformation, database management and analysis, system modeling, autonomous systems design, robotics, and industrial processes. His experience includes real-world data management, software development, automation system implementation and maintenance, and advanced data analytical techniques.

Saman has been involved in primary and secondary system modeling, protection and control settings analysis, NERC compliance studies, digital transformation, software tool evaluations, and process improvement initiatives.

Experience and Background

Experience in the electric power industry, Quanta Technology, 2009–Present
Vice President, Digital Transformation, Quanta Technology, 2023–Present
Senior Director, Software Development, Quanta Technology, 2020–Present
Practice Area Manager, Engineering Automation, Quanta Technology, 2016–2020
Engineering Consultant, Protection, Control, and Automation, Quanta Technology, 2009–2016
Project Leader, Engineering Group, Honda of Canada Manufacturing, 2008–2009

Select Industry Accomplishments and Recognition

Senior Member, IEEE
Published and presented over 50 papers at Protective Relay, CIGRE, DistribuTech, and IEEE conferences in the field of engineering automation techniques
Patent No. US 2024/0377821 Title: Unified Data Platform for Protection, Control, and Automation Device Configuration

Areas of Expertise

Power systems engineering automation (leveraging software-based automation to perform tasks)
Network Model Management (alignment and maintenance of system representation and simulation models)
Data management and situational awareness (transforming, maintaining, and using utility data to perform analytics)
Asset and configuration management (managing and using equipment and settings records to support utility functions)
Workforce management (data-driven processes and tools to optimally align personnel resources with needed work)
Power systems protection (setting design automation, wide-area coordination, and control)
Power systems protection compliance (PRC, CIP, FAC, TPL, OSHA)
Computer modeling and design, including CAPE, ASPEN, Sincal, PSSE, PSLF, PSCAD/EMTDC, RSCAD, Synergi, CYMDIST, OPEN DSS, AutoCAD, SOLIDWORKS, CATIA, and MATLAB w-Simulink
Data-driven solutions, including Maximo, Cascade, AS, PowerBase, IPS, Aspen RDB, RTS, PS, and ADMO
Autonomous engineering, including Oracle, SQL, Python, C#, C++, VB, React, ETL, and machine code

Education

BSc, Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering, University of Toronto, 2010
MSc, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University (Ryerson), 2019

Latest Thinking

Engineering Automation Drives Decision Making

The information age has had a transformative effect on business and society, and the electric utility industry is no exception. New technologies in databases, monitoring hardware and control systems have put an unprecendented amount of data at the fingertips of utility engineers, planners and operators. The tools and processes to effectively manage and use this data historically have been underdeveloped, resulting in data sets being limited to single applications rather than leveraged across an organization. These data silos and incompatabilities between applications exemplify the modern adage of data rich and information poor (DRIP).

Comparison of Risk Assessment Approaches in Wide Area Protection Coordination

The growing complexity of modern protection and control systems poses a great challenge to power transmission utilities in terms of maintaining and upgrading their network. Automated wide area protection coordination (WAPC) study is a tool that allows utilities to analyze protection coordination of all adjacent protection systems in detail and in a relatively short period of time compared to traditional methods of coordination analysis. Given the large scope of such studies, the results obtained can be overwhelming for a utility to analyze and/or to implement the recommendations in a reasonable period of time. Hence, utilities have to assess the risks associated with issues reported in the study and prioritize them to meet their specific requirements. This paper presents two different approaches adopted by two utilities from North America, namely Xcel Energy and AltaLink.