Boston honored as power grid leader

With temperatures sizzling to 108 degrees in New Jersey and 106 degrees in Maryland, PJM Interconnection CEO Terry Boston kept his cool two weeks ago meeting a record high demand for electricity across the 13 states served by his company.

"I love my job when all the assets work," said Boston, a former TVA executive who now manages the largest power grid in North America. "Can you imagine what life would be like if the lights were not on and the air conditioners were not humming?"

As head of PJM for the past three years, Boston has helped grow the Valley Forge, Pa.-based transmission organization to serve 58 million Americans with electrical deliveries from power producers in 13 states and the District of Columbia. Under Boston's leadership, PJM's use of renewable energy sources have more than tripled and PJM has boosted the amount of electricity under so-called demand response programs by nearly fivefold.

Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said PJM has been a leader in adopting pricing programs to encourage customers to reduce their consumption at peak demand periods and shift power usage to times of the day or night when overall consumption is less. Those demand-response programs help boost the efficiency of the power grid and cut the need for expensive power purchases or additional plant construction.

"I think PJM runs the most effective and efficient shop in the business," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell told the Chattanooga Times Free Press earlier this year. "Terry is a visionary who is always trying to increase competitiveness and for a state like ours energy competitiveness is crucial."

Last week, Boston was awarded one of the industry's top awards for his 35-year career of promoting the engineering profession at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Tennessee Tech - his alma mater - and other schools. Boston, who maintains a residence on Signal Mountain, was supported by UTC faculty for the "Leadership in Power" award from the engineering association IEEE.

"Power engineering is not rocket science," Boston said in accepting the award in Detroit. "It is much more important than that."

As an early buyer of the battery-powered Chevy Volt, Boston predicts electric cars will help transform the 21st century just as electricity helped power homes and offices in the previous century.

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