Rannveig S. J. Løken

It is an honour to serve CIGRE as the new CIGRE Vice President Technical, Chair of the Technical Council from August 2024.

Passion for CIGRE since 2006

I started my journey in CIGRE by taking part in working group with cooperation and discussions with international experts. I have been, and still are an active member of CIGRE working group and think that knowledge sharing from work in the working groups is really the core value of CIGRE.

Norwegian SC member of SC B5 Protection and Automation (2008-2012)

From 2008 to 2012, as the Norwegian member for SC B5, the most important task was to support the Working group with qualified members from Norway, take part in SC meetings during Paris session and Colloquium.

Secretary of SC B5 Protection and Automation (2012-2018)

In 2011 I was asked to become the secretary by the new elected SC B5 Chair, a proposal I accepted. The workload and passion for CIGRE increased exponentially. The work included support for the SC Chair in SC meetings, Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) meetings (with the Technical Council) and cooperation with all the international SC B5 members. We organized SC B5 Colloquium in Brazil, China, and New Zealand during this period, in addition to taking part in the Paris session.

Chair of SC B5 Protection and Automation and member of CIGRE TC (2018- 2024)

It was an honour to be elected as Chair of SC B5 in 2018. The cooperation between the different SC of CIGRE has been an important part of this work as a member of CIGRE Technical Council (TC). We organized SC B5 Colloquium in Norway in 2019, but then things changed.

CIGRE e-Session 2020 and the Virtual Centennial Session 2021

CIGRE TC worked hard to make sure CIGRE would still be strong during the challenging years of 2020 and 2021. We invented the e-Session in 2020 and the Virtual Centennial Session in 2021 in cooperation with Central office and CIGRE Steering Committee. I am proud to have been part of this innovative cooperation.

CIGRE Symposium in Ljubljana in 2021

In 2021 the chair of SC B2 and SC B5 (me) co-chaired the Technical Committee of the CIGRE Symposium in Ljubljana, where we had responsibility for coordination between the 10 SC that took part in the event, review of papers and technical program for the Symposium. We were also part of the Steering Committee for the Symposium and had excellent cooperation with the National Committee of Slovenia. The Symposium was a Hybrid event where the participants could take part in person or from remote.

CIGRE Strategic Plan for the Energy Transition to 2030 (2023)

As SC B5 Chair I was active in the discussions and contributions from CIGRE TC to support for CIGRE advancing in the Energy Transition. Based on these discussions we have updated the Strategic plan of CIGRE in 2023, Strategy for the Energy Transition, there are both new focus areas as well as traditional areas that will need attention in the coming years to support the necessary changes for the ongoing global energy transition.

Chair of the Norwegian committee of CIGRE (2022- ....)

From 2022 I have had the privilege to be elected as Chair of Norwegian committee of CIGRE. I have also been the Administrative Council member from Norway from 2022 to august 2024. Norwegian committee of CIGRE is part of Nordic Regional Council of CIGRE (NRCC). The position as Chair of CIGRE NRCC is changed every year and in 2024 I have the honour to hold this position.

CIGRE Green book (2022-...)

There are three SC chairs in the green book board, and I have represented SC B5 from 2022 until 2024. The board discuss the progress of the green book and have the cooperation with the publisher, Springer.

Joint CIGRE IEEE SGSMA Conference (2024)

In May 2024 CIGRE and IEEE had the first joint conference, the 2024 International Conference on Smart Grid Synchronized Measurements & Analytics (SGSMA). I have taken part in several panel discussions on behalf of CIGRE in this joint conference.

Women in Energy (WiE)

To support the diversity of CIGRE I have taken part in several panels during WiE event, both online and in person. I was part of the WiE breakfast panel during the Cairns Symposium in 2023 and a virtual WiE event in Colombia in 2024. I was part of a panel discussion at the Women in Energy Forum during CIGRE Paris Session 2024.

Motivation and goal as Chair of the Technical Council

CIGRE at its core is the development and dissemination of unbiased technical knowledge for power system expertise, broadening to all facets of the energy transition. The CIGRE Technical Council (TC) is the center of this advancement as are the National Committees (NCs) in their local initiatives in conferences and in assisting the Technical Council.

My motivation and goal as the new Chair of the Technical Council is to continue the work with the following topics:

Influence and contribute

• Focus on CIGRE strategic plan and make sure CIGRE’s relevance in the energy transition attracting new entries in our end-to-end (E2E) scope.
• Investigate how knowledge from CIGRE can be more visible to the community outside CIGRE and encourage more members to join our community.

Vibrant and Inclusive

• Continue to investigate how we can improve the Paris session, including opening panel, general discussion meetings, call for paper, poster session, Workshops, and the CEO event.
• Develop greater sourcing of articles, papers and thematic material for our signature bimonthly publication ELECTRA, our CIGRE Science and Engineering (CSE) journal, and our newsletters.

The Electricity Future

• Continue to develop the unbiased technical strength of CIGRE.
• CIGRE NRCC Trondheim Symposium, Norway, May 2025
  NRCC will organise the CIGRE NRCC 2025 symposium in Trondheim 12-15th of May 2025. 11 of the SC will take part in the Symposium.
• CIGRE Montreal Symposium, Canada, September 2025
  CIGRE Canada will organise the CIGRE Montreal 2025 symposium in Canada 29th of September to 2nd of October 2025. 10 of the SC will take part in the Symposium. https://cigre.ca/2025/en/
• Encourage more Working Groups to host Tutorial and Webinars to share knowledge in the wider community.
• Continue to improve the quality of the papers for the Paris session including review by experts from all the CIGRE countries.
• Continue the cooperation in TC between different SC for working groups and other technical activities.

People and Skills of the Future

• Developing the organisation to capture relevant aspects of the Energy Transition
• Cooperation with the CIGRE National Committees (NCs) to support our strong decentralised approach including local events and knowledge sharing.
• Support the activities of NGN and WiE in the TC and during CIGRE events like Paris session and Symposium.

I look forward to our cooperation and feel honoured to serve you all as the CIGRE Vice President Technical.