Electric Energy Systems

The Electric Energy Systems track seeks to explore critical questions and innovative methods at the frontier of next generation electric power systems. The focus is on the engineering, economics, and policy issues that are at the forefront of current research, development, and demonstration. The track encompasses four minitracks, with total of eight sessions scheduled sequentially to allow those interested to attend all sessions in the track for discussion and exchange of ideas.

The first minitrack focuses on research in Renewable, Distributed, and Mobile Resources considers modeling, simulation and hardware developments; economic and system analyses; and studies of individual and organizational (including governments) behavior and decision making as pertaining to distributed, renewable and mobile resources in electric power systems. The first session in this minitrack will consider power systems in the context of climate change; its impact on renewable power production and a case study considering a proposed decarbonization strategy. The second set of papers in this minitrack focuses on methods for optimal dispatch and operations, while the final set of papers discussed cases and tools for microgrids and decentralized systems.

The second minitrack considers Monitoring, Control and Protection in electric power system for real-time operations and short-term operations planning. This includes innovations that focus on recent developments in the area of large-scale dynamics and control and on distributed decision concepts for generation, storage, and loads. Papers in this minitrack will encompass two areas of focus; the first explores methods for measurement and fault detection on large scale grids. A session includes papers that focus on models for improved detection and control, as well as and extensions to optimal power flow frameworks for both weather-informed decisions and large-scale, distributed decisions.

The Policy, Markets, and Computation minitrack focuses on topics related to engineering and economic interactions within the electric grid, including identifying metrics and the needs for risk and flexibility, and the characterization of market products and public policies that incentivize optimization and diversification of resources to assure system flexibility. The first session in this minitrack explores questions of market mechanisms and valuation of flexibility from consumers and distributed resources. A second set of papers in this minitrack will consider questions (and lessons) regarding climate and extreme weather impacts and the pace of system decarbonization.

Finally, the fourth minitrack, entitled Resilient Networks, focuses on enhancing the reliability, security, and resilience of future electric power infrastructure. Advanced technologies will require sophisticated methods for understanding how they can be incorporated into increasingly complex and dynamic infrastructure. Papers in this minitrack consider methods that leverage machine learning and AI, optimization, and graph theory, for detection and protection against variability, faults, and other contingencies.

Thomas J. Overbye
Texas A&M University
overbye@tamu.edu

C. Lindsay Anderson
Cornell University
cla28@cornell.edu