Fundamentals of Modeling and Control for the Evolving Electric Power System Architectures (EAGER)

The main objective of this project is to formalize ground-breaking general principles in support of investment planning and operating protocols for the changing electric energy systems. This is crucial for assessing effects of candidate hardware and software technologies and for creating an environment in which flexible technologies are utilized by complementing each others' performance and by jointly meeting societal needs. Since the performance of many technologies of interest greatly depends on how well they are integrated over time and stakeholders (system modules), an effective framework needs to support decisions that are data-enabled and interactive over time and among different system decision makers. In this project a complex dynamical systems point of view is taken which recognizes such distributed nature of decisions and introduces novel modeling, control and protocol principles in support of system integration in time and space. In sharp contrast with the lack of theoretically-provable performance in the evolving electric power system architectures, this project explores fundamentals and takes major steps toward solving this long-overdue problem. The most important impact will be on the way electric power industry architectures evolve. In particular, the project will catalyze the adoption of data-enabled decision making and automation. Notably, this approach will help educate students to think about emerging electric energy systems as complex dynamical systems for which much innovation is needed and possible. Results of this research will be disseminated through a workshop on design and control of complex energy systems.

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation