Upcoming Webinars to Focus on Topics Addressed in the National Academies of Sciences’ "Analytical Foundations for the Next Generation Electric Grid" Report

The National Academies of Sciences’ Board of Mathematical Sciences and Their Application will conduct two webinars this month in conjunction with the recent release of its report entitled Analytical Foundations for the Next Generation Electric Grid.  The focus of the study, which was funded in part by the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, was to identify the critical areas of mathematical and computational research that must be addressed for the next-generation electric transmission and distribution system. The report also includes a series of recommendations.

Enhancing Electric Power Reliability, Security, and Resiliency
Speaker: Jeffery Dagle, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
April 18, 2016 11:00 AM EDT
Today’s complex grid involves many interdependent aspects.  Various layers of hierarchical control are coordinated, both spatially and temporally to achieve reliability.  And as smart grid technologies are being deployed, the interconnected nature of these systems is becoming more complex.  Smart grids will allow for effective integration of dispersed resources, and enable the customer to become an active participant in electricity supply and consumption.  System operations will be enhanced as a growing number of distributed devices can be adjusted in response to changing system conditions.  Infrastructure resilience is the ability to reduce the magnitude and/or duration of disruptive events. The effectiveness of a resilient infrastructure depends upon its ability to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and/or rapidly recover from a potentially disruptive event. Whether disruptions come from intentional attacks by human interventions or from acts of nature, smart grid capabilities can enhance the resilience of the electricity system.  This presentation will provide an overview of smart grid technology developments, and efforts being taken to ensure that they themselves do not introduce any new unanticipated vulnerabilities. To register for this webinar, visit  https://nasevents.webex.com/nasevents/onstage/g.php?MTID=e2664ebc3923aa2df07db1aeeca64bca3. The password is grid.

Mathematical Programming for the Solution of ACOPF
Speaker: Daniel Bienstock, Columbia University
April 25, 2016 2:00 PM EDT
Optimal Power Flow (OPF) is a well-known problem among power engineers.  In the Alternative Current (AC) setting, this is a problem that is thought to be solved -- at least in the case of routine applications, and many software packages are available.  When dealing with non-standard cases, or what-if analysis, ACOPF can become quite difficult, and the mathematical techniques found in commercial software may fall short.  Recently, new work has highlighted powerful mathematical techniques based on semidefinite programming, which may yield effective algorithms across many scenarios. The first half of the talk will review these techniques. The second half of the talk will focus on analysis of stochastics, and in particular the use of so-called chance constraints to model uncertain data.  The focus will be on applications to OPF under renewable generation. To register for this webinar, visit https://nasevents.webex.com/nasevents/onstage/g.php?MTID=e52a06c01859dd83f35b4fc3289277287. The password is grid.