Decision Trees for the global optimum of the AC OPF and inferring guaranteed costs with renewable energy

The IEEE Greece Young Professionals  in collaboration with IEEE Greece PES Chapter, IEEE NTUA SB, PES Chapter of IEEE NTUA SB and Smart grids research unit of ECE (SmartRUE) invite you to a lecture titled ‘’Decision Trees for the global optimum of the AC OPF and inferring guaranteed costs with renewable energy” by Dr. Panayiotis Moutis (Assisant Prof., CCNY of CUNY) on 10th of January 2024 at 3pm at the multimedia amphitheater of NTUA Library & Information Centre. More information can be found in the abstract and the bio!

Abstract

The AC Optimal Power Flow (OPF) seeks to minimize the cost of using certain resources or the levels of some performance metrics in electrical grid operation. Due to the non-linear grid physics, it is a non-convex problem that cannot be solved efficiently in most of its practical instances. Relaxations cannot guarantee an AC OPF globally optimum solution for all grids or cases, while they also require lifting the problem to higher dimensions, requiring increased processing times. Among the non-linear, artificial intelligence and machine learning solvers, invariable challenges arise ranging from failure to converge to the global optimum to difficulties in modeling the problem in each solver. This talk proposes an AC OPF feasible space search. The space is sampled with random dispatches using power flows. The AC OPF infeasible samples are marked as False. The feasible AC OPF samples with cost greater than the median of all feasible samples are also marked False; the remaining are marked True. A heuristically inducted binary decision tree is trained with these samples and will tighten the constraints of the AC OPF variables towards the space of the feasible samples of cost less than the mentioned median. The recursive sampling and constraint tightening leads to convergence to the global optimum of the AC OPF instance based on Bayesian guarantees. Several benchmark instances from the PGLib and NESTA libraries are solved favorably with the proposed method compared to IPOPT and other relaxations and solvers. The time requirements arising from sampling the AC OPF space are discussed in terms of “hot starting” the method with statistically advantageous linear approximations. Lastly, because renewables are, most typically, zero cost assets and the method converges to the global optimum by the successive improvement of the median cost of AC OPF feasible samples, it is shown that the method can yield optimal dispatches for any level of renewable energy available.

Bio

Panayiotis (Panos) Moutis, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Electrical Engineering at the City College (CCNY) of the University of New York (CUNY). He has previously been special faculty (2018-23) and postdoctoral research associate (2016-18) at Carnegie Mellon University. Panos studies pragmatic-data-driven optimization, control and planning of electrical grids with high shares of renewables. He has recently been working with the grid operator of Portugal, REN, the moonshot factory of Google, X, and the grid operator of NY, NYISO. In 2018-20 he served as a Marie Curie Research Fellow with DEPsys, Switzerland, on distribution grid awareness. In 2014 he was awarded a fellowship by Arup, UK (through the University of Greenwich), to study microgrids for residential communities. During 2007-15, as part of Prof. Nikos Hatziargyriou’s research group he contributed to over a dozen R&D projects funded by the European Commission. Panos received both his diploma (2007) and his PhD (2015) degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and has published more than 30 papers and contributed to 4 book chapters. He has over 10 years of industry experience on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, and serves as advisor and executive in energy start-ups. He is Chair of the IEEE-USA Energy Policy Committee, senior editor of IEEE & IET scientific journals, member of IEEE standard working groups, a senior member of the IEEE, and leads the Distribution Task Team at the North American Synchro-Phasor Initiative and the Power & Energy Community at the Climate Change AI initiative. Personal Website for more information: https://panay1ot1s.com/

 

 

IEEE Greece Mentoring Program: Call for Mentees (3rd round) New Deadline!!!

The IEEE Young Professionals Greece and the IEEE Greece Section are pleased to announce the 3rd round of our Mentoring Program, in order to support young engineers at their first professional steps. The Mentors will share their experience and provide guidance in achieving specific professional goals, improving skills and enhancing career development.

If you are a student (undergraduate or post-graduate) or a young professional and need guidance from a Mentor, you are invited to fill in the below form. Note that only IEEE members are eligible to participate as Mentees to the program.

IEEE Greece Mentoring Program – Call for Mentees

Please submit your interest until the 15th of March 2023.

If you need more information on our IEEE Greece Mentoring Program please see the following presentation:

Presentation Mentoring Event

Coffee Talk with Dr Angelina Syrri

The IEEE Greece Section Women in Engineering Affinity Group and the IEEE Greece Section Young Professionals Affinity Group organized an online coffee talk with title “Operation and planning of smart distribution networks – challenges and current trends” with Dr Angelina Syrri on Wednesday 25 January at 18:30 via Microsoft Teams.

Subject: 

Operation and planning of smart distribution networks – challenges and current trends

The decarbonization of the energy sector and the increase of share of renewable sources to the energy production are considered as the main steps towards the directions of achieving climate neutrality by 2050 and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. Also, the current energy and geopolitical crisis, urge for regulations that support the transformation of Europe’s energy system.

But how is the current energy system changing? Increased automation, which facilitates active network management, increased number of distributed energy resources installed into the grid, various emerging trends, such as demand response, microgrids, energy communities, flexible resources such as heat pumps or electric vehicles, all these shape current distribution networks and affect the operation and planning philosophy.  Flexibility can be leveraged by aggregators to offer balancing and congestion management services to the power system. Then, existing infrastructure could be fully unlocked for normal operating conditions, avoiding or delaying reinforcement of the grid and at the same time allowing distribution system operators to offer uninterrupted power delivery to end consumers at all times.

IEEE YP Greece organized with great success the 1st IEEE Greece Mentoring Program event

IEEE Young Professionals Greece organized with great success the 1st IEEE Greece Mentoring Program event for students and graduates, in cooperation with the IEEE WIE Greece, IEEE Greece Computer Chapter, IEEE Greece Section, IEEE Life members Greece and the IEEE student branches of NTUA (IEEE NTUA Student Branch) and UNIWA on 7th of December 2022! Insightful presentations highlighting the importance of mentorship from three Mentors: Marianna TerzidakiKostas Karpouzis and Ioannis Ipliktsiadis. These presentations were followed by a very interesting and fruitful discussion where tips about advancing your career, enhancing your skills and evolving in your workplace were provided. We would like to thank the speakers, the co-organisers and all the attendees for contributing to the success of this event!

We would also like to take this opportunity to announce the 3rd round of the IEEE Greece Mentoring Program, in order to support young engineers at their first professional steps. The Mentors will share their experience and provide guidance in achieving specific professional goals, improving skills and enhancing career development. If you are a student (undergraduate or post-graduate) or a young professional and need guidance from a Mentor, you are invited to submit your interest until the 31nd of January 2023. More information about the program and registration can be found in https://lnkd.in/g8–RiF