Frontier of Power System Optimization and Simulation

Optimization and simulation in power system have seen increasing challenges as complexity and uncertainties, brought by new energy components, continue to increase. As an example, combined cycle units, virtual bids, sub-hourly commitment, and DER have significantly increased the computational complexity of security-constrained unit commitment. Similarly in dynamic simulation, increasing inverter-based device penetration demands more sophisticated simulation tool to assess system security in a more complicated and fast-changing environment. All these computational challenges demand better and scalable optimization and simulation algorithms and tools. This panel will discuss the emerging challenges and recent advances in this area. The panel will focus on a few fundamental power system computing problems, such as security constrained unit commitment, optimal AC power flow, system restoration, and dynamic simulation. This panel will bring together the most recent breakthrough at the frontier of power system computing, including learning-enhanced optimization, novel convexification techniques, semi-analytical simulation, etc.