Concluded the 2024 ACM SIGEnergy Seminar Series

We wrapped up the 2024 #ACM #SIGEnergy Seminar Series with an incredible finale 🎊!

John Sipple, from Google Research, delivered a great talk on an open-source, physics-based building simulator designed for rapid RL agent training.

A huge shoutout to Sanam Dabirian and Gargya Gokhale for their pivotal efforts in making this seminar series a success. Special thanks to Zoltan Nagy for his support and facilitation and to Noman Bashir for passing on the 2023 seminar series in excellent shape.

Looking ahead, the 2025 seminar series promises to feature cutting-edge research in energy systems and energy informatics. Stay tuned by joining our Google Group: https://sites.google.com/view/sigenergy-seminar/

Lastly, I’d like to extend my gratitude to all our 16 outstanding speakers whose names are listed on the seminar’s website and affiliations are listed in the picture below. Their contributions have made this series truly exceptional!

ACM SIGEnergy Seminar Series: Special Session

📢 Join Us for the Final Session of the 2024 ACM, Association for Computing Machinery SIGEnergy Seminar Series!

We’re excited to wrap up this year’s ACM SIGEnergy Seminar Series with a special session on Friday, December 13th, 2024, at 11:00 AM ET.

This final seminar will feature John Sipple from Google Research, who will present an open-source, physics-based building simulator designed for rapid reinforcement learning agent training.

📅 Session Details:

Title: Open-Source Simulation: Revolutionizing Building Energy Optimization

Date: Dec. 13, 2024

Time: 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Zoom Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93059047019

For more info about the talk, visit: https://sites.google.com/view/sigenergy-seminar/

Panel Talk at the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting

On October 22nd, I presented at the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting held in Seattle, WA. My presentation was part of an invited panel session on Data-Enabled Decision-Making in Energy Systems and Markets.

I had a great time connecting with so many people from academia and industry

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Gave a Talk at Caltech (slides available)

Today, I presented our research on Network-Aware Mechanism Design for Energy Communities at Caltech for the Foundations of Algorithms, Learning, Control, and Optimization of Networks (FALCON) group and the Rigorous Systems Research Group (RSRG)!

This research focuses on optimizing resource sharing in decentralized energy communities. Our proposed two-part dynamic pricing encourages fair and efficient energy use while considering network constraints.

For more details, check out our papers:

• A decentralized market mechanism for energy communities under operating envelopes (IEEE TCNS, 2024)

• Operating-envelopes-aware decentralized welfare maximization for energy communities (IEEE Allerton, 2023)

Talk slides can be accessed here

#EnergyCommunities #MechanismDesign #Optimization #GameTheory #OptimalDecisions

Gave a Talk at LIDS MIT

Today, I gave a talk at the MIT’s Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) on decentralized and equitable mechanism design for energy systems. The talk took place in 32-D677. Audience included researchers from MIT LIDS, MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), and MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI).

Presented at NREL's Autonomous Energy Systems Workshop, Golden, CO

I recently had the opportunity to attend NREL's 7th workshop on Autonomous Energy Systems, held from September 3rd to September 6th, 2024 in Golden, CO. During the workshop, I presented my recent research on "Resource sharing in energy communities: A cooperative game approach," where I explored innovative strategies for energy collaboration within communities. The event was a fantastic platform for exchanging ideas and advancing research in autonomous energy systems.

Celebrating My Ph.D. Defense! 🎉

I successfully defended my dissertation, titled "Integration of Distributed Energy Resources: Optimal Decisions, Mechanism Design, and Aggregations," at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Cornell University.

This milestone would not have been possible without the incredible guidance and support of my advisor, Prof. Lang Tong, and my committee members, Prof. Eilyan Bitar and Prof. Timothy Mount. Their mentorship, expertise, and encouragement throughout this journey have been invaluable.

Excited for the next chapter ahead and grateful for all the support along the way! 🌟

Manuscript accepted @IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems

Our paper entitled “A Decentralized Market Mechanism for Energy Communities under Operating Envelopes” has been accepted for publication at the IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems.

This paper generalizes the Dynamic Net Energy Metering (D-NEM) pricing, first presented here, to communities that are subject to operating envelopes. Interestingly, we found that D-NEM becomes two-part, consisting of: (i) a dynamic threshold-based price, and (ii) a fixed charge.

The abstract of the paper is given below:

We propose an operating envelopes (OEs) aware energy community market mechanism that dynamically charges/rewards its members based on two-part pricing. The OEs are imposed exogenously by a regulated distribution system operator (DSO) on the energy community's revenue meter and is subject to a generalized net energy metering (NEM) tariff design. By formulating the interaction of the community operator and its members as a Stackelberg game, we show that the proposed two-part pricing achieves a Nash equilibrium and maximizes the community's social welfare in a decentralized fashion while ensuring that the community's operation abides by the OEs. The market mechanism conforms with the cost-causation principle and guarantees community members a surplus level no less than their maximum surplus when they autonomously face the DSO. The dynamic and uniform community price is a monotonically decreasing function of the community's aggregate renewable generation. We also analyze the impact of exogenous parameters such as NEM rates and OEs on the value of joining the community. Lastly, through numerical studies, we showcase the community's welfare, and pricing, and compare its members' surplus to customers under the DSO's regime.

Update About ACM SIGEnergy Graduate Seminar Series

Last month, we celebrated record attendance at the ACM SIGEnergy Graduate Student Seminar. This achievement reflects our community's engagement and commitment to advancing the field.

We invite you to join us for future seminars. To stay updated and participate, please visit the seminar's website.

https://sites.google.com/view/sigenergy-seminar/#

You can also sign up to present in upcoming talks through the designated form:

https://forms.gle/WmFLzdTk3iDtCbbt5

Your participation enriches our discussions and helps drive collaboration within the energy sector. We look forward to seeing you at our next seminar!

Paper Accepted at CDC 24, Milano, Italy

Our paper on “Network-Aware and Welfare-Maximizing Dynamic Pricing for Energy Sharing” is accepted for presentation and publication in the proceedings of the 2024 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) in Milan, Italy. The paper will be presented under the session “Incentives, Flexibility, and Human Factors in Large-Scale Distributed Energy Resources Control”.

The online manuscript can be found on arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.02458

Presented at IEEE PESGM 2024, Seattle, WA

I recently attended the IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting 2024 (PESGM 24) and had the honor of presenting at the Best Paper Session of “Emerging Technologies in Generation, Transmission, and Distribution”. I also participated in the evening poster session. PESGM 2024 was a remarkable opportunity to engage with researchers, industry experts, and professionals in the field of power and energy.

The paper’s arXiv can be found here, and the poster I presented can be found here.

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Manuscript Accepted @IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy

Our manuscript titled "Co-Optimizing Distributed Energy Resources in Linear Complexity under Net Energy Metering" has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy [Early Access]

Paper abstract:

The co-optimization of behind-the-meter distributed energy resources is considered for prosumers under the net energy metering tariff. The distributed energy resources considered include renewable generations, flexible demands, and battery energy storage systems. An energy management system co-optimizes the consumptions and battery storage based on locally available stochastic renewables by solving a stochastic dynamic program that maximizes the expected operation surplus. To circumvent the exponential complexity of the dynamic program solution, we propose a closed-form and linear computation complexity co-optimization algorithm based on a relaxation-projection approach to a constrained stochastic dynamic program. Sufficient conditions for optimality for the proposed solution are obtained. Numerical studies demonstrate orders of magnitude reduction of computation costs and significantly reduced optimality gap.

The arXiv version of the manuscript can be found at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.09781

Attended ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit (Student Program and NSF I-Corps)

I attended the ARPA-E 2024 Energy Innovation summit in Dallas, TX, as part of the ARPA-E student program. Additionally, I was also part of the I-Corps (Innovative Corps) program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The mission of I-Corps is to bridge the gap between fundamental research discoveries in science and engineering and the commercialization of technologies, products, and processes with the potential to benefit society. With the support of I-Corps, we explored the business potential of our startup “EnergyGPT”, including customer discovery.

Best Paper at IEEE PESGM 2024

🎉 Exciting News! Our Paper "Resource Sharing in Energy Communities: A Cooperative Game Approach" (arXiv) has been Shortlisted for the Best Paper Session at the IEEE 2024 Power and Energy Society General Meeting in Seattle, WA!

Presented at the Northeast Systems and Control Workshop 2024

On May 4th, I presented our work on “Decentralized Welfare Optimization for Energy Communities” at the 2024 Northeast Systems and Control Workshop, which was held at the University of Pennsylvania. The workshop was a great opportunity to reconnect with researchers and share latest research developments and discuss possible collaborations.

Our poster can be downloaded from here:

NESCW 2024 POSTER

Organizing SIGEnergy Graduate Student Seminar Series

Alongside some colleagues, I am organizing the SIGEnergy Graduate Student Seminar series this year.

If you are a MSc/PhD/Postdoc or even a faculty and would like to present any of your published work (see scope below) to a group of graduate students and postdocs from all over the world, please fill the following signup form:

SIGEnergy Scope

SIGEnergy covers a broad range of topics in energy informatics, energy system design, analysis, and operation ranging from building energy management, renewable energy modelling and integration, energy storage system analysis, electric vehicle modelling and optimal operation, data-centre energy management, and energy impact on climate and society.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Selected to Participate in the ARPA-E Summit Graduate Student Program

I have been selected to participate in the 2024 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit graduate student program. The 2024 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit will be held on May 22-24 in Dallas, Texas.

Paper Accepted @IEEE PES General Meeting 2024, Seattle, WA

Our paper, "Resource Sharing in Energy Communities: A Cooperative Game Approach," has been accepted at IEEE PES General Meeting 2024 in Seattle, WA.

arXiv link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.18792

The paper focuses on showing the advantages of ex-ante resource allocation mechanisms over well-established ex-post mechanisms such as the Shapley value and the proportional rule. Two community DER scheduling algorithms are examined. The first is a community with centrally controlled DER, whereas the second is decentralized letting its members schedule their own DER locally. For both communities, we prove that the cooperative game's value function is superadditive, hence the grand coalition achieves the highest welfare. We also prove the balancedness of the cooperative game under the two DER scheduling algorithms, which means that there is a welfare re-distribution scheme that de-incentivizes players from leaving the grand coalition to form smaller ones.

New Journal Paper Accepted @ IEEE TEMPR

Thrilled to announce that our latest journal paper on "Dynamic Net Metering for Energy Communities" has been accepted for publication at the IEEE Transactions on Energy Markets, Policy and Regulation (arXiv). The paper employs mechanism design and control & optimization of prosumers with different DER compositions to propose a pricing mechanism that, in addition to being competitive with the lucrative retail programs by the DSO, it achieves the community’s welfare optimality in a decentralized fashion. More on the paper below.

This paper proposes Dynamic NEM (D-NEM) — a social welfare maximizing market mechanism for an energy community that aggregates individual and community-shared energy resources under a general net energy metering (NEM) policy. D-NEM dynamically sets the community NEM prices based on aggregated community resources, including flexible consumption, storage, and renewable generation. It guarantees a higher benefit to each community member than possible outside the community, and no sub-communities would be better off departing from its parent community. D-NEM aligns each member’s incentive with that of
the community such that each member maximizing individual surplus under D-NEM results in maximum community social welfare.

Attended PSERC 2023 IAB Meeting @GeorgiaTech

I enjoyed attending the PSERC 2023 IAB Meeting @GeorgiaTech* (Dec. 6th — Dec. 8th). It was a great opportunity to connect with experts from Academia and industry. Also, it was fun to revisit GeorgiaTech and Atlanta again after I studied there in my B.Sc. as an exchange student in Fall 2014!

* The Industry Advisory Board (IAB), composed of PSERC’s industry members, meets twice per year with PSERC researchers and students to conduct business and to engage in discussions about research and education activities