Electrical and Computer Seminar: Leveraging energy storage and demand response in power system operations

Wednesday, March 22, 2017 10:30 am - 11:30 am EDT (GMT -04:00)

Josh A. Taylor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Toronto

Abstract:

It is difficult to balance supply and demand of electric power when wind and solar are present. Energy storage and flexible load aggregations can solve this problem by storing power in times of surplus and releasing power during deficits. Presently, high costs and technical complexity hinder the use of storage and load flexibility in power systems. In this talk, we present the financial storage right, a new market mechanism that enables storage to participate in electricity markets in the same manner as transmission lines, and further enables risk-averse market participants to hedge against price volatility due to congestion. In the second part of this talk, we look at uncertainty in demand response. The tradeoff between exploration and exploitation arises because load aggregators must deploy loads to obtain up-to-date information. We address this tradeoff with bandit and online convex optimization-based algorithms.

Biography:

Josh Taylor is an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the associate director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on power systems, optimization, and control.

http://www.ele.utoronto.ca/~jtaylor/

If you are interested in meeting with Professor Taylor, please contact John Simpson-Porco (jwsimpson@uwaterloo.ca).