Title:

Monitoring and Learning Algorithms for Future Power Grids

Abstract:

The pressing need to modernize the aging power grid has culminated into the smart grid vision, which entails the widespread use of state-of-the-art sensing, control, and information technologies. Instrumental for leveraging these smart technologies are novel approaches to monitoring and grid data analytics.  In this context, the present talk starts with pertinent signal processing algorithms for power system state estimation based on semi-definite relaxation, decentralized solvers and circuit breaker reconfiguration tools, as well as optimal placement of phasor measurement units. Machine learning paradigms are also presented for identifying line outages, which is a critical task for preventing cascade failures. By accounting for the consumers’ responsiveness to prices, real-time pricing is also performed via online convex optimization to elicit desirable demand response and thus reduce peaks in load curves. The efficacy of the novel approaches is assessed using standard IEEE power grid benchmarks.

Bio:

Georgios B. Giannakis (Fellow’97) received his Diploma in Electrical Engr. from the Ntl. Tech. Univ. of Athens, Greece, 1981. From 1982 to 1986 he was with the Univ. of Southern California (USC), where he received his MSc. in Electrical Engineering, 1983, MSc. in Mathematics, 1986, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engr., 1986. Since 1999 he has been a professor with the Univ. of Minnesota, where he now holds an ADC Chair in Wireless Telecommunications in the ECE Department, and serves as director of the Digital Technology Center. His general interests span the areas of communications, networking and statistical signal processing – subjects on which he has published more than 370 journal papers, 630 conference papers, 20 book chapters, two edited books and two research monographs (h-index 109). Current research focuses on big data analytics, wireless cognitive radios, mobile ad hoc networks, renewable energy, power grid, gene-regulatory, and social networks. He is the (co-) inventor of 22 patents issued, and the (co-) recipient of 8 best paper awards from the IEEE Signal Processing (SP) and Communications Societies, including the G. Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications. He also received Technical Achievement Awards from the SP Society (2000), from EURASIP (2005), a Young Faculty Teaching Award, the G. W. Taylor Award for Distinguished Research from the University of Minnesota, and the IEEE Fourier Technical