CDS 270-2, Spring 2003
Mani Chandy | John Ledyard | Richard Murray | ||
Social and Information Systems Laboratory | ||||
California Institute of Technology |
In the past one could model the electricity system in terms of a few sources, a transmission network and relatively few sinks (groups of customers with similar service-levels). This system is, however, evolving to one with many sources with widely varying capacities and costs, and a huge number of consumers dynamically adjusting their demand based on prices and environmental conditions. The old model is no longer adequate. New research is needed that brings to bear economics, control theory and distributed systems to address this problem. The goal of this project is to investigate the possibility of developing a framework for designing incentives for electric power networks and their associated markets that provides robust and efficient power generation while rewarding efficiency and green power production. Possible technical thrusts of the project might be take first steps in one or more of the following areas:
Development of prototype economic mechanics for buying and selling power that address non-steady state performance and incorporate engineering considerations such as production efficiency and environmental emissions.
Analysis and synthesis of information fusion and feedback control mechanisms at the component, network, and market levels that provide high performance and robust operation in the presence of uncertainty and faults.
Implementation of economics experiments to test engineering performance
and market volatility of representative power networks, using 20--30 human
subjects and software agents interacting with a distributed simulation
of a large scale power system.
The unique aspect of this project compared with existing work will be the combination
of methods from control, computation and economics in a unified framework for
market-based systems. While the results will driven by the application to electric
power networks, the techniques are also expected to be applicable to other critical
infrastructure problems that involve interconnected economic, information, and
engineering systems.
NSF program solicitation (html): NSF 02-188
CDS Panel Report (see Section 3.2, on information and networks)
A Competitive Mechanism for the Distribution of Electric Power through a Network and the Determination of Network Capacity: Experimental Tests and Performance, Chao and Plott, 2000
Discriminatory Price Auctions in Electriciy Markets: Low Volatility at the Expense of High Price Levels, Rassenti, Smith and Wilson, 2001.
Fault Tolerance and Security for Power Transmission System Configuration with FACTS Devices, B. McMillin and M. L. Crow
The Technology of the Grid: Expansion and Extension in the 1940s and 1950s, from IEEE web site.
Introduction to the Electricity Roadmap, from EPRI.