Energy systems week: management of variability and uncertainty in energy systems

Workshop theme

This meeting is a one-week research and scoping workshop to discuss applications of mathematics to the management of complex energy systems. It will be held at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge from 22 to 26 April this year. It is intended as a follow-up to the Spring 2010 Programme in Stochastic Processes in Communication Sciences, and the one-week Energy Systems workshop which formed part of that programme, and subsequent one-day events on the theme of mathematics in the management of energy (Energy Systems Day and Maths Underpinning Energy Workshop).

The aims of the meeting are:

To address and make progress with some of the difficult problems now arising in large electrical energy networks (e.g. that supplying Great Britain) and concerned with the management of variability and uncertainty in these systems. These problems are primarily:
1. the characterisation and prediction of complex patterns of variability in both supply and demand, notalby those in supply arising from an increased reliance on renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar power;
2. the management of the system in response to uncertainty, via scheduling, the use of storage, and time-shifting of demand;
3. the design of market mechanisms so as to ensure economically efficient operation of the overall system, particularly in the balancing of supply and demand.
The solution of these problems requires the expert application of systems mathematics, i.e. probability and stochastic modelling, statistics and optimization, together with strong computational expertise in these areas.
To set up sustainable and lasting industrial-academic partnerships in these areas, and also to obtain a greater mutual understanding between industry and academia of how they may better combine their respective approaches to work for the common good.

It is intended that the meeting should focus on identifying where and how mathematics can contribute to the pressing system management problems now facing the energy industry. To that end there will be a relatively small number of talks, which are by invitation, together with substantial time for brainstorming and discussion.

Thus on the Monday and on the Tuesday morning there will be presentations from industry experts (not all of whom will be from industry itself), and we shall also take some time on the Friday to consider what we have learned during the week. The time in between(other than the Wednesday afternoon - see below) will have an appropriate balance of talks and brainstorming sessions.

On the Wednesday afternoon we shall have an an "Open for Business meeting", in which a number of senior people from industry and government will give high-level views of problems likely to present significant future challenges. One such is that of electricity market reform a subject which raises longer term issues of design of efficient market mechanisms so as to provide optimal value to consumers.

The application is closed

The Organisers would like to thank the following sponsors for their generous support of the event:

Timetable

Monday 22nd April 2013
09:00 to 10:00	Registration and Welcome	Room 1
10:00 to 10:40	Stochastic Power Generation From Renewables: Forecasting and Optimization Challenges for its Optimal Integration	Room 1
10:40 to 11:00	Coffee and Tea	No Room Required
11:00 to 11:45	Michael Pollitt University of Cambridge Electricity Market Reform in the UK	Room 1
11:45 to 12:30	Yves Smeers KU Leuven Trade-offs, Uncertainty, Coordination and Market Design in Restructuring for Decarbonisation	Room 1
12:30 to 14:00	Lunch, Churchill College	No Room Required
14:00 to 14:30	Xavier Brossat Electricté de France A Range of Methods for Electricity Consumption Forecasting	Room 1
14:45 to 15:15	Yannig Goude EDF, France Semi-Parametric Models for Electricity Consumption Forecasting	Room 1
15:30 to 15:45	Tea and Coffee	No Room Required
15:45 to 16:30	Jean-Yves Leboudec EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Real-Time Storage and Demand Management	Room 1
16:45 to 18:45	Wine Reception, Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences	No Room Required

Tuesday 23rd April 2013
09:30 to 10:00	Gruffudd Edwards Heriot-Watt University Forecasting Aggregated Wind Power Availability Over Extended Regions	Room 1
10:15 to 10:45	Paul Plumptre National Grid, Electricity System Operator Wind Problems for the Electricity Planner and Operator	Room 1
11:00 to 11:30	Coffee and Tea	Room 1
11:30 to 12:00	Modelling and Forecasting of Network Time Series	Room 1
12:00 to 12:30	Coherence Analysis of Multivariate Time Series	Room 1
12:30 to 14:00	Lunch, Churchill College	No Room Required
14:00 to 14:30	Peter Grindrod University of Reading Domestic Behaviour and Demand: What Can Be Learned from Analysis of Smart Meter Data and How This May Be Useful?	Room 1
14:30 to 15:00	Physically-Based Modelling Approaches to Power-System Forecasting: Weather and Climate	Room 1
15:00 to 15:30	Tea and Coffee	No Room Required
15:30 to 17:00	Andrew Richards National Grid, Electricity System Operator Forecasting in Energy Networks Discussion	Room 1

Wednesday 24th April 2013
09:30 to 10:15	Sean Meyn University of Florida Control of the Grid in 2020, and How Economics Can Help Us	Room 1
10:30 to 11:00	Coffee and Tea	No Room Required
11:00 to 12:30	Optimization in Energy Markets Discussion	Room 1
12:30 to 14:00	Lunch, Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences	No Room Required
14:00 to 14:30	Peter Lang UK Power Networks Challenges - Change is the Only Constant	Room 1
14:00 to 17:00	Open for Business	Room 1
14:30 to 15:00	Robert Dixon BEIS - Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Reflecting and Communicating Uncertainty in Analysis	Room 1
15:00 to 15:30	Technical Limits of Penetration of Non-Synchronous Wind and PV Generation in an AC Interconnection	Room 1
15:30 to 16:00	Tea and Coffee	No Room Required
16:00 to 17:00	Sean Meyn University of Florida Panel Discussion	Room 1

Thursday 25th April 2013
09:30 to 10:00	Marek Kubik University of Reading Responding to the Challenges of Wind Variability	Room 1
10:00 to 10:30	Tim Schulze University of Edinburgh A Scenario Decomposition Method for Stochastic Unit Commitment Problems	Room 1
10:30 to 11:00	James Cruise Heriot-Watt University A Series of Interesting Power System Models	Room 1
11:00 to 11:30	Coffee and Tea	No Room Required
11:30 to 12:00	Ksenia Chernysh Heriot-Watt University Controlling Conventional Generation to Minimize Forecast Error Cost	Room 1
12:00 to 12:30	Glyn Eggar Heriot-Watt University Using Storage to Control Uncertainty in Power Systems	Room 1
12:30 to 14:00	Lunch, Churchill College	No Room Required
14:00 to 14:30	Valuing Storage and Demand-Side Management	Room 1
14:30 to 15:00	Frank Kelly University of Cambridge Optimisation of Storage and Demand Management Discussion	Room 1
15:00 to 15:30	Tea and Coffee	No Room Required
15:30 to 17:00	Frank Kelly University of Cambridge Optimization of Storage and Demand Management Discussion (Continued)	Room 1

Friday 26th April 2013
09:30 to 11:00	Robert Leese The Smith Institute Problem Scoping, Identification of Mathematical Grand Challenges in Energy Systems - Breakout Discussion Groups	Room 1
11:00 to 11:30	Coffee and Tea	No Room Required
11:30 to 12:30	Robert Leese The Smith Institute Problem Scoping, Identification of Mathematical Grand Challenges in Energy Systems - Summary	Room 1
12:30 to 14:00	Lunch, Churchill College	No Room Required

Organisers

James Cruise Heriot-Watt University
Chris Dent University of Durham
Sergey Foss Heriot-Watt University
Robert Leese The Smith Institute
David Lenaghan National Grid, Electricity System Operator
Andrew Richards National Grid, Electricity System Operator
Stan Zachary Heriot-Watt University

Speakers

Xavier Brossat Electricté de France
Ksenia Chernysh Heriot-Watt University
James Cruise Heriot-Watt University
Robert Dixon BEIS - Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
Gruffudd Edwards Heriot-Watt University
Glyn Eggar Heriot-Watt University
Yannig Goude EDF, France
Peter Grindrod University of Reading
Frank Kelly University of Cambridge
Marek Kubik University of Reading
Peter Lang UK Power Networks
Jean-Yves Leboudec EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Robert Leese The Smith Institute
Sean Meyn University of Florida
Paul Plumptre National Grid, Electricity System Operator
Michael Pollitt University of Cambridge
Andrew Richards National Grid, Electricity System Operator
Tim Schulze University of Edinburgh
Yves Smeers KU Leuven

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