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Thursday, July 31, 2014
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)

Student Seminar

Instanton Analysis with Non-flat Voltage Profiles and Current Magnitude Constraints

Jonas Kersulis
University of Michigan

Wind fluctuations play risky games with today's electricity transmission networks. Because wind forecasts are often unreliable, transmission system operators cannot predict the wind's next move, much less prepare for it. Most wind fluctuations are harmless, but certain dangerous wind patterns could violate system constraints. Instanton analysis uses optimization to rank these dangerous patterns according to their likelihood, giving system operators the information they need to prepare. Although previous instanton analysis has provided powerful insight and promising results, the models used have been either very simple (speed with no guarantee of accuracy) or very complicated (accuracy with no guarantee of a solution). We need to study in-between methods, methods that improve accuracy while maintaining convexity. I have been working with Dr. Chertkov, Dr. Backhaus, Dr. Bent, and my adviser Dr. Hiskens to develop these methods. In this talk I will present a few of our improvements and discuss several others we plan to implement later on.

Host: Misha Chertkov