2021 Grid Science Winter School & Conference

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The "Grid Science" program at Los Alamos National Laboratory combines complex systems, statistical physics, control theory, optimization, machine learning with energy system engineering to develop innovative approaches to new and challenging programs in the design, optimization, and control of the electrical grid, natural gas networks and other complex engineered networks. This LANL program is funded by the Advanced Grid Modeling Program in Office of Electricity in U.S. Department of Energy and the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In addition to the research that we are carrying out in the program, a significant program component is the development of a research community around Grid Science. We believe that the best way to develop this community is to bring together and foster interactions between experts in Grid Science research areas and the best students and postdocs in these areas. To this end, LANL has organized three Grid Science Winter School and Conferences in January of 2015, 2017, and 2019. We will be holding our 4th Biennial Grid Science Winter School and Conference during the week of January 11-15, 2021.

The 4th Grid Science Winter School and Conference will cover theoretical and algorithmic aspects of electrical and interdependent networks that have immediate and potential future importance to the research community. The areas of focus for this incarnation of the Winter School and Conference are emerging from theoretical needs perceived within DOE Office of Electricity and including topics like resilience, the ACOPF optimization competition, distribution modeling, and interdependent energy systems. Several of these needs are challenging crosscuts between related, but often isolated, research areas, including Analysis, Optimization, Control and Machine Learning over Physical Networks.

Consistent with previous editions, the entire event will last for five days (January 11-15, 2021) - three days of the Winter School followed by two days of the Conference, with the exact proportion to be determined based upon availability of the lecturers and seminar speakers. The Winter School portion will consist of 3 lecture blocks (each block representing a subject) given in three days to roughly 30-40 graduate students and postdocs chosen via an application and screening process to ensure high quality attendees that are able to extract the maximum possible from the event. To ground the students and to establish a common frame of reference for the following theoretical topic areas, the School will open with overview presentations on the physics and engineering of the energy networks. This introduction will be followed by a series of lectures that introduce the students to a range of advanced theoretical topics that are not typically available at their home institutions. The approximately 60-90 minute lectures will consist of a general introduction to the area and in depth discussion of examples to provide a more solid understanding of the approaches. The intent is not to make the students immediately able to apply the theoretical techniques, but rather to demonstrate the usefulness of the methods, stimulate interest in them, and develop crosscutting collaboration between students from different disciplines. On each day, the lecture block will be followed by a panel session with experts from industry, the national labs, and academia focused on the topic of the lecture block.

The Winter School is followed by the Conference consisting of presentations by established and emerging top researchers in theoretical methods applied to energy networks. Robust discussion and debate of topics will be encouraged. Each junior attendee of the Winter School will be required to present a poster and a committee of judges will select several posters for presentation at the Conference.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the 4th Grid Science Winter School and Conference is being planned as a hybrid virtual and in person event. Speakers and attendees will be provided the option to participate remotely to meet evolving requirements on travel and in person meetings. A decision will be made later in the fall on whether or not to hold the event as a completely virtual event.