Abstract
The water and power networks are heavily interdependent. The water network requires power for the extraction, treatment, and distribution processes. The power network requires water for thermoelectric generation, i.e., cooling and emissions scrubbing, as well as fuel extraction and processing. By and large, these networks are operated independently, but there is a growing body of research beginning to demonstrate the benefits of operating these networks jointly. In this talk, I will describe our research to develop operational planning and real-time control strategies for coupled water-power distribution networks under uncertainty. Specifically, we formulate a chance constrained programming problem that simultaneously determines water pumping schedules along with the parameters of real-time control policies that can be used to respond to water and power demand forecast errors. We show how the water network can help the power network manage voltage deviations resulting from intermittent solar PV production, while satisfying the water demand and the physical constraints of both networks. This is joint work with Anna Stuhlmacher.
Bio
Johanna Mathieu is an associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Prior to joining Michigan, she was a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. She completed her PhD at the University of California at Berkeley in 2012. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and the Ernest and Bettine Kuh Distinguished Faculty Award. Her research focuses on ways to reduce the environmental impact, cost, and inefficiency of electric power systems via new operational and control strategies. She is particularly interested in developing new methods to actively engage distributed flexible resources such as energy storage, electric loads, and distributed renewable resources in power system operation, which are especially important in power systems with high penetrations of intermittent renewable energy resources such as wind and solar.
