This project is to organize a national conference with leading engineering, computer science and policy making thought leaders and exchange ideas on future energy management systems (EMS). The objectives of the new EMS architectures will particularly be discussed to support the premise that IT-enabled distributed loosely coordinated architecture is both efficient and robust during major unplanned natural disasters, like hurricanes and tornadoes. At present, EMS software does not have applications that enable electricity users to pro-actively respond to system conditions during such major natural disasters. There are no tools for fast bottom-up restoration, either. The workshop will address possible problem formulations for next generation multi-layered EMS architectures capable of incentivizing the groups of users (one may refer to them as the intelligent balancing authorities (iBAs)) to utilize resources as efficiently as possible during normal condition, and be sufficiently adaptive and flexible to ensure differentiated reliable service during single/double equipment outages (planned for by the utilities now by keeping conservative stand-by the worst case reserves) as well as during natural disasters (for which utilities do not have methods to ensure reliable prioritized service without requiring excessive stand-by reserve). The workshop will explore how the distributed intelligence and the right IT signals with the right parallel asynchronous algorithms embedded into different layers would enable both social choice and system-level performance.
