Tsoukalas This award supports the PI, Lefteri Tsoukalas and two graduate students from Purdue University in a collaboration with George Tsatsaronis of the Institute for Energy Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. The research focus is to pursue sound methodologies for minimizing electricity production costs in the newly deregulated, highly competitive, and environmentally constrained electricity markets by combining state-of-the-art thermoeconomic analysis and knowledge-based approaches. Significant benefits will be derived from integrating thermoeconomic analysis methods with knowledge-based approaches, including expert systems, neurofuzzy systems and hypermedia. Important research, educational, and technological benefits will result from combining the German group's expertise in thermoeconomics with the U.S. group's expertise in knowledge-based approaches.
