Keynote Speakers
Keynote 1: Energy Transition Systems– from automatic control to AI
Professor David John Hill
Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, Monash University, Australia
Abstract:
The field of decision and control has played a critical role in establishing the electrical power grid, which has been referred to in terms like “the largest”, “the most complex” machine made by humans. The stability analysis and control of the electrical grid have evolved over about 100 years via solving problems arising in its development into a wide-area granulated network operated by layers of control and market mechanisms. Now in many parts of the world, the electrical system is undergoing a major transition to one featuring high use of variable renewable energy (VRE) sources with 100% levels being proposed in countries such as Australia. The new sources replacing coal based plants include Renewable Energy Zones (REZ) on the bulk grid and the highest per capita uptake of rooftop solar photovoltaic in the world at community level. These sources are supported by new methods of energy storage at all levels from households to the bulk grid. These technologies and associated changes in policies, regulations and markets are already making the aforementioned analysis and control methods and structures obsolete. The future control problem can now be viewed as basically an end-to-end distributed one using available flexibility in generation, network and demand-side resources, all embedded in the changing climate and weather system which features periods of wind lulls (dunkelflaute) and new levels of extreme events. To complicate the problem even further the availability of equipment internal models is much less than previously due to manufacturer non-disclosure. This all creates an unprecedented level of complexity in planning and operation of future grids, which engineers can see but is not part of a more optimistic public conversation. Nevertheless, there are many new opportunities for research and development, which will use systems, decision and control and related computing sciences. And uppermost here is consideration of the potential for use of diverse data and Generative AI. The talk will firstly review power network dynamic analysis and control around the themes of exploiting network structure, data availability and recent learning (and AI) approaches to address the classical problems of computing stability limits for synchronization, frequency and voltage stability. Then the opportunities for research on the new problems arising in the energy transitions will be addressed.
Speaker Bio:
David John Hill holds the position of Professor of Electrical Power and Energy Systems at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He is also Professor Emeritus at The University of Sydney, a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA, a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, USA, the International Federation of Automatic Control, the Asian Control Association, the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He is also a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He received the 2021 IEEE Power and Energy Society Prabha S. Kundur Power System Dynamics and Control Award and the 2022 IEEE Control System Society Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize.
Keynote 2: TBD
Professor Ren Luo
Department of Electrical Engineering at National Taiwan University
Abstract:
TBD
Speaker Bio:
Ren Luo is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at National Taiwan University and President of Robotics Society of Taiwan, and also Director of International Center of Excellence on Intelligent Robotics and Automation Research. He also served two-terms as President of National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan. He was a Professor of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA and Toshiba Chair Professor in the University of Tokyo, Japan. Dr Luo received IEEE Eugean Mittlemann Outstanding Research Achievement Award, 1996; ALCOA Foundation Outstanding Engineering Research Award, NCSU, USA; National Science Council Outstanding Research Awards, 1998-1999, 2000-2001, 2002-2005; National Science Council Distinguished Research Awards,2006-2008; TECO Outstanding Science and Technology Research Achievement Award, 2001.
Keynote 3: TBD
Professor Toby Walsh
School of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Australia
Abstract:
TBD
Speaker Bio:
Toby Walsh is Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales, research group leader at Data61, adjunct professor at QUT, external Professor of the Department of Information Science at Uppsala University, an honorary fellow of the School of Informatics at Edinburgh University and an Associate Member of the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW.