Analytic foundations of the future power grid

The aim of this semester programme is to bring together the Dutch research community working on foundational issues in energy, and to establish CWI as a focal point for these efforts in the Netherlands. The proposal builds on several large national projects, and especially a large-scale research infrastructure for a future power grid, UTOPYS, of which CWI is part.

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Our energy systems are undergoing rapid changes, with increasing uncertainty (from intermittent renewables and new demands, such as EV charging), as well as increasing decentralization, new types of devices (such as inverters), and new types of markets. This has given rise to complex new dynamic phenomena, which are poorly understood and mitigated, as evidenced by recent large-scale blackout events in Spain, etc. At a fundamental level, the challenge is that existing methods used to model, analyse, and control power grids are no longer fit for purpose. Hence, new analytical foundations are needed to model such complex dynamical systems, with mathematics/CS/AI playing a major role.

The aim of this semester programme is to bring together the research community working on foundational issues in energy. The semester is complementary to several large national projects, particularly the large-scale research infrastructure UTOPYS, of which CWI is part.

The program will consist of:

  1. Kick-off: a three day conference (Monday 25 to Wednesday 27 January 2027), encompassing the entire focus of the semester programme.
  2. Focused workshop A: Bridging time-scales between power electronics, control and optimization (Monday 15 February and Tuesday 16 February 2027).
  3. Focused workshop B: reliability against extreme events and cyberattacks (Monday 1 and Tuesday 2 March 2027).
  4. Focused workshop C: Computational models of energy markets (Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th March 2027).
  5. Focused workshop D: Integrated hydrogen-electricity systems (Optimization & Modeling) (Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th April 2027).

The core team organizing this Research Semester Programme consists of: Bert Zwart (CWI), Valentin Robu (CWI), Michele Cucuzzella [RUG], Madeleine Gibescu [UU] and Peter Palensky [TUD].
Together with Han La Poutré (CWI), other researchers from the following universities are involved: Wageningen University, University of Twente, University of Groningen, Utrecht University, Eindhoven University of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Radboud University and VU Amsterdam.

More information will follow.