Workshops and Tutorials

Workshops and Tutorials

List of Workshops and Tutorials

The workshops and tutorials will take place the first day of the conference, on Monday, November 2, 2015.

Morning Session (9.00 - 12.30)
 
WS1 :Evaluation Tools and Testbeds for Smart Grid Systems – Focus on Communications
TU1 :  Cybersecurity Aspects of Smart Grid Systems

Afternoon Session (14.00 - 17.30)
 
WS2 : Smart Cities Enabled by SmartGridComms – Challenges and Opportunities from a Grid Modernization Perspective
TU2: Privacy Preservation in Smart Meter Data Collection  and Vehicle Charging Coordination

Description of Workshops

The workshops will take place according to the following format: introduction by the moderator, presentations and roundtable discussion with the speakers and panelists.

WS1: Evaluation Tools and Testbeds for Smart Grid Systems  - Focus on Communication
Monday November 2, 9:00-12:30
Room: GHJK


Smart grid technologies utilize increased monitoring and control of the electric grid to improve reliability and efficiency. The Smart Grid initiatives leverage an increased dependency of information and communication technologies (ICT) to integrate more accurate physical parameter measurements and intelligent controller devices. However, due to limited access to smart grid infrastructure both in terms of assets and the communication network, the evaluation of proposed techniques for several Smart Grid problems such as control, data collection, cyber-attacks, fault detection etc. is a challenging task for researchers. There are numerous ways for the researchers from their own domains to conduct assessment and evaluation. These tools include simulators, emulators and small testbeds. Nonetheless, these tools fall short in accurately and realistically assessing the performance. For instance, there is a need for co-­‐simulation tools to integrate power simulators with network simulators. In addition, there needs to be mechanisms to emulate attacker behaviors on different components of Smart Grid.
The goal of this workshop is to bring together academic and industrial researchers to identify and discuss technical challenges and recent results related to Smart Grid evaluation tools. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:
 
  • Modeling, analysis, simulation, and evaluation of secure cyber-­‐physical systems.
  • Control, graph, and game-­‐theoretic approaches for CPS and smart grid security.
  • Resilient cyber-­‐physical system architectures and technologies
  • Cyber-physical modeling and analysis of secure smart grid systems
  • Network simulators for Smart Grid communications
  • Co‐simulators for Smart Grid operations
  • Criminal attack behavior involvement in simulators
  • Testbed developments
 
Workshop Co-Chair
Arif Sarwat, Florida International University, USA
Saroj Biswas, Temple University, USA
Walid Saad, Virginia Tech, USA

Other Participants:
Gurdip Singh
Michael Coddington
Ali Tajer
Amin Khodayi
Timothy R. McJunkin
Jesse GANTZ

Presentations – (Link to slides will be placed here)
 
Roundtable Discussion – (details will be added later)


 WS2: Smart Cities Enabled by Smart Grid Comms – Challenges and Opportunities from a Grid Modernization Perspective
Monday November 2, 14:00 - 17:30
Room: GHJK


 
The rapidly changing socio-economic and geo-political climate of the world has necessitated serious thought and action toward designing and building Smart Cities – urban communities that capitalize on deep but accessible technology and good governance principles to provide a sustainable yet high standard of living and a vibrant and collaborative economic climate to their citizens. These places are envisioned to have sophisticated systems in place to meet their critical needs and operations: energy and power, transportation, water, sanitation, health services, law enforcement etc. Recognizing the limitations of the existing, and in many cases, crumbling, infrastructure behind these elements, there is tremendous opportunity here to harness cutting edge digital technologies, their interconnections, and the insights from data that they have been generating, to impact the development efforts in a transformative manner. Time is short: the antagonistic forces of increasingly scarce resources and rising demand and costs are changing the world rapidly. Action is needed immediately.
Recent and on-going innovations in energy delivery, management and control of power grids, and the ability to actively participate in one’s energy consumption, place the domain of Smart Grids in a unique position to shape the vision and reality behind Smart Cities. Many utilities, companies, academicians and government agencies are already working on defining architectures and testing technologies that will affect the quality and sustainability of power – from generation and distribution to consumption and monitoring. This panel brings together experts from these varied fields to discuss their experiences and perceptions. The topics to be covered are:
  • Renewables – Discussion on the age of solar/wind, batteries, distributed generation, and transactive energy
  • New metering paradigms – Architecture reviews of next generation of meters, case studies of test deployments, new communication methodologies
  • Asset management – How new sensing instrumentation and technologies are affecting grid reliability and enabling conservative, proactive resource management
  • In-building energy management – Curbing the footprints of the largest consumers of energy in urban areas, like hospitals, office spaces, universities, etc.
  • Business cases – How funding mechanisms for driving innovation work, what opportunities lie before venture capitalists, how the interplay between economics and regulation affects innovation
 
Workshop Co-Chairs:
Dr. Hao Liang, University of Alberta, Canada (Slides)
Dr. Junho Hong, ABB US Corporate Research Center, Raleigh, NC, USA (Slides)

Other Participants:
Wei Sun, University of Central Florida, USA (Slides)
Kevin Corcoran, Tollgrade Inc, USA (Slides)
A. Selcuk Uluagac, Florida International University, USA
 
Roundtable Discussion



Description of Tutorials

TU1: Cybersecurity Aspects of SmartGrid Systems
Monday November 2, 9:00-12:30

Room: Watson Island

Microgrids are small-scale power systems which could be either grid-connected or islanded. When connected to the main utility grid, microgrids can function as normal local distribution systems. In comparison, when there is a major fault on the utility grid, microgrids can automatically island themselves and supply the local demand by onsite generation such as diesel units or distributed renewable generation and storage devices. Due to the flexibility of microgrid operation modes, the deployment of microgrids can achieve a variety of objectives including improved energy economics, increased power supply reliability and resilience, etc. In particular, after the recent extreme weather events in the U.S. such as hurricane Sandy, microgrids have been recognized as one of the most effective technologies to enhance energy supply security and resilience. This tutorial is to introduce the basic concept of microgrids and the associated technologies. A variety of advanced control and energy management techniques used for microgrid security, operation and planning will be discussed.
 
Presenter
Dr. Jianhui Wang
Section Lead for Advanced Power Grid Modeling at the Energy Systems Division at Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL


TU2: Smart Grid Frontiers: Smart Sensors, Signal Processing and Data Analysis Applications
Monday November 2, 14:00-17:30
Room: Watson Island

Managing asset health on the power grid is a constant challenge for utilities, particularly when there may be related community impacts. A large percentage of their budget is regularly apportioned to operational and capital expenses for this purpose. This tutorial explores some new directions of asset management and monitoring that utilities are beginning to employ using Smart Sensors and data processing. For example, overhead conductors that sag beyond specified clearance levels, perhaps due to heat or overloaded circuits, may be caught by tractors or other tall vehicles passing underneath. There have been many reported deaths all over the world due to this. Improved data collection, communications and signal processing capabilities of distributed sensors and back office systems are being used to predict and track this and similar problems. This tutorial gives an overview of some recent work in these directions.


 
Presenter
Dr. Kartikeya Tripathi
Smart Grid Principal at Tollgrade Communications, Reston, Virginia, USA

Dr. Carlos Duque
Federal University of Juiz de Fora, BRAZIL