Abstract: A global drive towards decarbonization, alongside advances in sensing and control technologies, are fueling rapid transformations in the energy infrastructures. As the penetration of distributed clean energy resources increases, novel operational challenges emerge related to, but not limited to, the reduction of system inertia and ever-shrinking separation in operational time-scales. In this talk, we will cover some of our recent work on distributed intelligence and control solutions to enable safe and reliable grid operations. Specifically, using elements from robust nonlinear controls, polynomial optimization, and operator theory, we will present methods for modular and scalable verification and embedding of safety and reliability specifications.

Speaker Bio: Soumya Kundu is a Senior Engineer in the Optimization and Control Group at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), USA. He received his Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Masters in Control Systems Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 2009, and his PhD in Control Systems from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor in 2013. Prior to joining PNNL, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA. His research mostly focuses on application of controls and optimization methods to cyber-physical systems. He manages several projects funded by the US Department of Energy, and also serves as a sub-thrust lead in the PNNL initiative on Resilience Through Data-Driven, Intelligently Designed Control (RD2C).