Optimizing Smart Power Grids

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) CGU/Mathematics, 2010-11

Liaison(s): Russell Bent PhD, Jason Johnson PhD
Advisor(s): Allon Percus (CGU)
Students(s): Robert Carrington (PM-F), Amelia Musselman (PM-S), Mark Wilson (CGU)

The development of a power system based on renewable resources requires an appropriately designed power grid. This has become increasingly important as the transfer from non-renewable to renewable energy sources has become widespread. Our project focuses on optimizing the power grid design by minimizing the combined costs of transmission line placement and power loss. We are developing a hybrid approach for the optimization problem, combining the discrete method of genetic algorithms with a continuous Newton’s method.