Distributed Energy Resources

Image credit: DOE Loan Programs Office

Distributed energy resources (DERs) are controllable electrical devices that plug in at the edge of the power grid, typically through buildings. DERs — such as electric vehicles, heating and cooling equipment, energy storage systems, and rooftop solar photovoltaics — will play an increasingly important role in future energy systems that decarbonize, digitalize, and decentralize their operations. In this class, students will learn to model a variety of DERs, optimize DER designs, and control DERs to reduce costs, pollution, and impacts on the power grid. This class will involve a mix of coding and mathematical analysis. Students will do semester projects on current DER research and development topics.

Flyer

Syllabus

Slack

Lecture slides

  1. Introduction
  2. Energy, electricity, and DERs
  3. Linear ordinary differential equations
  4. Linear dynamical systems
  5. Batteries and electric vehicles
  6. Buildings, part 1
  7. Buildings, part 2
  8. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
  9. Thermal storage and water heaters
  10. Solar energy
  11. Modeling summary

Lecture videos

  1. Introduction
  2. Energy, electricity, and DERs
  3. Linear ordinary differential equations
  4. Linear dynamical systems
  5. Batteries and electric vehicles
  6. Buildings, part 1
  7. Buildings, part 2
  8. Buildings wrap-up
  9. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
  10. Thermal storage and water heaters
  11. Solar energy
  12. Guest lectures on home energy
  13. Modeling summary

Homework

  1. ODEs and dynamical systems
  2. Batteries and electric vehicles
  3. Buildings
  4. HVAC and thermal storage
  5. Solar energy

Code

  1. Simple climate model (linearization, time discretization)
  2. Electric vehicles (dynamics, charging policies)
  3. Buildings (dynamics, heating/cooling policies)
  4. Water heaters (dynamics, charging policies)
  5. Solar energy (solar angles, surface irradiance, net metering)

Read, listen, watch

Archives from past semesters