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

Discord

Lecture slides

  1. Introduction
  2. Linear ordinary differential equations
  3. Linear dynamical systems
  4. Batteries and electric vehicles
  5. Buildings
  6. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
  7. Thermal storage and water heaters
  8. Solar energy
  9. Modeling summary
  10. Optimization overview
  11. Convex sets and functions
  12. Solving convex optimization problems
  13. Objectives in DER optimization
  14. Battery optimization examples

Lecture videos

  1. Introduction
  2. Linear ordinary differential equations
  3. Linear dynamical systems
  4. Batteries and electric vehicles
  5. Project ideas from Ben Larralde at Flip
  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
  12. Optimization overview
  13. Convex sets and functions
  14. Solving convex optimization problems
  15. Objectives in DER optimization
  16. Battery optimization examples

Homework

  1. ODEs and dynamical systems
  2. Batteries and electric vehicles
  3. Buildings
  4. HVAC and thermal storage
  5. Solar
  6. Getting started with CVX

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 (solar angles, surface irradiance, net metering)

Student feedback