Leveraging Machine Learning Approach to Optimize the Participation of a Wind and Storage Power Plant

Power & Energy Society

Speaker: Md. Noor-E-Alam, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University

Refreshments start at 6:00PM, talk commences at 6:30PM.

Variable energy resources such as wind farms and solar photovoltaic plants have started to play a significant role in power markets worldwide. However, challenges are faced with decision making due to the uncertainty associated with energy prices and available energy. In many markets, decisions on the amount of energy a plant commits to buy/sell must be made ahead of time before accurate information on such parameters are made available.

This talk discusses the issue of the above uncertainty from the perspective of a wind farm participating in various energy markets, including the day-ahead market. A framework for robust decision making is proposed with the objective of maximizing net profit. This framework aims at leveraging machine learning techniques to extract as much information as possible out of the available dataset. At first, it finds patterns in the daily prices, then extract information out of the sequence in which those patterns appear. The first task is done by performing a multivariate clustering, and the second task is performed by a recurrent neural network-based multiclass classifier. Our simulation experiments showed that the resulting framework has the potential to aid decision makers in managing operations and gaining competitive advantage.

Biography: Md. Noor-E-Alam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the Northeastern University. At Northeastern, Dr. Alam also holds a faculty associate position at Centre for Health Policy and Healthcare Research and an affiliated faculty position at Global Resilience Institute. Prior to his current role, he was working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, affiliated with Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Operations Research Center (ORC), and Sloan School of Management. He has completed his PhD in Engineering Management in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta (UofA) in 2013. His current research interests lie in the intersection of operations research, artificial intelligence and big-data analytics, particularly as applied to healthcare, manufacturing systems and supply chain. He is currently serving as a board of director for IISE Logistics and Supply Chain division.

Meeting Location: National Grid, 40 Sylvan Road, Waltham, MA 02451 (Rooms: Valley A&B)

Free and Open to the Public Visit the IEEE PES Boston Chapter website for further details: