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Dec212020 by adminNo Comments

Petr Musilek a fellow of the Energy Futures Lab (EFL)

Engagement

ECE Professor, Petr Musilek, has been named a fellow of the Energy Futures Lab (EFL). The Lab is a program run by The Natural Step Canada, a national non-government organization, which started in Ottawa in 2003 and is a leading member of The Natural Step International network. Dr. Musilek has already begun working on the EFL’s Energy.AI project, which will establish collaborative initiatives that apply machine learning and AI to problems of climate change within the energy and power industries. The Energy Futures Lab asks, “How can Alberta’s leadership position in today’s energy system serve as a platform for transitioning to the energy system the future needs?” Convened by a group of stakeholders including energy companies, banks, government organizations and NGOs, the Lab has a 2050 vision for Alberta’s energy future.…

Dec212020 by adminNo Comments

Distributed BESS Management for Mitigating PV Overvoltage

Articles

ECE doctoral student Mohammed Al-Saffar and professor Petr Musilek have recently published an article in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid titled Reinforcement Learning based Distributed BESS Management for Mitigating Overvoltage Issues in Systems with High PV Penetration. High levels of penetration of distributed photovoltaic generators can cause serious overvoltage issues, especially during periods of high power generation and light loads. Although battery energy storage systems (BESS) at the PV generation sites can be used to absorb extra power during the light load periods, their capacity may not be sufficient to allow charging every time power absorption is desired. To tackle this, the authors propose a cooperative state of charge control scheme to alleviate the BESS capacity problem through Monte Carlo tree search based reinforcement learning (MCTS-RL). Their proposed intelligent method coordinates the distributed batteries…

Dec212020 by adminNo Comments

Performance Evaluation of Blockchain Systems

Articles

ENTAIL students Caixiang (Stephen) Fan and Sara Ghaemi just published a systematic survey on Performance Evaluation of Blockchain Systems in IEEE Access. Working with ECE professor Petr Musilek and EECS colleague Hamzeh Khazaei (York University), they review this important aspect of this distributed ledger technology with applications ranging from cryptocurrency to energy. They categorize empirical and analytical approaches to evaluation and extract important criteria for selecting the most suitable blockchain evaluation techniques.

Dec212020 by adminNo Comments

ChainFaas: Open Blockchain-based Serverless Platform

Articles

ECE student Sara Ghaemi just published an article on an Open Blockchain-based Serverless Platform called ChainFaaS in IEEE Access. Working with ECE professor Petr Musilek and EECS colleague Hamzeh Khazaei (York University), Sara developed an open, public, blockchain-based serverless platform (https://www.chainfaas.com/) that takes advantage of the unused computational capacity of personal computers to run serverless tasks. The open-access article can be accessed here: https://lnkd.in/gSwbnb8

Dec212020 by adminNo Comments

I-STEAM Pathways Summer Internship

Grants, Projects

This summer, ENTAIL member Alyssa D. Schatz has participated in I-Steam Pathways Environmental Education Program. Working with Petr Musilek, she researched clean energy transitions for remote Indigenous communities. She has taken a closer look at microgrids and Indigenous ownership of energy resources and mapped research innovation within this space. Through the utilization of microgrids within Indigenous clean energy projects, there is a potential to create additional meaningful space for Indigenous values. Decentralized energy can promote reconciliation, self-determination, and economic development for Indigenous communities.

Dec212020 by adminNo Comments

Mitacs Internship on Forecasting AI

Grants

ENTAIL student Elizaveta Kharlova and fellow ECE student Marcin Pietrasik have just been awarded Mitacs Accelerate internships. They will work under the supervision of professors Marek Reformat and Petr Musilek with FIND AI on advanced AI for demand forecast in fashion and apparel retailing. In particular, they will develop predictive models for numerical data and construct hybrid knowledge graphs with pictures and text.

Sep12020 by adminNo Comments

Mitacs Internships on Blockchain Technology

Grants, Projects

ENTAIL students Bahareh Lashkari and Caixiang (Stephen) Fan have just been awarded Mitacs Accelerate internships. The two members of ENTAIL research lab will work under the supervision of professor Petr Musilek and ReWatt Power on applications of blockchain technology in the energy market. In particular, they will develop algorithms to ensure the integrity of energy market data and to facilitate data analytics.

Aug172020 by adminNo Comments

NSERC Alliance Grant Project

Grants, Projects

A team of researchers from UAlberta and UCalgary has been awarded a $4.2M NSERC Alliance grant titled 'Towards Future Interconnected Electric System'. Led by ECE professor Petr Musilek, the interdisciplinary team of 16 researchers will be joined by more than 60 students to conduct research under the following four themes: System Modeling and Artificial Intelligence for Power Systems (Petr Musilek, Lori Thorlakson, Tim Weis, Hamid Zareipour), Advanced Power Electronics for the Smart Grid (Greg Kish, Qing Zhao, S. Ali KHAJEHODDIN, John Salmon), Grid Integration of Renewable and Distributed Energy (Ryan (Yunwei) Li, Andy Knight, Wilsun Xu, Omid Ardakanian), and Safety and Security for the Smart Grid (Hao Liang, Dr. Lianne Lefsrud, P.Eng., Yindi Jing, Marek Reformat). The 5-year project builds on partnership with the major players in Alberta’s power industry: AESO, AltaLink, ATCO Electric, ENMAX, EPCOR and FortisAlberta. The Alberta Power Industry Consortium (APIC) built a decade ago by Wilsun Xu,…