More than 100 power systems experts, utility operators and vendors from across the globe gathered at a conference and workshop organized by representatives from Texas A&M University to discuss how big data and intelligent systems are revolutionizing the power grid operation in a competitive environment with a high penetration of renewable energy.
The 19th International Conference on Intelligent System Applications to Power Systems (ISAP) Conference was held Sept. 17-20 in San Antonio. The conference was organized by Dr. Karen Butler-Purry, interim vice president for research and professor; Dr. Chanan Singh, Regents Professor and Irma Runyon Chair Professor; and Dr. Le Xie, associate professor; all in the Texas A&M College of Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Xie also led the organization of the first Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Utility Big Data Workshop, held Sept. 18 in conjunction with the conference.
The conference was the first of its kind to focus on big data topics in the power systems engineering area. Participants represented the power systems industry, such as utilities providers, vendors and higher education experts.
“More than half (of the) attendees came (from) outside the U.S., such as Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, Turkey and Portugal,” said Dr. Hung-Ming Chou, technical committee co-chair of the event. “The workshop was the first of its kind to focus (on) big data topics in the power systems engineering area -- big data challenges and opportunity, platform and warehouse, research, and case studies.”
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), CenterPoint Energy, Oncor Electric Delivery Company, Austin Energy and CPS Energy were among the participants. Bill Magness, chief executive officer of ERCOT, delivered the keynote address.
The next ISAP conference is scheduled to be held in India. Read more about the conference here.