Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering, Andrew Liu and Thomas and Jane Schmidt Rising Star Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering, Gesualdo Scutari are part of team awarded by the US Dept. of Energy seeking to improve reliability and efficiency of the electric utility grid with Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. The PI for the grant is Purdue ECE's Professor, Xiaojun Lin. Also partnering on the grant is Purdue ECE's Dionysios Aliprantis, Siemens, and Oak Ridge National Labs. The grant comes from the US Department of Energy, Natinal Energy Tech Lab.

Purdue will lead a team to develop technology for an Energy Service Interface (ESI). The Interface will include novel pricing, control, learning, and distributed optimization algorithms, allowing utilities to proactively and reactively assign grid assets to increase load flexibility and regulate voltage/frequency. The technology features learning and control functions across the utility grid, improving efficiency and resiliency.

Other institutions leading grant projects in the US Department of Energy, Electric Office program include Stanford, MIT, and Portland State.

The press release from the US Department of Energy can be found here.