Fabio Andrade
University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, PR·Engineering
Hurricanes, blizzards, floods and sudden temperature swings knock out electric power. Physical and cyber attacks add to the risk.
- Fields
Engineering
Computer Science
Social Science
- Topics
power grid resilience
smart grid
microgrids
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Co-design microgrid solutions with community members in Maine, Alaska, South Dakota and Puerto Rico, and apply lessons from each region to the others to reduce the harm severe weather does to power supply.
- Develop a strategy for restoring power across multiple microgrids that puts critical community and household loads first, using prediction-based control and estimation across multiple timescales.
- Use grid-forming (GFM) inverters, power electronics that can set grid voltage and frequency, to give the grid the best possible support while power is restored during and after extreme weather.
- Create techniques to prevent, detect and counter hardware Trojans, hidden malicious changes in electronic hardware, so the whole grid can better withstand cyber-attacks during severe weather.
- Build region-specific research infrastructure linking physical and computer systems, plus synthetic power-system datasets, to support data science and AI research on operating power grids.
More about the research
The power grid is one of the most complex systems people have built, and communities in very different regions depend on it during and after extreme weather. This project asks how grids can be made more resilient, and how affected communities can help design the solutions.
Why it matters
Communities facing hurricanes, blizzards and flooding, including those in Puerto Rico, rural Alaska, South Dakota and Maine, could recover power faster if restoration plans put critical loads first. Defenses against hardware cyber-attacks could make the grid more secure. Open, region-specific synthetic grid data could help utilities, federal agencies and researchers apply AI to operating the power grid.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Kwanghee Won
South Dakota State University, SD·Engineering
Develop a strategy to restore power across multiple connected microgrids after extreme weather, putting critical community and household loads first, using a multi-timescale predictive control and estimation framework with grid-forming (GFM) inverters.
Dominic Gross
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Engineering·Early-career
Develop a control design and stability analysis framework for grid-forming inverters that explicitly accounts for the static and dynamic limits of power electronics and renewable generation in zero-carbon power systems.
Wencong Su
University of Michigan-Dearborn, MI·Engineering
Build a fundamental understanding of the practical challenges facing low-inertia power grids with high penetration of grid-forming inverter-based energy resources, which set grid voltage and frequency themselves.
The school
University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez: 2 labs on PI Pages, $26M a year on research, 23 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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