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Energy Management ForumOlivier Teytaud

TAO, Inria-Saclay IDF, Cnrs 8623, Lri, Univ. Paris-Sud,Digiteo Labs, PascalNetwork of Excellence.

Tainan 2012Forum jointly organized by - TAO, Inria, Univ. Paris-Sud, UMR CNRS 8623- OASE, National University of Tainan.

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F rance & Ta iwan & Energy

France is an old country,Taiwan is a young country (yet, with long history in China).Both are great, very different countries.I spend one year here, it's just great.

France has a long tradition in energy.Taiwan arrived more recently, but has big strengths (PV units, smart grids,

& renewable resources: wind, ocean currents).

Both have low price electricity.Too low or not too low ?

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France and energy, historically:- decision of independence w.r.t other countries (==> nuclear power)- nuclear power is not stopped after Fukushima- due to strong dirigism, huge companies:

- EDF = largest utility company in the world- GDF-Suez = largest energy company- Areva = world leader of nuclear power- Renault-Nissan = a leader in electric cars

In particular, very strong electricity companies.

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ELECTRICITY GENERATIONin FRANCE

France = world champion

of nuclearpower plants

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ELECTRICITY GENERATIONin FRANCE

France = world champion

of nuclearpower plants

In Belgium aswell :-)

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THE FUTURE OF ENERGY IN FRANCE:

CONNECTIONS TO THE NORTH OF EUROPE ?CONNECTIONS TO AFRICA ?

- using North-Europe wind in winter ?- using Africa's sun in summer ? (related to PengHu)==> super-grids

MORE NUCLEAR POWER ?- because currently coal / oil kill more people than nuclear power ?- and because no earthquake and no tsunami in France?

OR NO MORE NUCLEAR POWER ?because we never know what could happen(terrorism ?)

“SMART” GRIDS: which kind of “smartness” ?

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THE FUTURE OF ENERGY IN TAIWAN:

Increasing prices ? (electricity so cheap in Taiwan!)

Huge wind farms in PengHu ?

Smart grids everywhere ?

What about nuclear power plants ? (seismic area)

Connections to other countries ?

Ocean currents ?

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Two main problems for energy management:

1. Taking care of the current system:At each time step (e.g. ~ hour),

decide which power plant to switch on or off

2. Improving the current system:At each time step (e.g. ~ 5 years), decide

which power plant,connection, device, law, should be built.

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Two main problems for energy management:

1. Taking care of the current system:At each time step (e.g. ~ hour),

decide which power plant to switch on or off

2. Improving the current system:At each time step (e.g. ~ 5 years), decide

new power plants,new connections,new devices,new laws,new prices...

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O p e n i n g a r e s e r v o i r p r o d u c e s e n e r g y ( a n d w a t e r g o e s t o a n o t h e r r e s e r v o i r )

Electricitydemand

Nuclear plants

ClassicalThermal plants

Lost water

Reservoir 1

Reservoir 2

Reservoir 3Reservoir 4

Reservoir 5

RAIN

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O p e n i n g a r e s e r v o i r p r o d u c e s e n e r g y ( a n d w a t e r g o e s t o a n o t h e r r e s e r v o i r )

Electricitydemand

Nuclear plants

ClassicalThermal plants

Lost water

Reservoir 1

Reservoir 2

Reservoir 3Reservoir 4

Reservoir 5

RAIN

3x365x24 time steps80 stocks

Many uncertainties

Loss function in billions of euros+ecological cost.

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So :

Operational management involves plenty of decisions: which power from which power plant ?

Also: buying on markets

Plenty of physical constraints

Weather = crucial random variable

Demand = crucial random variable

Prices = crucial random variable

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Th is was a s imp le v iew

Short term: following the demand is hard!

(==>smart grids for adapting the demand)

Nuclear power: can not switch on/off immediately

Future: there will be unpredictable production everywhere (==> smart grids)

Uncertainties very very uncertain

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Two main problems for energy management:

1. Taking care of the current system:At each time step (e.g. ~ hour),

decide which power plant to switch on or off

2. Improving the current system:At each time step (e.g. ~ 5 years), decide

new power plants,new connections,new devices,new laws,new prices...

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Optimizing investment policies

For example: build in 2015-2050 hydroelectric power plants (how many ? where ?), nuclear power plants (how many ? where ?), concentrated solar power plants (how many ? Where ?), photovoltaic units (...), wind farms (...), new connections (...), …

How to choose all these parameters ?Simulations: based on annual planning tools

(big part of the work)Uncertainties:

- technological breakthroughs- climate- demography- industrial changes- ecological constraints

==> optimization with uncertainties, using scenarios

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Macrolong-term scenarii

Annual model

InvestmentsPolicy

(when/where/how are units built)

Architecturefor year y

Annual resultsfor year y

Annualplanning

tool.

Economy,industry,demography,technologies.

Stochasticity ?

Space / timeDecomposition ?

Provided bydomainexperts

(solar concentration, windenergy, future nuclear tools,long-term demography, oil

reserves)

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Macrolong-term scenarii

Annual model

InvestmentsPolicy

(when/where/how are units built)

Architecturefor year y

Annual resultsfor year y

Annualplanning

tool.

Economy,industry,demography,technologies.

Stochasticity ?

Space / timeDecomposition ?

Statisticalmodelization

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Macrolong-term scenarii

Annual model

InvestmentsPolicy

(when/where/how are units built)

Architecturefor year y

Annual resultsfor year y

Annualplanning

tool.

Economy,industry,demography,technologies.

Stochasticity ?

Space / timeDecomposition ?

Reinforcement learning,stochastic dynamic

programming, direct policysearch, MCTS...

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Macrolong-term scenarii

Annual model

InvestmentsPolicy

(when/where/how are units built)

Architecturefor year y

Annual resultsfor year y

Annualplanning

tool.

Economy,industry,demography,technologies.

Stochasticity ?

Space / timeDecomposition ?

Reinforcement learning,stochastic dynamic

programming, direct policysearch,MCTS ...

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Macrolong-term scenarii

Annual model

InvestmentsPolicy

(when/where/how are units built)

Architecturefor year y

Annual resultsfor year y

Annualplanning

tool.

Economy,industry,demography,technologies.

Stochasticity ?

Space / timeDecomposition ?

Big, important project.

We want to avoid a strong biason the model, so many classical

tools are dead.

My personal guess:

- we will need Direct Policy Search (the only efficient tool when nothing works...)

- on a handcrafted policy

- with MCTS on top of it, with DPS as a Monte-Carlo part

==> only “anytime” algorithms==> readable, convenient

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Long distance connections (smoothing the demand and the production)

Smart grids (for smoothing the demand)

Unit Commitment (what to switch on, what to switch off)

Improving photovoltaic units & solar concentration

Improving wind farms & using ocean currents

Moving electricity-intensive industries to Kerguelen islands ?(Kerguelen = extremely windy French islands)

“4th generation” nuclear power

Reducing coal pollution

Predicting the peak (oil / coal / uranium …)

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Plenty of great people working on this field!

Why do you work on energy ?

Often, you do this because you want to do something important.Academics here: you are not just trying to maximize

your H-number and publish more papers than your colleagues.

For this I love you all :-)

Peaks, environment, climate change, demographic transition:

energy is at a crucial point.

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A great open-minded, collaborative, useful work can be done around energy.

I am sure that some of you receive email flames such as

“people like you are responsible of Fukushima” or

“electricity is too expensive due to you” or

“you should stop working on this, remember Chernobyl”.or

“you should do maths, not applications”

Nonetheless, there is real fun in working on important things.I hope you'll enjoy the seminar & discussions.

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Thanks to NUTN efforts for contacting manypeople, academics, companies, here in Taiwan.

(thank you Chang-Shing, Mei-Hui, Li-Wen, Yi-Ling, others)

Thank you all for being here :-)

Thank you:Jean-Joseph Christophe (Métis Inria/Artelys),

Adrien Couëtoux (Inria), Damien Ernst (Montefiore Institute),

Olivier Juan (EDF),Arnaud Renaud (Artelys),

for accepting plenty of flight hours and jet lag :-)

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Thanks to NUTN efforts for contacting manypeople, academics, companies, here in Taiwan.

(thank you Chang-Shing, Mei-Hui, Li-Wen, Yi-Ling, others)

Thank you all for being here :-)

Thank you:Jean-Joseph Christophe (Métis Inria/Artelys),

Adrien Couëtoux (Inria), Damien Ernst (Montefiore Institute),

Olivier Juan (EDF),Arnaud Renaud (Artelys),

for accepting plenty of flight hours and jet lag :-)

Last minute:not here due to

familial problems.

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May 16th

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May 17th

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May 18th, am

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May 18th, pm

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May 18th, pm

Two talks are notdirectly related to

energy.

But reinforcementlearning (RL) is

importantfor energy management,

and there are strong people

in RL in Taiwan,so I decided toinclude this.

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May 19th

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Problems, enquiries, email us!

olivier.teytaud@inria.frleecs@mail.nutn.edu.tw

We'll try to make all presentations freely available(as far as accepted by speakers)

Non-Taiwanese people, also enjoy Tainan!

Incredibly friendly city.

Cheap healthy tasty food.

*** Don't drink non-boiled water. ***