Anil Pahwa
Kansas State University, KS·Engineering
Neighborhood power lines used to carry electricity in one direction, from the utility to homes. Rooftop solar panels, electric vehicles and home batteries now push and pull power in many directions, so utilities need a much clearer picture of what is happening on their low-voltage distribution networks.
- Fields
Engineering
Computer Science
- Topics
smart meters
advanced metering infrastructure
power distribution systems
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Develop optimal polling strategies that choose which smart meters to read, and when, so a limited subset of meters gives a full picture of the low-voltage distribution system.
- Reconcile smart meter data that arrive in different formats and at different time scales, and use them in sparsity-based state estimation, which infers grid voltages and power flows from incomplete measurements.
- Build a machine learning framework that combines historical smart meter data with real-time measurements, including uncertainty quantification, to improve the accuracy of distribution system models.
More about the research
Smart meters, known collectively as advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), record household electricity use and could provide that picture. Utilities, however, rarely use this data to run the grid in real time.
Why it matters
Electric utilities could use the existing smart meters in their customers' homes to see and manage their local networks more efficiently. This matters more as rooftop solar, electric vehicles and home batteries spread. More efficient operation could bring economic benefits to both utilities and consumers. The methods could also open new ways to make distribution grids more reliable and resilient.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lei Wu
Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ·Engineering
Design likelihood functions and prior distributions for Bayesian models that capture realistic measurement errors and physical characteristics of smart electricity distribution systems.
Yang Weng
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Engineering·Early-career
Develop reduced-order models of data-center power electronics showing how converters, control loops and energy storage shape the load and impedance seen by the electric grid.
Jan Kleissl
University of California-San Diego, CA·Engineering
Build DERConnect, a remote-access testbed that integrates solar panels, battery storage, electric vehicles, wind and solar emulators, and controllable building lighting and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems.
The school
Kansas State University: 7 labs on PI Pages, $265M a year on research, 201 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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