A Georgia Tech School of Public Policy team recently won a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s I-Corps program. This highly competitive program selects startup teams with promising technologies from across the country to take part in a guided customer discovery process. By the end of the grant, the team hopes to better understand how energy software tools can simplify and improve energy decision-making related to electricity generation and consumption. 

The Georgia Tech team was selected for its own ATHENIA Software, which was built on a machine-learning algorithm that deploys a multi-layered feed forward neural network. This network utilizes multiple feeds of public data to analyze the electric grid and predict energy policy impacts on the economy, public health and the environment. It is capable of modeling energy usage in residential and commercial buildings and electricity production from both utility-scale and distributed resources. The model simulates electricity demand and supply on an hourly basis, driving its predictive error down to a level that far exceeds industry standards. 

Check out the team’s accomplishments and vision in this one-minute video here.

Professor Marilyn Brown is the PI of the Georgia Tech team. The team also includes Dr. Matt Cox, CEO, The Greenlink Group, Alumnus of Georgia Tech School of Public Policy; Dr. Xiaojing Sun, CTO, The Greenlink Group,  Alumnus of Georgia Tech School of Public; and Policy Mr. Brian McCormack, Georgia Tech Advanced Technology Development Center Mentor.

The Greenlink Group is an energy research and consulting company based in Atlanta. It is a Georgia Tech spin-off, started by alumni from School of Public Policy. Greenlink's mission is to bring knowledge and analytics to create value in the clean energy space.