In fall 2016, the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) issued a Request for Proposals for cross-disciplinary energy projects focused on the intersection of the physical and digital worlds. The primary objective was to facilitate broader community at Georgia Tech linking the computing, visualization, and data sciences with science, engineering, business, policy, and economics relevant to energy infrastructure. Of the proposals received, three were selected to receive funding. Potential opportunities to expand these studies to include regional approaches or focus areas are being considered by SEI and the project principal investigators. 

Congratulations are in order for the following proposal teams! 

Proposal Title: Risk of Combined Physical Cyber Attacks Against Electricity Infrastructure                                                                                         

Proposal Team: Valerie Thomas, Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
                           Margaret Kosal, Associate Professor, School of Internal Affairs  

Proposal "Snapshot": Potential attacks on energy infrastructure are issues that span social science, information science, and energy engineering. This project will support collaborative research on energy infrastructure resilience between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Georgia Tech. The project determines and assesses the risk of physical and cyber attacks on electricity infrastructure to develop strong policy analysis of risks of attacks on U.S. electricity systems. 

Proposal Title: Economics for the Internet of Energy: A Techno-Economic Framework for Transactive Energy Prosumers. 

Proposal Team:  Santiago Carlos Grijalva, Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
                            Juan Moreno-Cruz, Assistant Professor, School of Economics

Proposal "Snapshot": With the deployment of distributed energy resources in many regions, the traditional passive customers are now able to produce and, often store, energy. They become prosumers. Equipped with sensors and communications, these prosumers can interact through a cyber-physical platform to maximize their shared value in an emerging Internet of Energy. This project will explore new techno-economic models of interacting energy prosumers and the information requirements associated with exchange in the cyber-physical platform. 

Proposal Title: Building Energy Data Platform Development

Proposal Team:  Dennis Shelden, Associate Professor, School of Architecture
                            Godfried Augenbroe, Professor, School of Architecture
                            D. Scott Jones, Director, Design & Construction, Facilities Management 

Proposal "Snapshot": The proposed initiative will develop a data visualization and analytics platform for use by Georgia Tech research, asset management, and facilities operations communities. The effort will develop a web services platform integrating campus building control systems data with spatial data from Building Information Models, allowing multiple building energy data streams to be aggregated, queried, and visualized. Further development will expand platform access and capabilities: integrating performance simulation and prediction, supporting other Smart Energy Campus, Building Control and Smart City Initiatives.