Spring 2015 Seminar: EE392n - : Intelligent Energy Systems: Big Data
Spring 2015 Seminar: EE392n - : Intelligent Energy Systems: Big Data
Course Description
Electrical power industry has about $0.4T/year revenue with $1.4T of assets under management. Historically, most
of these assets, technologies, business processes, and government regulation had a slow update period of about 80
years. The rapid changes started in the last decade. In this heavily regulated industry, the push comes from public
policy that mandates renewable energy sources (33% for California by 2020). The pull comes from information
system technologies that promise to facilitate the transition. Because of the sheer size of the energy systems, they
generate huge amounts of data, which makes then the target of Big Data analytics technologies, another current
trend. Intelligent analytical processing of energy system data can bring many benefits in dealing with energy supply,
demand, distribution, and storage challenges as well as in operation and management of many expensive assets in
the energy systems. This intelligence is implemented in computing systems as analytical functions that enable
monitoring, management, and optimization. The Big Data analytics that extract value from the physical systems data
is at the center of the current Internet of Things (Industrial Internet) boom.
The course will focus on the on-going information systems transformation of the electrical power industry with
emphasis on Big Data applications. It will discuss Data Science analytics, computing and communications
infrastructure, business drivers, and emerging opportunities in this area. The goal of the course is to present a broad
perspective on the evolving role of computing systems in the electrical power industry. Another goal is to help
distinguish between the hype and genuine technology trends and opportunities. To do that, the examples and case
studies illustrating the class subject will be presented by prominent guest lecturers from leading establishments
including electrical utilities, equipment vendors, regulators, and venture capitalists.