The Cornell Energy Systems Institute (CESI) will be hosting a seminar on our “Net Energy Metering: Past, Future, and Large Scale Aggregations of Distributed Energy Resources” work, which will be presented by Prof. Lang Tong.
The seminar will take place on April 27th, 2023 (12:25—13:15) in 165 Olin Hall.
I was awarded a student travel grant to attend and present at the AI for Energy Research Conference at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia (March 6—8, 2023). The conference invited delegates from academia, government laboratories, and industry. The conference was hosted and co-organized by the Clean Combustion Research Center (CCRC) and the AI initiative at KAUST.
On February 13th, I presented our work on “Co-optimizing Behind-The-Meter Resources under Net Metering” at the Texas 2023 Power and Energy Conference, College Station, Texas.
Very happy to conclude the main activities of MiSK Fellowship, which was followed by selecting me as a member in the Saudi Leaders Society (SLS).
During the past six months, I had unique opportunities and experiences to improve leadership and business skills. I had the privilege of connecting with many ambitious and talented young Saudi leaders, whom I also learned about their interests, experiences and aspirations.
Happy to share that today, my first OpEd piece got published in the UtilityDive — Opinion.
In this OpEd, I present a non-exhaustive list of six reasons why #GAC should not be considered in utility rates.
The piece can be accessed here: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/grid-access-charges-utility-rates-rooftop-solar/641232/
On Wednesday 01/25/2023, I will be giving a talk at the ACM SIGEnergy Graduate Seminar Series. I will cover our work on the “Analysis of Optimal Prosumer and Regulator Decisions under Net Metering”.
Presentation Zoom link: https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/93208844846?pwd=M3pITlNoYllQQlhGY2JXcElSMUZOdz09
For more information about the seminar series: https://sites.google.com/view/sigenergy-seminar/home
I published a new preprint with Prof. Lang Tong on social optimality for energy communities via a pricing mechanism we called Dynamic Net Energy Metering (DNEM).
Under the proposed mechanism:
community members’ individual surplus maximizations lead to maximum community social welfare.
community members’ individual surplus under Dynamic NEM is higher than the maximum surplus under the utility’s NEM.
the community payment rule satisfies the cost-causation principle.
Preprint link: arXiv.
Preprint title: Achieving Social Optimality for Energy Communities via Dynamic NEM Pricing.
Preprint Abstract: We propose a social welfare maximizing mechanism for an energy community that aggregates individual and shared community resources under a general net energy metering (NEM) policy. Referred to as Dynamic NEM, the proposed mechanism adopts the standard NEM tariff model and sets NEM prices dynamically based on the total shared renewables within the community. We show that Dynamic NEM guarantees a higher benefit to each community member than possible outside the community. We further show that Dynamic NEM aligns the individual member's incentive with that of the overall community; each member optimizing individual surplus under Dynamic NEM results in maximum community's social welfare. Dynamic NEM is also shown to satisfy the cost-causation principle. Empirical studies using real data on a hypothetical energy community demonstrate the benefits to community members and grid operators.
I am happy to announce that I have been selected to be a member of the Saudi Leadership Society (SLS) initiative; a prestigious community that connects members with influential Saudi leaders to achieve their greatest leadership potential and become a force in the future.
My team an I were very pleased to present our project “Shoaa شعاع” at the MiSK Fellowship Annual Competition that was held on Sunday, September 11th.
Our project contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN), primarily on challenges 7 and 9.
The executive summary of our project is provided below:
“ At Shoaa we target developing an adoption-promoting platform consisting of four integrated arms acting collectively to take the customer on the journey from early awareness to the actual installation. The first arm provides customers with visual, audio, and written content to raise awareness and address misconceptions. The second arm equips end-users with the user-friendly tools needed to determine the feasibility and cost of their distributed energy resources installation projects. The third arm focuses on costs by providing end-users with financial solutions enabling them to overcome high installation capital costs. The fourth arm acts as a platform for connecting potential and already-aware end-users to renewable energy sources installers.”
Shoaa.
Shoaa’s contribution to SDG challenges.
Just published a new blog article — co-authored by Khaled Alshehri — on Participation Models of Distributed Energy Resources — A Brief Look Into Future Energy Markets.
The article can be found here.
Source: Gao et. al. (2021).
As the Fall semester at Cornell kicks in, I look back at the summer marathon I had. Below, I am sharing the main highlights of my full-packed and fruitful summer.
1. I finished my internship at The Brattle Group, Boston, MA as a Summer Associate in the Electricity Practice Area.
a. At Brattle I worked with Dr. Sanem Sergici and Dr. Samuel Newell on problems related to i) Net Energy Metering (NEM) policy evolution, b) Electric vehicles adoptions patterns, focussing on higher locational granularity, and c) innovative bill affordability program designs. I was both happy and lucky to learn from and exchange ideas with experts and bright minds at Brattle.
3. Completed and arXived a new manuscript on “Co-optimizing Distributed Energy Resources in Linear Complexity under Net Energy Metering“.
a. The paper can be accessed at: arXiv.
b. The paper’s abstract is given below:
The co-optimization of behind-the-meter distributed energy resources is considered for residential and commercial prosumers. The distributed energy resources include renewable generations, flexible demands, and battery storage. An energy management system schedules the consumptions and battery storage based on locally available stochastic renewables by maximizing the expected operation surplus under the net energy metering tariff. A stochastic dynamic programming formulation is introduced for which structural properties of the dynamic optimization are derived. A closed-form scheduling of co-optimized consumption and storage is proposed, which achieves optimality when the storage capacity constraint is nonbinding. The closed-form solution results in a linear-complexity storage-consumption co-optimization that can be implemented in a decentralized fashion. The economic benefits of the prosumers and the distribution system operator are evaluated in numerical simulations.
It was a pleasure attending the wonderful MiSK leadership Bootcamp in London, which is part of the MiSK Fellowship program. The program offers a unique experience in developing 60 future leaders, whom were selected from a pool of +6000 applicants.
Part of the leadership Bootcamp series was provided by the Inspirational Development Group (IDG) team. The MiSK Fellowship program partners include Bain&Company, The Research Development and Innovation Authority in Saudi Arabia, The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) in Saudi Arabia, the United Nations (UN), BAE Systems, Strategy&, among others.
The 5th cohort of the MiSK Fellowship program includes 60 Fellows out of thousands applied. I am very happy to be among the selected 60 Fellows.
The Brattle group’s Instagram account featured me and my fellow research analyst and associates in a post. The Instagram post link is given here.
Our work on “Behind-the-Meter Distributed Energy Resources under Net Energy Metering” was featured in a seminar at the Caltech Rigorous System Research Group (RSRG). The event was sponsored by the Computing + Mathematical Sciences Department.
The abstract of the talk is provided below:
Net energy metering (NEM) is one of the major driving forces behind the phenomenal growth of the behind-the-meter distributed energy resources. By charging net consumptions and crediting net productions at the same retail rate, the original implementation of NEM, a.k.a. NEM 1.0, offers exceptional incentives for distributed solar adoptions. However, the benefits to prosumers raise revenue adequacy concerns for the utility and equity issues of cross-subsidies of prosumers by consumers. Currently, variations of NEM 1.0, broadly referred to as NEM 2.0 and NEM 3.0, have been proposed, implemented, and heatedly debated in the U.S.
This work aims to gain analytical insights into the impacts of NEM policies on prosumer and consumer behavior, social welfare distribution, cross-subsidies of prosumers by consumers, and the market potential of DER adoptions. To this end, we propose NEM X, an inclusive parametric model that captures key characteristics of all NEM tariffs. We then obtain analytical characterizations of the optimal prosumer decisions on consumption and DER resources, including behind-the-meter generation and storage. Under a stochastic Ramsey pricing framework that maximizes the social welfare subject to the revenue adequacy constraint of a regulated utility, the performance of NEM X is analyzed. Our results highlight tradeoffs among achieving economic efficiency, equity between consumer and prosumer groups, and the market potential of DER adoption.
Our manuscript entitled “Integrating Distributed Energy Resources: Optimal Prosumer Decisions and Impacts of Net Metering Tariffs“ has been accepted at the ACM SIGEnergy Energy Informatics Review (EIR). The manuscript information and abstract are provided below:
Full Reference:
A. S. Alahmed, L. Tong, “Integrating Distributed Energy Resources: Optimal Prosumer Decisions and Impacts of Net Metering Tariffs”, accepted at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGEnergy Energy Informatics Review (EIR), Apr., 2022 (arXiv).
Abstract:
The rapid growth of the behind-the-meter (BTM) distributed generation has led to initiatives to reform the net energy metering (NEM) policies to address pressing concerns of rising electricity bills, fairness of cost allocation, and the long-term growth of distributed energy resources. This article presents an analytical framework for the optimal prosumer consumption decision using an inclusive NEM X tariff model that covers existing and proposed NEM tariff designs. The structure of the optimal consumption policy lends itself to near closed-form optimal solutions suitable for practical energy management systems that are responsive to stochastic BTM generation and dynamic pricing. The short and long-run performance of NEM and feed-in tariffs (FiT) are considered under a sequential rate-setting decision process. Also presented are numerical results that characterize social welfare distributions, cross-subsidies, and long-run solar adoption performance for selected NEM and FiT policy designs.
After three amazing months, last summer, at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) working with the incredible DER Integration team in Palo Alto, CA as a Graduate Summer Researcher, I am excited to announce that I will be joining The Brattle Group this summer as a Summer Associate in their HQ office in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Brattle Group combines state-of-the-art analytical techniques and practical industry experience to answer economic, financial, and regulatory questions. I will be working on Brattle practices related to my research on Electricity Wholesale Markets & Planning and Electricity Litigation & Regulatory Disputes.
Boston, MA — Brattle.
It was a fruitful experience serving as a judge for the Cornell 2022 ECE MEng Poster Competition. Many great projects were evaluated and discussed. Congratulations to all winners, who are also spotlighted in the link below:
EPRI, Palo Alto, CA.
I am glad to share that the whitepaper I worked on at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) over the summer of 2021 with the amazing DER Integration team at the Power Delivery and Utilization unit (PDU) is now published. My contribution came under the supervision and guidance of Dr. Tanguy Hubert, whom I am very thankful for his support and dedication. The work and the report came as a result of hard-working and incredible people at EPRI’s DER Integration team.
The report title is “Measurement and Verification (M&V) for Distributed Energy Resources Providing Grid Services: New Complexities, Common Approaches, and Research Needs“ with report number 3002023286
The abstract and the whitepaper link are provided below:
Abstract: Distributed energy resources (DERs) are increasingly being considered for their capabilities to provide “services” to the electric grid, in both the distribution and wholesale market domains. Grid services provided by DERs have the potential to replace (or enhance) conventional resources, network reinforcements, or solutions otherwise required to maintain normal system operations. In this context, system operators are revisiting their Measurement and Verification (M&V) practices—encompassing performance verification and settlement—for monitoring DERs that deliver grid services.
This white paper provides a starting point for M&V practitioners tasked with understanding the new complexities introduced by wider participation of DERs in delivering grid services. It initially describes the role of M&V in this renewed context, and clarifies important concepts, such as “behind-the-meter” and “front-of-the-meter” DERs, and the difference between customer and grid services. An overview of several common M&V approaches is next provided. Discussed topics include possible metering configurations, and the new challenges introduced by value stacking strategies (also called “dual participation”), which M&V practices for DER-provided grid services must consider. The paper concludes with two illustrative scenarios highlighting some of these challenges.
whitepaper link: https://www.epri.com/research/programs/067418/results/3002023286
I am happy to announce that I have been selected as a MiSK Fellow. Awarded by the MiSK Foundation, the fellowship aims to discover, develop, and connect high potential Saudi youth to become well-rooted, globally competitive, and emboldened to make a positive socioeconomic impact.
