FIU College of Engineering and Computing

Dr. Sumit Paudyal (ECE) has received a prestigious new award of $2.39 million from the Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technology Office (SETO). FIU is among the thirteen institutions selected under the Operation and Planning Tools for Inverter-Based Resource Management and Availability for Future Power Systems (OPTIMA) funding program.

The project, titled "Advanced Methods for Integrating Renewables in Grid Planning (ADMIRE-GridPlan)," aims to address capability gaps in existing grid planning tools by developing innovative methods for critical and interrelated planning areas such as Adequacy, Reliability, Security, and Optimal Asset Utilization.

The team will advance state-of-the-art grid planning tools by integrating novel, data-driven approaches to better accommodate variable renewable energy (VRE) at both transmission and distribution levels. The goal is to ensure robust adequacy planning and optimal asset utilization, focusing on enhancing resilience, equity, and decarbonization in grid planning through new grid-enhancing technologies (GETs). Additionally, the project will address challenges like leveraging distribution-level flexibility, planning for weather-related long-duration outages, and developing accurate and computationally efficient models for dynamic security assessments in low-inertia power grids.

This collaborative project includes contributions from Florida International University (FIU), Clarkson University (CU), the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and General Electric (GE), with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) providing support.