The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is owner-operator of a 45 MW peak load Smart Grid and one of the first adopters of many Smart Grid technologies, including multiple renewable and non-renewable energy generation resources, significant energy storage, and sophisticated monitoring for controlling flex-demand loads for a community of 54,000 energy consumers. UCSD owns and maintains a 69 kV substation, ninety-six 12kV underground feeder circuits and four 12kV distribution substations throughout the 1200-acre campus, and has a master controller and optimization system creating the city within a city. Advances in technology have led to an unprecedented ability to collect and store data. Harnessing the real-time streaming sensor data from modern smart grids via advanced processing, modeling, optimization, real-time forecasting and analytics is a major challenge due to the sheer volume, complexity, and rate of data acquisition. UCSD and PACE’s Big Data analytics and energy sustainability researchers are utilizing the existing fully functioning UCSD Microgrid to perform predictive analytics on both the real-time and historical time-series data for developing models for detailed load forecasting, load shaping and demand response, all aimed at driving campus-scale energy efficiency. This data-driven approach aims to leverage the predictive analysis of resource consumption, renewable integration, economic activity and human behavior patterns to improve campus’ sustainability and efficiency.
Speaker
Natash Balac
Natash Balac is Director of Predictive Analytics Center of Excellence at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, UCSD which encompasses many Big Data data mining projects including the Medical School, Smart Energy Grid, and Fraud detection. Balac received her PhD in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University with an emphasis in Machine Learning from large data sets. Previously, she has worked on mining, analytics and bioinformatics in the biotech industry. She has collaborated, managed and directed large government, industry and research funded projects including the CMMS, NSF, NIH and CEC funding agencies.