ADILSON MOTTER

Morrison Professor, Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University

Adilson’s work falls into the category of innovations that revolutionize our energy delivery system. His work focuses on evaluating and giving information. Digital solutions.

Adilson is working on algorithms to help grids operate with distributed energy resources. His focus is on controlling the system, including the demand. How do we encourage or orchestrate use system-wide? He is using software to encourage the use of electricity when it works best for the system. The way to encourage this is with pricing. Today we pay a price per kilowatt that is not reflective of the real-time cost. He is working on solutions so customers can participate in the real-time cost. He is creating incentives (pricing) that reflect real-time costs so customers (the demand) can be controlled.

Adilson conducted a field test at Stone Edge Farm to validate the hierarchical control algorithms he has developed to optimize energy penetration for intermittent sources. He worked with Jorge and said Jorge’s Heila allowed him to test his software solutions easily.

Arun also talks about orchestration and digital solutions. That is exactly what Adilson’s work is all about. Arun is working on this at Stanford, Adilson at Northwestern, and Jorge at MIT, NREL and SEF.