Liu said it was an honor to have his research recognized by his peers for the significance and impact it can have on society, especially in power and energy areas.

Liu said it was an honor to have his research recognized by his peers for the significance and impact it can have on society, especially in power and energy areas.

Liu’s work focuses on power system control using optimization techniques, particularly in practical applications of smart grid technologies. He proposes a shift in the way controls are implemented across the grid. Instead of traditional centralized control where communication signals being sent/received between devices and a master computer, Liu describes a system in which local control action can be determined through communication among neighboring devices to reach an optimal power system operating condition.

“It is much more efficient and much more robust because now the communication is only required between neighbor to neighbor. Accordingly, this decentralized control design would be more cost-effective in addition to robustness against communication imperfectness,” Liu said. “Usually the proximity to the neighbor is much smaller than the distance between the centralized master computer.”

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