Sandia National Labs Academic Programs Collaboration Report

CONTRIBUTOR Spotlight

Prior to becoming a manager, Brian J. Pierre was a lead researcher collaborating on the electric grid and energy storage projects in the Electric Power Systems Research department and a senior member of IEEE. He received an R&D 100 award in 2017 and was awarded the 2020 IEEE Albuquerque Section Outstanding Young Engineer award “for the development of algorithms and software tools to co-optimize grid resilience and reliability.”

cascading failure model. The researchers will also continue to develop stochastic optimization models that minimize consequence of regional threat scenarios by reducing critical node vulnerabilities through investment decisions, preemptive actions, and an optimal restoration process. Improved critical node awareness and optimal resilient planning and operations can significantly improve U.S. grid resilience to regional threats. Several peer-reviewed articles related to investing, preparing, and recovering from hurricanes or winter storms to improve grid resilience use examples based on recent TX events such as the February 2021 Winter Storm Uri and 2017 Hurricane Harvey. Two of the papers were presented at the IEEE Power and Energy Society Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition held in New Orleans in April 2022.

Manuel Garcia, a senior member of Sandia’s technical staff, is working on electric power systems research with staff members Brian Pierre, Bryan Arguello, UT Austin Professors Surya Santoso and Erhan Kutanoglu, and three UT Austin PhD students Brent Austgen, Joshua Yip, and Baris Bilir.

79

2021-2022 Collaboration Report