Residential and commercial-level renewable generation and storage have great potential for improving energy efficiency and sustainability in urban settings. Integrating such diverse, intermittent, and disaggregated resources into the overall electric power grid however presents considerable coordination challenges. Distributed energy resource aggregators can address these issues, but the overall impact of these agents depends critically on the underlying market structure. This talk will describe what structures provide the greatest potential for improvements in efficiency and renewable penetration and for overall social welfare.

Biography: John R. Birge is the Hobart W. Williams Distinguished Service Professor of Operations Management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He studies mathematical modeling of systems under uncertainty, especially for maximizing operational and financial goals using the methodologies of stochastic programming and large-scale optimization. He has applied his work in a variety of contexts and industries including energy, finance, health care, manufacturing, and transportation. He has received a number of awards including the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Fellows Award, the Institute of Industrial Engineers Medallion Award, the Harold Larnder Prize from the Canadian Operational Research Society, and was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering.