IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 5, NO.

1, JANUARY 2014

349

Residential Microgrid Scheduling Based on Smart

Meters Data and Temperature Dependent Thermal
Load Modeling
Mohammad Tasdighi, Student Member, IEEE, Hassan Ghasemi, Senior Member, IEEE, and
Ashkan Rahimi-Kian, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractOne of the important points in optimal operation of a

micro-CHP based microgrids (e.g., a residential building) is to coordinate its thermal and electrical loads. Therefore, in this study,
thermal load is analyzed more precisely in terms of the required
hot water and desired building temperature. The microgrid is assumed to be equipped with smart meters and controllable electrical
loads. The information provided by smart meters is utilized in implementing smart control of micro-CHP, storages, and demand response programs. This study is aimed at presenting an optimal
scheduling model for a microgrid considering technical and economical constraints based on temperature dependent thermal load
modeling. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to identify and rank
the impact of several uncertainties such as variations in temperature, electrical and thermal demand.

Minimum and maximum water

storage temperature
.

Index TermsLoad shifting, micro-CHP, smart meter, temperature-dependent thermal load modeling.

Minimum and maximum electrical

output power of micro-CHP (kW).

Temperature of cold water entering

to the storage to replace the
consumed hot water
.
Heat capacity of indoor air
.
Specific heat of water

Total volume of water storage

Ramp rate of micro-CHP unit

(kW/h).

NOMENCLATURE

Micro-CHP electrical and thermal

efficiency.

Constants
Time window showing available
hours of operation for shiftable load
.

Minimum and maximum thermal

output power of micro-CHP (kW).
Natural gas consumption rate for
producing 1 kWh energy
.

The number of
shiftable loads
hours of operation, (
the
number of ).

Natural gas price

Battery capacity (kWh).

The number of existing shiftable

loads.

Battery maximum charging and

discharging power (kW).

The energy consumption of

shiftable load (kWh).

Batterys minimum and maximum

state of charge.

Thermal resistance of building shell

.
Desired indoor temperature

Batterys charging and discharging

efficiency.

Minimum and maximum indoor

temperature
.
Desired water storage temperature
.

Variables

Manuscript received November 13, 2012; revised March 11, 2013; accepted
April 27, 2013. Date of publication July 15, 2013; date of current version December 24, 2013.
The authors are with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Tehran, Tehran 11365-4563, Iran (e-mail: m.tasdighi@ut.ac.ir;
h.ghasemi@ut.ac.ir; arkian@ut.ac.ir).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSG.2013.2261829
1949-3053 2013 IEEE

Time step

Main grids time-of-use price tariff

at hour
.
Microgrids electrical demand at
hour (kWh).
The power consumption of
shiftable load at hour (kW).

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The operation state of

shiftable
load at hour ; 1: on, 0: off.
The total power consumption of
nonshiftable loads at hour (kW).
Building temperature at hour

Outdoor temperature at hour

Water Storage temperature at hour

.
Cold water volume which replaces
consumed hot water at hour
.
Thermal power needed to set the
building temperature at hour (kW).
Micro-CHPs thermal output power
at hour (kW).
Micro-CHPs electrical output power
at hour (kW).
Micro-CHPs consumed gas at hour
.
Micro-CHP status at hour ; 0: off,
1: on.
Batterys charging and discharging
power at hour (kW).
Batterys net output power at hour
(kW).
Batterys state of charge at hour
(kW).
Battery charging state at hour ; 1:
charging, 0: otherwise.
Battery discharging state at hour ;
1: discharging, 0: otherwise.
Power transferred between main grid
and microgrid at hour (kW).

I. INTRODUCTION

APID RISE IN fossil fuel prices along with extortionate

capital cost of new central generating plants, highlights
advantages in implementing alternate generating systems with
higher energy efficiency [1]. The microgrid concept assumes a
cluster of loads and microsources operating as a single controllable system that provides both power and heat to its local area
[2]. Microgrids, due to their major technological advantages,
can help unleash the deployment of distributed energy resources
(DERs) (e.g., micro-CHP); they can also help in replacing centralized power plants as well as benefiting high power quality
and reliability (PQR) of supply to end-users [1], [3][5].
In [6], a micro-CHP system is defined as an energy conversion unit with an electric capacity below 15 kW that simultaneously generates heat and power. The important point in optimal
operation of a micro-CHP-based microgrid (e.g., a residential

building) is to coordinate its thermal and electrical loads. One

of the most important characteristics of a micro-CHP unit, in
contrast to wind turbines and photovoltaic systems, is that its
output power can be easily controlled. Furthermore, micro-CHP
units are commonly coupled to heat storage systems [7]. These
two characteristics together provide power generation flexibility
[7]. Normally, micro-CHP is controlled in such a way that satisfies thermal demand of a building, and its electricity generation follows thermal output power with an approximately constant ratio. This is due to the fact that micro-CHP units thermal
efficiency is greater than its electrical efficiency; so, usually,
thermal demand is the one which drives the output power of
the unit, which is referred to as heat-led control [6].
Several studies have been conducted on economic operation
of microgrids. Reference [8] studies a typical microgrid for
buildings and energy savings provided by facilitating buildings
with microgrid technology. They have assumed a CHP unit and
an HVAC system to meet thermal demand which is considered
as a total profile of required thermal energy for 24 hours of
a day in the building. Reference [9] studies implementing
demand response (DR) with micro-CHP systems by utilizing
flexible thermal demands. It shows that, by implementing DR,
operation cost would be reduced in comparison to heat-led
control of a micro-CHP unit; however, flexible electrical demand is not considered. In most of the studies, thermal load is
normally considered as a profile which shows building thermal
energy required at each time-step without segregating it into
its constituent components [8], [10]. Therefore, it is difficult to
understand how to make this thermal demand profile coordinate with electrical demand profile. In this paper, the buildings
required thermal energy is analyzed more precisely in the form
of desired hot water and building temperature. This provides
an opportunity to study the effect of flexible thermal loads in
operation of micro-CHP based microgrids. In this framework,
acceptable intervals around the desired temperatures for the
building and the water storage are assumed considering consumers comfort level. This flexible thermal load would help
the coordination of the micro-CHPs electrical and thermal
output power. Then, optimal temperature for economic operation of the micro-CHP is determined at each time-step while
the dependency between time intervals is taken into account.
According to the technology action plan for smart grids
announced in Copenhagen in December 2009 by the Major
Economies Forum (MEF), active demand response and
integration with smart home are considered as the first items
on the smart grids technology fact sheet [11]. Smart meters that
have bidirectional communication capacity are central components for the operation of smart consumers. A smart meter
is an advanced meter that can be used to identify and measure
power consumption electronically and can communicate this
information to another device [12]. Some of the smart meters
are equipped with a display for sending data on the amount of
power consumed or the corresponding cost to the customers.
In-home-display (IHD) is an additional display for sending
information to customers. One of the types of smart meters is
the power strip type smart meter (SMPT); these meters have
one or more ports with current and/or voltage sensors for power
monitoring and a relay for power control [13], [14].

TASDIGHI et al.: RESIDENTIAL MICROGRID SCHEDULING

As mentioned before, electrical demand should also be flexible to be coordinated with thermal demand, allowing to implement DR programs. In a microgrid equipped with smart meters, numerous data would be available which can be processed
for several goals. Reference [15] describes a method of appliances location determination from the multi-hop tree structure
of SMPTs. Reference [11] presents a method of extraction of
users activities from electric power consumption data which
is provided by SMPTs. In this study, the data is provided by
SMPTs showing the energy consumption and operation time of
each electrical appliance in a house. Besides specifying each
appliances share from total electrical demand, appliances are
also categorized into shiftable and nonshiftable loads. Then, an
optimization module decides to employ load shifting in such a
way that electrical demand is coordinated with thermal demand
while considering the main grid time-of-use (TOU) price tariffs. Electrical power storages such as batteries help in implementing DR as well. They can charge during hours in which
the main grid electricity price is low and discharge during peak
price hours helping to reduce microgrid operation cost.
Another challenge in operation of microgrids is to consider
uncertainties [8]. Forecasting thermal and electrical demands
yields uncertainties that should be considered. Furthermore, in
this study, the building outdoor temperature which is also forecasted for the next 24 hours is taken into account in temperature
dependent thermal load modeling. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to identify and rank the impact of several uncertainties.
Basically, the contributions of this study are as follows:
The buildings thermal load is modeled more precisely in
the form of desired hot water and building temperature.
Flexible thermal loads effect on micro-CHP unit operation is investigated by considering acceptable intervals
around the desired temperatures of the building and the
water storage.
Smart meters data is used to segregate total electrical demand profile into shiftable and nonshiftable loads and coordinate micro-CHPs electrical and thermal output power.
It is shown that this would lead to better microgrids participation in implementing DR program.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The temperature-dependent thermal load modeling is presented in
Section II. Then, Section III describes control scenarios for
a micro-CHP. Micro-CHP scheduling formulation, including
objective function and the corresponding constraints are
explained in Section IV. The simulation results along with
sensitivity analysis are illustrated and discussed in Section V.
The conclusions are provided in Section VI.
II. THE TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT THERMAL LOAD
MODELING
As mentioned before, in this paper, thermal loads of the
building are modeled within the context of desired hot water
temperature and building temperature. In modeling the hot water
storage, as this study is more concerned with energy management concept, the energy equivalent of the hot water storage
at each time step is taken into consideration and the dynamic
of the water flow is not considered. It means that the storage is
assumed to be always full, i.e., if some hot water is drawn from

351

the storage, cold water with the same volume enters the storage
and replaces the consumed hot water and this changes the storage
energy level. The water storage is heated through a micro-CHP
unit. The thermal power required to maintain the building
temperature is drawn from the water storage as well.
Accordingly, two processes change the water storage temperature from its desired level: 1) substitution of the exiting hot
water with the entering cold water, and 2) the thermal power
drawn/injected from/to the storage. So, the water storage temperature at each hour is calculated from the following equation:

(1)
In (1), the first term on the right side of the equation refers to
equilibrium temperature of storage water which is the result
of mixing cold water and remaining hot water in the storage.
The second term represents storage water temperature deviation caused by circulating air in the building and thermal power
from the micro-CHP. In this study, the storage is assumed to be
isolated so that its heat loss is negligible.
According to the thermal modeling for a building presented
in [16], the building temperature at each hour is obtained by:
(2)
in which
.

hour and the thermal time constant is

III. MICRO-CHP CONTROL SCENARIOS

A. Heat-Led Control
Heat-led control is referred to as the most likely standard control strategy for a micro-CHP [6]. This kind of control is aimed
at maintaining water storage and building temperatures at their
desired levels. In this paper, the heat-led control is formulated
based on [9] with little changes focused on water storage temperature rather than its stored thermal energy. Reference [9],
has utilized an auxiliary burner along with the micro-CHP unit
in order to supply thermal loads when micro-CHP unit has not
started up yet, or when the micro-CHP maximum output power
is not enough to supply the thermal loads. Micro-CHP, based on
technologies such as microturbines and reciprocating engines,
can startup quickly (in the order of seconds) compared to conventional cogeneration units [16], [17]; so it can be neglected
compared to one hour scheduling time-step. Furthermore, in this
study, the micro-CHP capacity is great enough to supply the
peak thermal load; so the auxiliary burner is not considered. The
heat-led control process consists of the following steps:
1)

is calculated from (2) in order to meet

.
2)
is calculated from (1) assuming
.
3) If
, then
is a valid
assumption.
4) If
, then
is calculated from
(1) assuming
.

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5) If
for

, then calculated value

is valid. Else if
, then
and
is recalculated
using the new value of
. Else
and
is recalculated using the new value of
.

The above formulation shows that this kind of control is hour

by hour, and only one solution would be obtained for each
hour. Therefore, this control just aims at meeting the current
hour thermal loads without considering the micro-CHPs
electrical output power and the status of the thermal and
electrical loads in the following hours. In order to better
clarify the steps in the above algorithm, assume that we want
to calculate
for
. According to step 1 and
Table III, we substitute
in (2).
Therefore,
is calulated from (2). Note
that for
, the outdoor temperature is
(Fig. 6).
Then, we consider
and substitute calulated
from the previous step and
. So,
is obtained from (1). Note that, as it was
mentioned earlier in Section II, the storage is assumed to be
always full, i.e.,
is the same as the consumed hot water
,
at hour ; so,
(Fig. 3). As
and calculate
from (1). So,
we put
and it can be seen that, according to
Table III,
, and the calculated
value for
is valid.
B. Micro-CHP Smart Control
Having known the heat-led control, one may ask the following question: what if the temperature is assumed to be allowed to deviate from its desired level by a few degrees without
causing significant discomfort for the consumers. Temperaturedependent thermal load modeling provides an opportunity to
study the effect of flexible thermal loads, which is the result of
assuming acceptable intervals around the desired temperatures
for the building and the water storage. From the operation point
of view, this will allow for wider operating regions and possibility of achieving more cost reduction for the microgrid.

Fig. 1. Scheduling algorithm.

As it was mentioned before, the main point of this paper is

utilizing smart meter data and temperature dependent thermal
load modeling. In so doing, we have used simple models of the
microgrids components. Issues like the micro-CHP efficiency
change at different load levels or battery charge and discharge
with variant power level during an hour are not considered here
which are consistent with the assumption used in [8].
A. Objective Function
The objective function is to minimize the operation cost including: the cost of the power purchased from the main grid
during a day, and also the cost of gas consumed by
the micro-CHP unit
. In this study, as mentioned before in Section III, the micro-CHPs startup time and consequent cost is neglected as it is assumed to be based on technologies such as microturbines and reciprocating engines with
short startup times. Besides, as mentioned in Section II, the
micro-CHP unit, in this study, should operate continuously in
order to meet thermal demand thus maintaining the building
temperature higher than a minimum level for the whole day;
i.e., the unit would not be turned on/off with a high frequency.
(3)

IV. PROBLEM FORMULATION

A general flowchart of the proposed scheduling algorithm
is shown in Fig. 1. The developed scheduling algorithm could
be implemented through a digital computer controlled system
using the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) system
data with different modules for data processing, electrical and
thermal demand forecast for the next day, supervisory control
system to set the new reference inputs for the micro-CHP unit,
and controllable loads and local digital controllers to follow
their set points with minimum delays.
It is important to mention that we have formulated the scheduling such that it leads to a mixed integer linear programming
(MILP) problem (avoiding a nonlinear problem); thus, wellknown solution techniques such as branch and bound can be utilized to solve it. Therefore, the size of the residential building is
not a binding factor here.

As it can be seen from (3), it is assumed that the price of purchasing/selling power from/to the grid that is the same for each
hour, and the price of natural gas does not change during a day.
Furthermore, microgrid does not have any limitations in exchanging power with the main grid. Positive values for
represents purchasing power from the main grid at hour , and
negative values for
refers to selling power to the main
grid at hour .
B. Constraints
1) Electrical Demand-Supply Balance: In this study, the microgrids DERs that supply electrical power are: a micro-CHP
unit and a battery. In order to implement load shifting, power
consumption of each appliance, which is provided by the smart
meters, is processed and the appliances are categorized into

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353

two groups: nonshiftable and shiftable loads. Nonshiftable loads

such as: TV, refrigerator, stove, and etc. are the ones that cannot
be shifted to other hours because of reasons such as consumers
comfort consideration. Shiftable loads, on the other hand, are assumed to have flexible operation intervals during a day without
causing significant discomfort for consumers. So, electrical demand-supply balance constraint would be as follows:
Without considering load shifting:
(4)
Considering load shifting:
(5)
Fig. 2. Total electrical demand showing each appliances share.

2) Desired Hot Water and Building Temperatures: According to what was mentioned in Section III-B, these constraints are as follows:

(6)

data to predict energy consumption

and hours of
operation
for shiftable load for the following
day. Having known these values, the following constraint
should be satisfied:

3) Electrical and Thermal Output Power Limits for MicroCHP:

(16)

(7)

Up time required to finish a task: When an appliance is

turned on, it should not be turned off before the corresponding task is complete, e.g., dish washer:

4) Micro-CHP Electrical and Thermal Efficiency:

(17)

(8)
(18)

5) Micro-CHP Output Power Ramp Rate:

(9)
6) Battery Operation: In this study, it is assumed that the battery in the microgrid is the one used in a sedan size PHEV and
there is always at least one PHEV connected to the microgrid
parked in the building. However,
and
are determined according to the capacity of the plug to which the battery
is connected [18].

Operation ordering of the appliances: Some shiftable loads

may have the same time window as available hours of opermay overlap; however,
ation (i.e., the same ), or their
in decision making, it should be guaranteed that the appliances operation ordering will be maintained. For example,
a dryer should be operated after the washing machine has
finished its duty. So, if shiftable load should be operated
after shiftable load , then:

(10)

(19)

(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
7) Shiftable Loads:
Shiftable loads power consumption: In this study, we have
assumed that a forecasting module uses the smart meters

V. SIMULATION RESULTS
The case study is a residential building in Ontario, Canada. A
micro-CHP with
capacity is considered for the building.
The water storage capacity is 150 L. The battery capacity is assumed 6.86 kWh which is the capacity of a plug in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) battery (compact sedan) [18]. Fig. 2 shows
the total electrical demand with segregating it into each appliances share. This is achieved by means of smart meters used in
the building. The buildings hot water demand is shown in Fig. 3

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TABLE III
ASSUMED VALUES FOR PARAMETERS

Fig. 3. Hot water demand in the building.

TABLE I
SHIFTABLE DEMAND DATA

TABLE II
TOU PRICE TARIFFS

Fig. 4. Microgrid operation cost in 4 cases.

[19]. Five shiftable loads are considered in this building including: washing machine, dryer, dish washer, iron, and vacuum
cleaner. The energy consumption and hours of operation data for
these appliances are shown in Table I. Table II shows the TOU
price tariffs currently used in Ontario, Canada [20]. Pick price
hours are [8 A.M.19 P.M.]. The price of natural gas is considered 18.2
[20]. Table III shows assumed parameters
in solving (3).
A. Microgrid Operation Cases
In this study, 4 cases for microgrid operation are simulated
and compared. Each case is different in terms of using/not using

smart control, battery, and load shifting. These 4 cases are as

follows:
Case 1: Heat-led control for micro-CHP, no battery, no load
shifting.
Case 2: Smart control for micro-CHP, no battery, no load
shifting.
Case 3: Smart control for micro-CHP, with battery, no load
shifting.
Case 4: Smart control for micro-CHP, with battery, with
load shifting.
The microgrid operation cost for the 4 cases are compared in
Fig. 4. As it can be seen, the smarter the system, the more economical the operation would be.
In order to examine the effect of using smart control for
micro-CHP, the electrical output power of micro-CHP is depicted
in Fig. 5. As it can be seen, by the heat-led control (Case 1),
the micro-CHP electrical output power, which also represents
the thermal output power with a constant ratio, mainly follows

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355

Fig. 7. Battery output power and SOC for Case 3.

Fig. 5. Micro-CHP electrical output power for Cases 1 and 2.
TABLE IV
MICRO-CHP ELECTRICAL ENERGY DURING PEAK PRICE HOURS

Fig. 8. Electrical demand profile before and after load shifting.

Fig. 6. Building temperature and storage temperature for Cases 1 and 2.

the thermal demand Fig. 3 hour-by-hour. On the other hand,

when smart control is used (Case 2), all the hours are considered
and building and storage temperatures are also coordinated
with the electrical output power of micro-CHP unit (Fig. 5).
Table IV proves the effectiveness of smart control in optimal
operation of micro-CHP unit; it shows that smart control, compared to heat-led control, leads to more electricity generation by
micro-CHP during peak price hours which means the microgrid
can sell more electricity to the main grid. From the network
congestion point of view, the optimization module automatically
responds to the change of price during a day and acts in a way that
mitigates the load level as much as possible during the peak-load
hours with high prices. Basically, transmission congestion would
be translated into higher price tariffs from the Dis. Co. and therefore, would make the developed algorithm force more demand
reduction for energy cost savings.
As shown in Fig. 6, the building temperature and the storage
temperature have been set in such a way that micro-CHP is able
to operate with its maximum capacity during some of the peak
price hours (i.e., 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, and 18:00).
The battery output power together with its SOC is depicted
in Fig. 7. The positive and negative values represent battery

charging and discharging, respectively. As expected, the battery

charges and discharges during low price and peak price hours,
respectively.
Fig. 8 illustrates the microgrids electrical demand before and
after implementing the load shifting, i.e., Cases 3 and 4. As expected, the electrical demand profile has changed in such a way
that coordinates with the micro-CHP output power to achieve
economic operation of the microgrid. For example, at hours
10:00 and 17:0019:00, which are peak price hours, the electrical demand decreases while micro-CHP operates at its maximum capacity (Fig. 5). This is due to the fact that the microgrid
has the opportunity to sell its extra electrical power to the main
grid at peak price hours. Note that the flexible thermal demand
has also played an important role in achieving this goal. For
the micro-CHP to be able to operate at its maximum capacity
during these hours, thermal demand should be increased to meet
the extra thermal energy provided by micro-CHP. This can be
verified by looking at the increased temperature of the building
and the storage at hours 11:00 and 18:0020:00 [based on (1)
and (2)]. As it was mentioned before, the microgrid is equipped
with DERs and load shifting; therefore, the microgrid does not
impose any load at peak price hours which is desirable from the
main grid operators point of view (Fig. 9).
B. Sensitivity Analysis
In order to examine the impact of uncertainties in the proposed
model, the risk analysis is performed by means of Monte Carlo
simulations. The uncertain parameters which can influence operation cost are: thermal and electrical loads and outside temperature. Here, 10 000 scenarios are considered for each uncertain parameter, i.e., each parameter has 10 000 profiles for the following

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY 2014

formulated such that it leads to an MILP problem (avoiding a

nonlinear problem); thus, well-known solution techniques such
as branch and bound can be utilized to solve it. This algorithm
can be used in residential buildings energy management systems
and help in realization of smart microgrids.
As future study, it is suggested to look into issues such as
coordination and scheduling of several microgrids, their power
quality along with their participation in ancillary service markets.
REFERENCES
Fig. 9. Purchased power from the main grid.

Fig. 10. Operation cost PDFs for the uncertain parameters.

TABLE V
IMPACT RANKING OF UNCERTAIN PARAMETERS ON MICROGRID OPERATION
COST

day. The uncertain parameters are assumed to have normal distribution with 5% standard deviation (STD) around their mean
values which are forecasted values shown in Figs. 2, 3, and 6.
Fig. 10 shows the probability distribution function (PDF) of
operation cost for the three uncertain parameters: electrical demand, thermal demand, and outdoor temperature. Table V shows
STD values caused by each uncertain parameter. As it can be
seen, uncertainty in electrical demand causes the most STD in
operation cost. Therefore, it is concluded that improving the
electrical demand forecast by means of deploying smart meters
data has the highest impact in terms of decreasing the risk.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper presents an optimal scheduling model for a residential microgrid. In this model, temperature dependent thermal
load modeling is formulated and smart meters data is used to
achieve lower operation cost. It is shown that this kind of thermal
load modeling together with implementing load shifting, based
on smart meters data, can facilitate the micro-CHP smart control leading to more flexibility of microgrids. The scheduling is

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TASDIGHI et al.: RESIDENTIAL MICROGRID SCHEDULING

Mohammad Tasdighi (S13) received his B.Sc. and

M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Currently, he is a Research Assistant pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
His research interests include smart grid, renewable
energy sources, power system operation, and power
system protection.

Hassan Ghasemi (S01M07SM11) received

the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of
Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in 1999 and 2001, respectively,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada,
in 2006. He worked for the market and system operation division at the independent electricity system
operator (IESO), ON, Canada, from 20062009.
Currently, he is an Assistant Professor in the School
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University
of Tehran. His main research interests are power
system operation and control, energy systems, electricity markets, and system
identification applications to power systems.

357

Ashkan Rahimi-Kian (SM08) received the B.Sc.

degree in electrical engineering from the University
of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in 1992 and the M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Ohio
State University, Columbus, OH, USA, in 1998
and 2001, respectively. He was the Vice President
of Engineering and Development with Genscape,
Inc., Louisville, KY, USA, from September 2001
to October 2002 and a Research Associate with
the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
(ECE), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, from
November 2002 to December 2003. He is currently an Associate Professor of
Electrical Engineering (Control and Intelligent Processing Center of Excellence) with the School of ECE, College of Engineering, University of Tehran.
He is also the founder and director of the Smart Networks Research Laboratory
(SNL) at the school of ECE, UT. Dr. Rahimi-Kian is also a co-founder and
executive committee member of Irans Society of Smart Grid. His research
interests include bidding strategies in dynamic energy markets, game theory
and learning, intelligent transportation systems, decision making in multiagent
stochastic systems, stochastic optimal control, dynamic stock market modeling
and decision making using game theory, smart grid design, operation and
control, estimation theory and applications in energy and financial systems,
risk modeling, and management in energy and financial systems.