Toward an analytic framework for the electrical power grid

The large majority of electrical power in the United States today is generated from fossil feedstocks. While renewable energy sources offer compelling alternatives, there are many challenges and complexities that currently limit their use. The high-level objective of our work is to create an analytic framework to provide decision support for renewable energy use in electrical power generation in the US. For security reasons, many of the details of the infrastructure that would facilitate our work are not openly available. Thus, we seek to infer key properties of the power generation and transmission infrastructures, using alternative data sources and recognizing that grid dynamics are constrained by federal regulation and the laws of physics. In this discussion paper we describe the design space for our study and our initial analyses of energy pricing data. These data are openly available from Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators. Our results highlight the complexities and dynamics of the relationships between locations in the power grid, and set the stage for inferring physical and behavioral properties of the power grid.