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Miguel Ortega-Vazquez

Miguel Ortega-Vazquez
Research Assistant Professor
Smart grids, power system security, power system economics, integration of renewable energy

M350 EEB
Box 352500
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195

Phone: 206-543-9308
E-mail:

The University of Manchester (formerly UMIST), PhD EE, 2006
Universidad Autonóma de Nuevo León, MSc EE 2001
Instituto Tecnológico de Morelia, Ingeniero Eléctrico, (Electrical Engineer), 1999

Biosketch

Miguel Ortega-Vazquez was appointed Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Washington in 2011. From 2010 to 2011 he was Assistant Professor in the Division of Energy and Environment at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. From 2006 to 2010 he was Research Associate in the Power Systems research group at the University of Manchester (formerly UMIST) in Great Britain.

Research Interests

Power Systems are forever changing. The paradigm of a generation-demand has evolved to complexly integrated systems. On the one hand, the integration of stochastic weather-driven power sources has resulted in larger uncertainties in the demand that needs to be met by dispatchable generation. On the other hand, with the advent of smart grid technologies, the demand side is starting to feature higher degrees of control and flexibility. Along with this, the unrelenting demand growth and the preference of electricity as the main energy carrier are pushing power systems to be operated closer to their limits. In order to operate these evolved power systems in a cost effective, reliable and clean way (with the minimum environmental impact), new tools that capture the new features of the supply and demand sides, and that exploits the new degrees of control and communication made available in the smart grid framework, are required. The development of these efficient operating tools to aid system operators to draw the daily operating plans is my main research interest.

I have also worked on the provision of optimal levels of reserve. Power system operators try to keep a certain amount of generation capacity as spinning reserve to ensure that the power system is able to withstand the sudden outage of some generating units or an unforeseen increase in load without having to resort to load shedding. Whilst providing large amounts of reserve hedges the system against a larger spectrum of contingencies, this is unpractical, since the reserve comes at a cost, and this, ideally, should be kept at a minimum. System operators should therefore balance the costs of providing reserve, versus the risk of having to shed load (or even a total blackout) as a consequence of contingency. The provision of optimal amounts of reserve while accommodating wind power generation resources in the most efficient way was the direction of my research during my PhD and my postdoctoral appointment.

Research links:

Power and Energy Systems Analysis Lab

Education

2006	PhD, University of Manchester (formerly UMIST)	Emphasis in Power Systems
2001	Master's (MSc), Universidad Autonóma de Nuevo León, Mexico	Emphasis in Power Systems
1999	Electrical Engineer's degree, Instituto Tecnológico de Morelia, Ingeniero Eléctrico, Mexico	Emphasis in Power Systems

Professional Memberships

IEEE
IEEE PES

Publications

Manuals

Ortega-Vazquez, M. A. and Kirschen, D. S., (2005), Solutions Manual, Fundamentals of Power System Economics, John Wiley and Sons.

Selected Conference Papers

Bouffard, F. and Ortega-Vazquez, M. A., (2011), The Value of Operational Flexibility in Power Systems with Significant Wind Power Generation, in proceedings of the IEEE-PES 2011, General Meeting, Detroit, MI, USA, 24-28 July 2011.
Steen, D., Le, A. T., Ortega-Vazquez, M. A., Carlson, O., Bertling, L. and Neimane, V. (2011), Scheduling Charging of Electric Vehicles for Optimal Distribution Systems Planning and Operation, in proceedings of the CIRED 2011 Meeting, Frankfurt, Germany, 6-9 June 2011.
Ortega-Vazquez, M. A. and Kirschen, D. S., (2010), Security Provision in Systems with Large Penetration of Wind Power Generation, in proceedings of the IEEE-PES 2010 General Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, 25-29 July 2010.
Panciatici, P., Hassaine,Y., Fliscounakis, S., Platbrood, L., Ortega-Vazquez, M. A., Martinez-Ramos, J. L. and Wehenkel, L., (2010), Security Management Under Uncertainity: from Day-Ahead Planning to Intraday Operation, in proceedings of the IREP Symposium 2010, Buzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1-6 August 2010.
Dahlan, N. Y., Kirschen, D. S. and Ortega-Vazquez, M. A., (2010), Generation Investment Evaluation Under Uncertainity in a Competitive Environment, in proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Probabilistic Methods Applied to Power Systems, Singapore, 14-17 June 2010.
Ortega-Vazquez, M. A. and Kirschen, D. S., (2009), Should the Spinning Reserve Procurement in Systems with Wind Power Generation be Deterministic or Probabilistic?, in proceedings of the 1st International Conference on SUPERGEN, Nanjing, China, 6-7 April 2009.
Ortega-Vazquez, M. A. and Kirschen, D. S., (2008), Assessment of Generation Expansion Mechanisms Using Multi-Agent Systems, in proceedings of the IEEE-PES 2008 General Meeting, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 20-24 July 2008.
Ortega-Vazquez, M. A. and Kirschen, D. S., (2006), Economic Impact Assessment of Load Forecast Errors Considering the Cost of Interruptions, in proceedings of the IEEE-PES 2006 General Meeting, Montreal, Quebec Canada, 18-22 June 2006.

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