The competition challenged teams from all over the world to develop solutions for a set of specific and difficult problems which occur when operating electric power systems. The participants were required to use meta-heuristic techniques, involving discrete and continuous quantities in a nonlinear environment. The theme of the competition was the problem known as OPF (optimal power flow), which is key to modern safety and to the energy efficiency of power grid operation. To solve the exercise, the researchers used the Evolutionary Particle Swarm Optimization (EPSO) technique, employing an algorithm that was originally developed at INESC TEC by Vladimiro Miranda, addressed in a paper that was published as part of IEEE’s 2002 World Conference on Computational Intelligence. The algorithm has been progressively improved since then.

In the challenge, the EPSO, or DEEPSO in its modern version, which earned the INESC TEC team first place, “proved to be the most competitive algorithm used today in the world”, Vladimiro Miranda confesses.

The two researchers presented the solution during the General Meeting of the IEEE PES, which took place on 29 July in Washington DC, together with other five teams selected as the best among dozens of competitors. At the event, the Portuguese was announced as the winner and received a diploma confirming the victory. According to the director of INESC TEC, this award “brings new light to the technology made at INESC TEC and a new worldwide attention to the quality of the work developed in our country.”

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this article are associated with the following partner institutions: INESC Porto and FEUP.