• I attended the 2026 IEEE IAS Annual Meeting at the Vancouver Convention Centre, Vancouver, Canada, October 4–8, 2026.

• I chaired four technical paper sessions and presented three of our papers.

• It was also good to catch up with my former Ph.D. student Cunzhi Zhao, now a professor at McNeese State University.

RPGLab Conference Papers:

Our papers addressed three areas in power system planning and operation:

1. Data Center Spatio-Temporal Load Flexibility in Security-Constrained Unit Commitment for Enhanced Grid Efficiency and Reliability

• Haoxiang Wan, and Xingpeng Li.
• Data center load flexibility: coordinating workloads across locations and time within security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC) to reduce transmission congestion and renewable curtailment.

Renewable curtailment with fixed vs. flexible data center loads.

2. Hosting Capacity Assessment and Enhancement for Edge Data Centers in Active Distribution Networks

• Linhan Fang, and Xingpeng Li.
• Edge data center hosting capacity: identifying distribution network limits and evaluating how battery storage, local generation, and reactive power support can accommodate more data center load.

Maximum data center hosting capacity at each bus of the distribution network.

3. Learning-Assisted Day-Ahead Energy Scheduling for Frequency-Secure Inverter-Dominated Grids with Grid-Forming Battery Energy Storage Systems

• Fan Jiang, and Xingpeng Li.
• Learning-assisted grid operation: using models trained on EMT simulations to incorporate grid-forming battery dynamics and reserve requirements into frequency-secure day-ahead energy scheduling.

Hourly RoCoF and frequency under three day-ahead scheduling models.

Photos from this conference and the city of Vancouver:

With my former Ph.D. student Cunzhi Zhao.

The waterfront and mountain views from the Vancouver Convention Centre were a welcome bonus!