Dr. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez received his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA in December 2025. Jesus started working in the RPG lab first as an undergraduate research assistant in August 2020. After he completed his BS degree at UH, he then became a direct PhD student here in January 2021. Jesus is our first direct-PhD graduate.

Jesus worked in the RPG lab as a PhD student from Jan. 2021 to Dec. 2025.

PhD Dissertation title: “Decentralized Co-Optimization of Water and Energy Distribution Systems”

First Job: Large Load Integration Engineer, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Texas, USA.

Education

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, University of Houston, 2021 - 2025

B.S., Electrical Engineering, University of Houston, 2020

Professional Experience

Engineering Associate/Interconnection Analyst, Blended Power LLC, Houston, TX, 2021 - 2022

Research Intern, Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany, 2019

Publications at UH RPG Lab

1. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez and Xingpeng Li, “Decentralized Water-Energy Co-Optimization for Small Communities”, Electric Power Systems Research, vol. 234, Sep. 2024.
2. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez and Xingpeng Li, “Centralized Networked Micro Water-Energy Nexus with Proportional Exchange Among Participants”, 54th North American Power Symposium, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, Oct. 2022.
3. Cunzhi Zhao, Jesus Silva-Rodriguez and Xingpeng Li, “Resilient Operational Planning for Microgrids Against Extreme Events”, Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Maui, Hawaii, USA, Jan. 2023.
4. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez, Jin Lu and Xingpeng Li, “Cost-Benefit Analysis and Comparisons for Different Offshore Wind Energy Transmission Systems”, Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, TX, USA, May 2023.
5. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez and Xingpeng Li, “Water-Energy Co-Optimization for Community-Scale Microgrids,” 53rd North American Power Symposium, College Station, TX, USA, Nov. 2021.
6. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez, Elias Raffoul, and Xingpeng Li, “LSTM-Based Net Load Forecasting for Wind and Solar Power-Equipped Microgrids”, 56th North American Power Symposium, El Paso, TX, USA, Oct. 2024.
7. Linhan Fang, Jesus Silva-Rodriguez, and Xingpeng Li, “Data-Driven EV Charging Load Profile Estimation and Typical EV Daily Load Dataset Generation”, arXiv.
8. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez and Xingpeng Li, “ADMM Penalty Parameter Evaluation for Networked Microgrid Energy Management”, arXiv.
9. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez, Elias Raffoul, Linhan Fang, John D. Wright, Rida Fatima, Gregory J. Boyle, Karim Mohamed, Jhonny Di Girolamo, Eric Easton, and Xingpeng Li, “Cable Degradation Estimation and Remaining Useful Life Prediction for Distribution Networks with High EV Penetration”, arXiv.
10. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez, Xingpeng Li, and Gino Lim, “Privacy-Preserving Networked Microgrid Energy Management via Objective-Based ADMM”, arXiv.
11. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez, Tianxia Zhao, Ran Mo, and Xingpeng Li, “Grid-Edge Energy-Flexible Technologies: A Comparative Analysis Across Generators, Loads, and Energy Storage Systems”, arXiv.
12. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez and Xingpeng Li, “PV-Based Lunar Surface Power Distribution: System Design and Reliability Analysis”, arXiv.
13. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez and Xingpeng Li, “Machine Learning Assisted Decentralized Energy Management for Networked Microgrids via Objective-Based ADMM”, arXiv.
14. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez, Rahul Raj, Harish Krishnamoorthy, and Xingpeng Li, “Lunar Surface Power Distribution Architecture: Optimal Design and Component Analysis”.
15. Jesus Silva-Rodriguez and Xingpeng Li, “Utility Distribution Level Water-Energy Nexus: Convexification Modeling and Decentralization”.

Classes

• ECE 6327 Smart Grid Systems
• ECE 6379 Power System Operations and Modeling
• ECE 6305 Power Electronics Converters and Controls
• INDE 6372 Advaced Linear Optimization
• INDE 7397 Decition Modeling and Optimization Under Uncertainty

Research Interests

Power Systems Operations, Stochastic Optimization, Water-Energy Nexus