Thesis Defense Announcement for Komal Naz – 12/09/2025 at 10 AM

Thesis Title: Intelligent Consumer-Centric Demand Response for Resilient Distribution Systems

When: Tuesday, December 9, 2025, at 10:00 AM (CDT)

Where: Simrall 228

Candidate: Komal Naz

Degree: Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Committee Members: Dr. Yong Fu, Dr. Masoud Karimi-Ghartemani, Dr. Seungdeog Choi

Abstract:

The growing integration of renewable energy into distribution networks brings challenges such as voltage fluctuations, operational uncertainty, and the need to maintain consumer comfort. As both demand and renewable generation change throughout the day, there is a need for intelligent strategies that can coordinate consumer behavior with system requirements in a fair and efficient way.

This study presents a demand response framework that considers both grid needs and consumer preferences. Data-driven renewable energy model is used to capture realistic distributed energy resources (DERs) behavior. A modified Binary Teaching–Learning-Based Optimization (BTLBO) algorithm is applied to develop appliance switching schedules that considers consumer-defined comfort limits. The strategy is further refined through the Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) method, which assigns objective weights to multiple performance criteria. Additional consumer-centric enhancements are introduced by considering varying consumer densities, probabilistic usage patterns, and weekday/weekend behavior, resulting in adaptive switching matrices that improve comfort and fairness.

The results show that integrating consumer behavior with intelligent optimization can improve voltage conditions, enhance system reliability, and support a more practical and consumer-centric demand response strategy.