Congratulations to our alumni Dr. Eojin Choi on his recent appointment as Assistant Professor at Mokpo National University!! (26.08)
Welcome to Smart Energy Network Design (SEND) Lab at KENTECH!
We are always open to new graduate/undergraduate students, post-doc., and academic visitors.
About Us
We are a research group that designs the rules energy systems run on. Our base is power system engineering and energy economics. Our central question is where to draw the line between what markets should coordinate and what planning and regulation must decide. We then ask how to make the rules at that line work in practice: rules that can be enforced, that participants can understand, and that hold up under uncertainty and information asymmetry.
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Who we study. The actors range from central and local governments, legislators and regulators to system operators (TSOs and DSOs), utilities, aggregators and virtual power plants (VPPs), corporations and consumers. Most of our work takes the view of the rule-maker: the regulator, the system operator or the public appraiser.
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Our approach: Policy Systems Engineering. We treat energy policy as a system that has to run, not as a statement of intent. Our work moves through three steps:
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Physics: we model physical constraints faithfully, including AC/DC power flow, system inertia, distribution network limits and contingencies.
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Value: we put a number on services that markets do not yet price, such as reactive power, grid-forming capability and network flexibility.
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Rules: we turn those values into instruments that can be applied, such as prequalification procedures, prices, penalties, appraisal criteria and support schemes.
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Our methods. We use convex relaxation and pricing theory, distributionally robust and Bayesian methods, machine learning with formal guarantees, graph neural networks (GNNs) and reinforcement learning, and large-scale planning–operation models.
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Beyond the grid. Industrial and economic strategy increasingly runs through the power system. We therefore study not only how the grid is operated, but how grid decisions shape industry and the wider economy. This includes how energy-intensive industries decarbonize and electrify, including through hydrogen, and how energy transition choices affect growth, industrial competitiveness and economic security at the national level.
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Grounded in practice. Our studies are built on Korean system data and real policy agendas. They feed directly into regulatory design and public debate through the KENTECH Energy Policy Institute (KEPI).
If you want to know how decisions, big or small, are actually made in the energy industry, and you would like to help design what comes next alongside outstanding colleagues and alumni, please contact our PI, Prof. Seungwan Kim (swakim@kentech.ac.kr).
Research Interests
Valuing and Pricing Grid Physics
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Pricing active and reactive power together in AC/DC hybrid grids
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The system value of grid-forming resources and other grid services
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Storage valuation and risk hedging
Reliability and Risk
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Probabilistic contingency risk assessment from sparse outage data
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Reliability criteria design and infrastructure stress tests
Planning, Investment and Feasibility Analysis
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Generation, transmission and storage expansion planning
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Transition pathways chosen within the model: coal phase-out, fuel switching, co-firing
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Feasibility analysis of energy infrastructure: offshore energy hubs, marshalling ports
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Hosting capacity and grid tariff design
Distribution Market Design and the Market–Non-market Boundary
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DSO prequalification of VPP bids and uncertainty bands
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Rules that let market bids and non-market (operator-side) flexibility coexist
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Rules that account for participant behavior under decision-dependent uncertainty
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Fair and explainable allocation of network adjustments
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TSO–DSO cooperation and band-based balancing
Trustworthy AI for Grid Decisions
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Learning-informed optimization with probabilistic guarantees
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GNN/RL-based network reconfiguration and prequalification
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Explainable, privacy-preserving coordination between operators and participants
Industrial Decarbonization and Electrification
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Decarbonization pathways for energy-intensive industries (steel, petrochemicals, cement)
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Economics of clean hydrogen production, supply chains and end use
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Industrial electrification and its effects on grid planning and flexibility
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Strategic energy procurement for industry (PPAs, long-term contracts, on-site resources)
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Integrating large new loads, including AI data centers
Macroeconomics of the Energy Industry
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The energy transition as industrial and economic-security strategy
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Macroeconomic effects of energy policy on growth, prices, trade and employment
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How policy-induced technology learning makes transition costs a design variable rather than a given
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Public finance of the transition: who bears costs and risks, and how they are allocated
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Industrial organization and governance of the power sector
Members
Publications
scholar.google.co.kr - Please check our full publications here!
KEPI Working Paper Series - Please check our latest working papers here in advance!
Research Projects
Work In Progress
1.
“Integrated Capacity Expansion Planning Model with Endogenous Fuel Switching for Coal Phase-out Roadmap”, submitted.
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“System-wide Economic Feasibility of Grid-forming Resources in Island Power System”, submitted.
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“Decentralized Balancing Scheme with Imbalance Band Contract for TSO-DSO Cooperation”, submitted.
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“Data-Efficient Estimation of Shapley Value Loss Allocation using Model Explanation Approach in Unbalanaced and Meshed Distribution Systems”, submitted.
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“Unlocking the Value of Offshore Energy Hubs for Mitigating Onshore Grid Bottlenecks in
South Korea”, submitted.
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"Posterior Risk Ranking of N-k Transmission Contingencies from Sparse Outage Records”, submitted.
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“Learning-Informed Variable Bound Tightening for Convexified Optimal Power Flow in AC/DC Hybrid Networks”, submitted.
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“A Contractual Hedging of Balancing Payment Risk for AI Data Center under Cost-Causal Framework”, in progress.
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“Decision-Dependent Distributionally Robust Prequalification under GBD Framework with Bayesian Learning and Price-Aware Cut Allocation”, in progress.
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“Economic Assessment of Policy Support Mechanisms for Energy Storage Deployment”, in progress.
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“Network Reconfiguration for Balanced VPP Curtailment under DSO Prequalification via Reinforcement Learning”, in progess.
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“Probabilistic Evaluation of Sequential Siting of Flexible Resources along Hosting-Capacity-Constrained Deployment Paths”, in progress.
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“State-led or market-driven? Institutional conditions for power system digitalization”, in progress.
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“Stratifying DSO Coordination by Contract Capability: A Consistent Architecture for Heterogeneous DER Participation”, in progress.
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“Uncertainty-band bidding by virtual power plants: A newsvendor theory of penalty design for distribution-network security”, in progress.
Teaching
[Undergraduate course]
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VC1002 - Visionary Course (Fall 24, 25)
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EL1006 - Electric Circuit (Spring 25)
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EL4014 - Optimization Theory (Fall 25)
[Graduate course]
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EE6410 - Energy Policy (Fall 24)
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EE6412 - Advanced Optimization Theory (Spring 25)
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EE6413 - AI Applications for Power Industry (Fall 25)
Prof. Kim in the Media
한국경제신문 포커스 인터뷰 기사 : https://www.hankyung.com/amp/202603101595i
유튜브 출연 :
