Slider – Page 2 – Welcome to MACSER

Rare Events

October 7, 2021 Stephanie Junca

Rare events are difficult to compute and predict but have a very large societal impact. The August 14, 2003, Northeast US blackout affected 55 million people in the US and Canada and was visible from space. MACSER aims to accurately model and effectively simulate such events.

The Grid

October 7, 2021 Stephanie Junca

The electricity grid is at the core of $400B per year in direct economic activity, and central to US security and prosperity. How to improve its reliability and resilience, particularly when faced with abnormal or extreme environmental events, is the central application theme of MACSER.

Multifaceted Mathematics for Rare, High-Impact Events in Complex Energy and Environment Systems

We are a multi-institution project whose aim is to fully explore the opportunities in applied mathematics brought about by multi-disciplinary focus — involving optimization, dynamical systems, stochastic analysis, discrete mathematics, scalable algorithms — on the DOE Grand Challenge of energy systems.

The central research concept is the one of multi-faceted mathematics — whereby new mathematics is discovered by sustained investigation of the multiple facets presented by the grand challenge subproblems, such as nonconvexity, stochasticity, integrality, spatio-temporal variability — from the perspective of all the mathematics discipline area involved.

Our project involves 25 principal investigators from 4 national laboratories: Argonne National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and three Universities: University of Wisconsin, University of Chicago, and Ohio State University. The project is lead by Mihai Anitescu from Argonne National Laboratory. The project is sponsored by the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research of the US Department of Energy, program manager Bill Spotz.

Our research aims to create new multifaceted applied mathematics by means of an integrative research process driven by technical challenges in complex energy systems of national interest. Our findings and capabilities are disseminated through publications, participations in scientific and broad interest events, mathematical software and outreach.