The 2019 JST-NSF-RCN Workshop of JST-CREST, “EMS: Creation of Fundamental Theory and Technology to Establish a Cooperative Distributed Energy Management System and Integration of Technologies Across Broad Disciplines Toward Social Application” was held in collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Research Council of Norway (RCN) on June 20–21, 2019 in Tokyo.

A series of workshops aimed at exchanging information and establishing networks among researchers in the area and developing future collaborations, were held in 2013 (Hawaii), 2015 (Virginia), 2016 (Heidelberg), 2017(Tokyo), and 2018(Mumbai). Following the success of these previous workshops, this 6th workshop attracted over 150 participants including researchers from Germany, India, Italy, Norway, and Malaysia, in addition to 17 researchers from the U.S.

Yoshimasa Goto, the Executive Director of JST, gave the opening remarks. Then, Research Supervisor Masayuki Fujita (Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology) reported in his session that more than 800 internationally coauthored papers have been published under the program, and approximately 100 of them were in top journals. In the keynote session, Koshichi Nemoto, the Director of the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (ENIC), delivered a lecture on the latest trends concerning the decentralized energy system on the demand side and the digitization of the electric power industry. In the sessions on EMS trends in each country, Radhakisan Baheti, Program Director of NSF; Svein Grandum, Counsellor, Science and Technology for Innovation Norway at the Norwegian Embassy in Japan; and Hiroshi Asano Deputy Director of SIP of the Cabinet Office, spoke on the latest EMS research trends in each of their respective countries.

At the presentation session, six Japanese presenters comprising research representatives and researchers from the CREST/EMS area gave lectures on the latest research results. Prof. Anuradha Annaswamy from MIT spoke on distributed optimization algorithms for retail markets, and Prof. Zhihua Qu from the University of Central Florida gave a talk on passivity-shortage-based plug-and-play operation of dynamic electricity pricing with power flow constraints. Researchers from Germany, India, Norway, and the United States also presented the latest research results. In a poster session, 50 presentations and one demonstration were conducted mainly by young CREST researchers, and they held lively discussions that extended for almost three hours including reception time.

In the closing session, Dr. Michiharu Nakamura, a Senior Advisor at JST talked about future issues for SDGs. Then, Dr. Baheti (NSF), Dr. Pahwa (NSF), and Dr. Grandham (RCN) joined on the stage. They engaged in an interactive discussion with the audience under the moderation of Prof. Fujita. Both researcher community and overseas funding agencies—NSF and RCN—expressed their hopes for developing the top-level international community that has evolved over the six workshops to an advanced stage and continue collaborations even after the end of the CREST program of the year. The workshop ended with the sharing of expectations for the future of EMS research among participants.

https://www.jst.go.jp/kisoken/crest/en/research_area/ongoing/areah24-1.html