Jose Fernando Prada

Advisor(s):

Marija Ilić

Research Project Description:
My research is focused on decision making under uncertainty in electricity markets.  In particular, I work on the design of new policies and tools for ancillary services markets, dynamic generation reserves and reliability criteria, to take into consideration the impacts of stochastic resources. The objective is to improve reliability and operational efficiency by developing improved reserve policies and new market and pricing mechanisms for ancillary services.

I am also interested on the integration of electricity markets, proposing decentralized solutions to overcome cross-border issues impairing the efficient planning and operation of large electrical interconnections. The “market seams” and “regulatory harmonization” issues — arising from differences in market designs, operating rules and commercial practices — limit or even impede the economic exchange of energy between adjacent systems, by creating technical or operative difficulties, introducing high transaction costs or through discriminatory rules.

Research Interests: Electricity markets design, operation and regulation; power systems planning, operations, economics and reliability; cross-border electricity trading, interregional transmission, international interconnections, regional markets, market seams, distributed optimization, stochastic optimization.

Publications:

Conference Publications:

J.F. Prada and M. Ilic, “Making the Case for Interregional Transmission Projects: Evaluation of Benefits and Allocation of Costs”, 33rd USAEE/IAEE North American Conference, Pittsburgh, USA, October 2015.

J.F. Prada and M. Ilic, “Locational Allocation and Pricing of Responsive Contingency Reserves”, IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting, Denver, USA, July 2015.

J.F. Prada and O. Veloza, “Integral Approach to Risk Management for Energy Companies”, CIER III International Meeting of Generation, Transmission and Market Operation, Medellin, Colombia, September 2005.

J.F. Prada, R.Verlaan and V. Poyotte, “Performance Benchmarking of Caribbean Utilities”, CIRED 18a International Conference, Turin, Italy, June 2005.

J.F. Prada, D. Bowman et al, “The Regional Electricity Market of Central America”, CIGRE 2004 Session, Paris, France, September 2004.

J.F. Prada, P. Giesbertz, D. Bowman, and K. Petrov, “SIEPAC: A Regional Electricity Market for Central America”, 3rd Balkan Power Conference, OPCOM S.A. and University of Ljubljana, Bucharest, Romania, June 2003.

J.F. Prada, “Ancillary Services and Power Supply Reliability”, V International Conference on Energy Analysis and Markets, Universidad Nacional de Colombia and Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, August 2001.

J.F. Prada and M. Ilic, “Pricing Reliability: A Probabilistic Approach”, Proceedings of the 1999 Large Engineering Systems Conference on Power Engineering, Halifax, Canada, June 1999.

Journal Publications:

J.F. Prada, “Lessons of California Electricity Crisis”, Revista Energética No.25, Engineering School Journal, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín, Colombia, July 2001.

Book Chapters:

L.E. Arbelaez and J.F. Prada. “The Development Process of the Regulatory Harmonization Proposal leading to the Andean Nations Community Decision 536 of 2002 on Regional Trade of Electricity”, in “Reflections on Energy Integration”, pp. 121-131, Universidad Externado of Colombia, September 2006, 184p.

Other Publications:

Regulatory Specialists Work Group Final Report - CREG (Colombia), CONELEC (Ecuador), OSINERG (Perú), FUNDELEC (Venezuela), “Proposal for the Harmonization of Regulatory Frameworks - Agreement for the Regional Interconnection of Electric Systems and the International Exchange of Electricity” (Propuesta de Armonización de Marcos Normativos), Quito-Bogotá-Lima, November 2001.

J.F. Prada, “The Value of Reliability in Power Systems: Pricing Operating Reserves”, MIT Laboratory for the Energy and the Environment, Working Paper EL 99-005 WP, July 1999.

Awards/Fellowships:

Full scholarship from the national science agency of Colombia, Colciencias, to pursue master studies at MIT, 1997-1999.

Graduate studies scholarship from National University of Colombia (Medellin), for having the highest GPA of Electrical Engineering 1991 class.

CV: Academic Resume 2015