Power, Intelligence and Computing (PIC) Lab
Brown Hall 314F
1610 Illinois St
Golden, CO 80401
The PIC-Lab is led by Dr. Qiuhua Huang, who is an Associate Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at Colorado School of Mines. For more information of Dr. Huang, please visit his homepage at Mines
Our Vision
Enable and accelerate electricity-centric energy system digitalization and decarbonization through convergence of physics, AI, computing and control.
Research Areas
- Power system modeling and simulation.
- T&D system modeling and co-simulation
- EMT-phasor co-simulation
- Data-driven and physics-based hybrid/co-simulation
- Advanced computing for power system simulation
- AI for power and energy systems
- Machine learning for power system operation and control
- AI-enhanced cybersecurity for DERs and the Grid
- Learning-based control for building and community
- Physics-informed machine learning for power system modeling, simulation and control
- Grid edge intelligence (together with edge computing, IOT)
- Electrification
- EV forecasting (Individual and system level)
- Grid operation with high penetration of EVs
- Building/community electrification and building to grid
Recent Openning (for Spring or Fall 2025)
We have an immediate open PhD position for students with strong background and/or interest in power system transient or dynamic transient stability simulation for power systems with high penetration of IBRs. Students with EE, Physics or scientfic computing backgorunds are welcome. Good programming skill in Python and/or C++/CUDA is desirable. Good knowledge and experience with at least one of the following simulation tools including PSCAD, EMTP, ATP, PSS/E, PSLF, PowerWorld, BPA, PSASP, DIgSILENT PowerFactory, PSAT, ANDES, InterPSS is required. The student is expected to start in Spring or Fall 2025. This student will have many opportunities to directly work with national labs (e.g., NREL, PNNL, ANL), EPRI, industry members and researchers from other universities. We usually consider students with a master degree for PhD application with exception for excellent undergraduate students with research experience and publication already.
The research experience at PIC Lab comes with added bonus to enjoy the wonders of Colorado and lots of outdoor activities for four seasons.
Please contact Prof. Huang if you are interested in this opportunity and use email title “ PhD Application - Power System Transient”
To Perspective Students
Please read the “To perspective students” article in the blog page
About the PI (and mentoring and research philosophy)
Please read the “About me” article in the blog page
news
| Jul 25, 2024 | Prof. Huang organized a panel titled “Convergence of AI- and Physics-based Approaches in Power System Analysis, Optimization, and Control” during IEEE PES GM 2024 in Seattle, WA, USA, and presented the group’s research work on Convergence of AI, physics, computing and control for future grid operation and control |
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| Jul 23, 2024 | Three students from PIC Lab, Patrick Salter, Celina Wilkerson and Owen Cornmesser, attended the IEEE PES Genernal Meeting conference in Seattle, WA, and presented their research works during the conferene poster and student poster competition sessions. Congradualations! |
| May 22, 2024 | Prof. Huang was invited to give a keynote lecture in the first International Workshop on AI and Machine Learning for Energy Transformation held at University of Vaasa, Finland, and he presented an overview of the lab’s work on “Convergence of AI, Physics, Computing, and Control for Energy Transformation” (Slies) on May 20, 2024. |
| May 2, 2024 | Prof. Huang was invited by the IEEE Palouse Section PES Chapter to give a talk on “Convergence of AI, Physics, Computing, and Control for Energy Transformation” on May 2, 2024. |
| Apr 26, 2024 | Prof. Huang was invited by Prof. Rui Fan to give talk on “AI in Research: Convergence of AI, Physics, Computing, and Domain Applications” in the “Conversations Around AI” workshop held by the Ritchie School of Engineering at Univeristy of Denver. |
| Mar 28, 2024 | Our paper “Toward Intelligent Emergency Control for Large-scale Power Systems:Convergence of Learning, Physics, Computing and Control” (EPSR, arXiv) was accepted for presentation in Power System Computation Conference (PSCC) 2024. |
| Mar 1, 2024 | Welcome Dr. Xiaolin Chen join the PIC Lab as a post-doc. Dr. Chen was a post-doc reseacher in PowerChina Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited before and recieved her PhD degree from Chongqing University, China. |
| Dec 1, 2023 | Mines Newsroom reported our community electrifcation and emission-aware batter energy storage system (BESS) control projects funded by Sloan Foundation and DOE BTO. |
| Oct 8, 2023 | Our paper Efficient Learning of Voltage Control Strategies via Model-based Deep Reinforcement Learning was accepted for publication in Machine Learning Journal. |
| Aug 28, 2023 | Welcome Owen Cornmesser and Maverick Savage join the PIC Lab@Mines. They are funded by Mines Undergraduate Research Fellowship (MURF). |
| Aug 23, 2023 | Our new grant “Analysis and Field Validation Home Battery Energy Storage Systems for Affordable Housing” has been awarded by DOE BENEFIT Program. Thanks DOE EERE BTO! DOE BTO News |
| Aug 22, 2023 | Dr. Huang created a new graduate-level course “AI for power and renewable energy systems“.Course Intro and Github repo |
| Aug 21, 2023 | Yi Liu from Eaton Research Lab joins the PIC Lab @Mines as a part-time PhD student, Welcome! |
| Aug 15, 2023 | Congrats Celina and Asmaa for completing their first PhD summer internships at PNNL and NREL, respectively. |
| Jul 20, 2023 | Celina Wilkerson presented her research work on DRL for DER cybcersecurity in the PES GM Student Poster Competition. |
| Feb 15, 2023 | Prof. Qiuhua Huang was invited by PSERC to give a presentation titled "Convergence of AI, Physics, Computing, and Control for Intelligent Power System Control" |
| Feb 9, 2023 | A collaborative (with ISU, ASU) proposal on “Adaptive T&D dynamic modeling and co-simulation” was selected for funding by PSERC. |
| Feb 6, 2023 | Congrats Ms. Asmaa Romia, a PhD student at PIC-Lab, received the Helene Overly Memorial Graduate Scholarship from #WTSColoradoChapter. EE@Mines News |
| Feb 2, 2023 | We recently kicked-off our Sloan Foundation-funded 3-year project focusing on retrofiting and electrifying a low-income community in Colorado. Our Lab will work on developing data-driven and physics-based control methods to manage and coordinate building energy usage at the community scale. We will collaborate with several faculty across Mines and external partners. See Mines news, Project page |
| Jan 3, 2023 | Celina Wilkerson, Patrick Salter and Asmaa Romia joined the PIC Lab @Mines as PhD students, welcome! |
| Jan 2, 2023 | Prof. Qiuhua Huang officially joined the EE department at Mines, and started to set up the PIC Lab. New members (Post-doc, PhD, master and visiting students) are welcome to join us. |