Statistical physics of power grids

Note: Pizza served at 11:45 AM
Speaker: Prof. Antonio Scala, Institute of Complex Systems, CNR, Italy IMT Alti Studi Lucca, Italy....... LIMS the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences, UK

When: March 13, 2015 (Fri), 12:00PM to 01:00PM (add to my calendar)
Location: SCI 352
Hosted by: H. Eugene Stanley

This event is part of the Biophysics/Condensed Matter Seminar Series.

ABSTRACT

Power grids are increasing in size and interconnections; the analysis of past decades power failures yields signatures of emergent phenomena, like erratic behavior, power law distributions and abrupt transitions (black outs). While a detailed analysis of the system helps understanding what happens from a "post mortem" perspective, there is still a lack of approaches for probabilistic assessment of the risk. In this talk I will explore some possible applications of statistical physics to a stochastic modelling of power grids.