The purpose of this FOA is to fund research and development of solution techniques that will be used by awardees to compete in Challenge 3 of the Grid Optimization (GO) Competition. The GO Competition is a series of prize challenges to accelerate the development and comprehensive evaluation of grid software solutions. The GO Competition, Challenge 3, is an algorithm competition focused on the optimal power flow (OPF) problem for the electric power sector that includes AC power flow, optimal topology, bid-in demand, unit commitment, and N-1 reliability. Awardees under this FOA will be required to participate in Challenge 3. As described in detail in Appendix A to this FOA and on the GO Competition website (https://gocompetition.energy.gov/), Challenge 3 is anticipated to launch in the Spring of 2022. Participation in the GO Competition Challenge 3 will be open to anyone that satisfies the applicable requirements in the Rules Document on the GO Competition website (https://gocompetition.energy.gov/competition-rules), not just those awarded under ARPA-E DE-FOA-0002690.
The purpose of this FOA is to provide grants: (i) to further incentivize and identify innovative research for solution methods applicable to Challenge 3, and (ii) to enable broader diversity in team domain expertise, i.e., to encourage teams to participate that do not traditionally focus on the particular problems that are targeted but otherwise have innovative approaches for this class of optimization problems. While Challenge 3 focuses on a power systems problem, the Challenge and this FOA target a much broader audience (e.g., those specialized in operations research, applied mathematics, optimization methods and algorithms, controls, etc.).