Hawaiʻi Workshop 2026
Control and Optimization for Modern Energy Systems
A full-day workshop organized by the IEEE Control Systems Society Technical Committee on Energy Systems (TC-ES), held at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa the day before IEEE CDC 2026.
| Date | Monday, December 14, 2026 |
| Time | 8:00 am to 6:00 pm |
| Venue | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (campus), Honolulu, Oʻahu |
| Conference | Adjacent to IEEE CDC 2026 (December 15 to 18, Hilton Hawaiian Village) |
| Registration | No registration fee |
Updates
- October 2026. The workshop offers group bus transportation from the CDC hotel to the Kapolei Energy Storage tour and then to UH Mānoa for the afternoon talks.
- October 2026. All eleven speakers are confirmed, and the workshop flyer is available as a PDF for sharing with colleagues and students.
About the Workshop
The IEEE CSS Technical Committee on Energy Systems (TC-ES) is organizing a full-day technical workshop that brings together researchers and industry practitioners who work on control and optimization for modern energy systems.
A university campus in Hawaiʻi is a fitting setting for this workshop, because the islands operate some of the most renewable-rich, inverter-dominated grids in the world. Many of the problems that engineers in Hawaiʻi are solving today inform global solutions for grid-forming control, distributed flexibility, large new loads, and reliability under deep uncertainty.
Schedule
| 8:00 am to 1:00 pm | Kapolei Energy Storage tour and networking. Group buses take participants from the CDC hotel, the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu, to Kapolei Energy Storage on the western side of Oʻahu for a guided tour and networking. |
| 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm | Technical talks at UH Mānoa. Buses continue from Kapolei to UH Mānoa for invited talks from universities, Hawaiian Electric, and the State of Hawaiʻi. |
Program
The program spans the following topics, alongside operational perspectives from Hawaiian Electric.
- Grid-forming and inverter-based resource control
- Next-generation grid codes and ancillary services
- Grid-aware demand response and DER coordination
- Congestion and voltage management
- Virtual power plants and market participation
- Data centers and AI compute as flexible grid assets
Confirmed Speakers
Ken AramakiDirector, Integrated Grid Planning, Hawaiian Electric
Mark GlickChief Energy Officer, State of Hawaiʻi
Site Tour
The day starts with a tour of the Kapolei Energy Storage facility, a 185 MW / 565 MWh grid-forming battery plant on the western side of Oʻahu that took over grid services from the nearby AES coal plant after the coal plant closed in 2022. Group buses will leave the CDC hotel, the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu, in the morning for a guided tour and networking at Kapolei, and the buses will then bring participants to UH Mānoa for the afternoon talks.
Logistics
- The workshop offers group bus transportation from the CDC hotel (Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, USA) to Kapolei Energy Storage for the guided tour and networking, and then from Kapolei to UH Mānoa for the talks.
- The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is a short drive (about 15 minutes) or a long walk (about 50 minutes) from the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort, where CDC is being held.
- The workshop is a separate event from CDC.
- There is no registration fee.
Organizers and Contact
The workshop organizers are Daisy Green, Johanna Mathieu, Mads Almassalkhi (Chair, IEEE CSS TC-ES), and Patrick Panciatici. Please send questions to dgreen2@hawaii.edu and jlmath@umich.edu.
Speaker photos come from each speaker's public faculty or institutional web page.