Research Projects by Dr. Steven A. Gabriel

Market equilibrium models of natural gas markets in North America and Europe

Dr. Steven A. Gabriel and several of his graduate students (Jifang Zhuang, Ph.D. CEE 2005; Supat Kiet, Ph.D. Candidate CEE; Ruud Egging, Doctoral Student CEE) as well as collaborators (Franziska Holz, Ph.D. Candidate TU Dresden, Germany) have developed market equilibrium models of natural gas markets in North America and Europe. These models are based on a Nash-Cournot game theory concept in which market players such as gas producers, traders, or pipelines are individually modeled as solving certain profit maximization optimization problems.
Collecting all the optimality conditions for these problems together along with market-clearing conditions, results in a nonlinear complementarity or equilibrium problem. These models have been presented at several international conferences and the work has been supported by two separate grants from the National Science Foundation totaling $512,632. Dr. Gabriel has been the sole PI on both these projects. These models permit regulators, other government agencies and private sector energy companies to see the influence of market power by strategic players in these markets on raising prices as well as determine bottlenecks in the pipeline and other distribution systems such as marine-transported liquefied natural gas.

Multiobjective optimization and statistical modeling for management of wastewater treatment processes

Dr. Steven Gabriel and his graduate students (Prawat Sahakij, Ph.D. Candidate, CEE; Sirapong Vilalai, Ph.D. Candidate, CEE) have developed both multiobjective optimization and statistical models to understand and analyze the tradeoffs of biosolids odors versus costs from a processing and distributional perspective. This work has been supported by the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority in a series of projects.

Complementarity Models for Electric Power Market Equilibria

Dr. Steven A. Gabriel, Dr. Antonio Conejo (UCLM=Universidad de Castilla- La Mancha, Ciudad Real, Spain), and Dr. Raquel García-Bertrand (Ph.D., UCLM 2005) have developed models for electric power market equilibria based on complementarity formulations. These models additionally take into account that the market operator enforces a minimum profit condition (as in the case of Mainland Spain). The resulting formulation is thus an example of a discretely-constrained mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (DC-MPEC). Several algorithms have been proposed for solution of this electric power planning problem.

Optimization Models for Electric Power Retailers

Dr. Steven A. Gabriel, Dr. Antonio Conejo (UCLM) and several of their current and former graduate students (Mehmet F. Genc, M.S., CEE 2001; Supat Kiet, Ph.D. Candidate, CEE; Prawat Sahakij, Ph.D. Candidate, CEE; Miguel Angel Plazas, Ph.D. UCLM, 2006), and S. Balakrishnan (ANB Enterprises, Inc.) have built simulation and optimization models to guide electric power retailers in their load forecasting and risk management programs and contracts with both suppliers and end-users.