Optimization and planning

Optimal planning and operation of multi-carrier energy networks

Quantum optimization is a promising, disruptive technology which might one day revolutionize how we design and operate energy systems. Our goal is to identify possible applications of quantum optimization methods to power system problems and to benchmark these with existing classical approaches.

To achieve this, we combine our unique expertise at FZJ across high-performance computing (JSC), quantum computing analytics (PGI-12), and power systems (ICE-1). As part of our research, we perform real-world experiments on the D-Waves quantum annealer in operation at the FZJ campus. Since quantum computing is still in its early stages, these experiments allow us to investigate the potential and limits of existing hardware with the focus on qubit noise and connectivity.

Published papers:

“Quantum Annealing based Power Grid Partitioning for Parallel Simulation”
C. Hartmann, J. Zhang, C. Calaza, T. Pesch, K. Michielsen, A. Benigni
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11031458

“Optimizing QAOA circuit transpilation with parity twine and SWAP network encodings”
J. A. Montanez-Barrera, Y. Ji, M. von Spakovsky, D. Bernal Neira, K. Michielsen
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17944