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About

About

Ricardo Bessa (IEEE Fellow) was born in 1983 in Viseu, Portugal. He received the Licenciado (five-year) degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) in 2006. In 2008, he obtained an M.Sc. degree in Data Analysis and Decision Support Systems from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto (FEP). He completed his Ph.D. in 2013 within the Doctoral Program in Sustainable Energy Systems (MIT Portugal) at FEUP. He is currently the Coordinator of the Center for Power and Energy Systems at INESC TEC. His research and innovation activities focus on artificial intelligence and data-driven methods for power system operation, renewable energy integration, and smart grids.


Ricardo Bessa has been actively involved in numerous international research and innovation projects, including the European projects FP6 ANEMOS.plus, FP7 SuSTAINABLE, FP7 evolvDSO, H2020 UPGRID, H2020 InteGrid, H2020 Smart4RES, H2020 InterConnect, Horizon Europe ENERSHARE, ENFIELD, and AI4REALNET (Coordinator). He has also led international collaborations with Argonne National Laboratory under the U.S. Department of Energy. At the national level, he has contributed to the development of operational renewable energy forecasting systems and has provided consultancy services in energy analytics and smart grids.


He has served as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, Modern Power Systems and Clean Energy, International Journal of Forecasting, and IEEE Data Descriptions. In 2022, he received the Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG) Excellence Award. Ricardo Bessa is the co-author of more than 80 journal papers and over 140 conference publications.

Interest
Topics
Details

Details

  • Name

    Ricardo Jorge Bessa
  • Role

    Centre Coordinator
  • Since

    01st February 2006
073
Publications

2026

Evolving power system operator rules for real-time congestion management

Authors
Moaidi, F; Bessa, J;

Publication
Energy and AI

Abstract
The growing integration of renewable energy sources and the widespread electrification of the energy demand have significantly reduced the capacity margin of the electrical grid. This demands a more flexible approach to grid operation, for instance, combining real-time topology optimization and redispatching. Traditional expert-driven decision-making rules may become insufficient to manage the increasing complexity of real-time grid operations and derive remedial actions under the N-1 contingency. This work proposes a novel hybrid AI framework for power grid topology control that integrates genetic network programming (GNP), reinforcement learning, and decision trees. A new variant of GNP is introduced that is capable of evolving the decision-making rules by learning from data in a reinforcement learning framework. The graph-based evolutionary structure of GNP and decision trees enables transparent, traceable reasoning. The proposed method outperforms both a baseline expert system and a state-of-the-art deep reinforcement learning agent on the IEEE 118-bus system, achieving up to an 28% improvement in a key performance metric used in the Learning to Run a Power Network (L2RPN) competition. © 2025

2025

Budget-Constrained Collaborative Renewable Energy Forecasting Market

Authors
Gonçalves, C; Bessa, RJ; Teixeira, T; Vinagre, J;

Publication
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY

Abstract
Accurate power forecasting from renewable energy sources (RES) is crucial for integrating additional RES capacity into the power system and realizing sustainability goals. This work emphasizes the importance of integrating decentralized spatio-temporal data into forecasting models. However, decentralized data ownership presents a critical obstacle to the success of such spatio-temporal models, and incentive mechanisms to foster data-sharing need to be considered. The main contributions are a) a comparative analysis of the forecasting models, advocating for efficient and interpretable spline LASSO regression models, and b) a bidding mechanism within the data/analytics market to ensure fair compensation for data providers and enable both buyers and sellers to express their data price requirements. Furthermore, an incentive mechanism for time series forecasting is proposed, effectively incorporating price constraints and preventing redundant feature allocation. Results show significant accuracy improvements and potential monetary gains for data sellers. For wind power data, an average root mean squared error improvement of over 10% was achieved by comparing forecasts generated by the proposal with locally generated ones.

2025

Carbon-aware dynamic tariff design for electric vehicle charging stations with explainable stochastic optimization

Authors
Silva, CAM; Bessa, RJ;

Publication
APPLIED ENERGY

Abstract
The electrification of the transport sector is a critical element in the transition to a low-emissions economy, driven by the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EV) and the integration of renewable energy sources (RES). However, managing the increasing demand for EV charging infrastructure while meeting carbon emission reduction targets is a significant challenge for charging station operators. This work introduces a novel carbon-aware dynamic pricing framework for EV charging, formulated as a chance-constrained optimization problem to consider forecast uncertainties in RES generation, load, and grid carbon intensity. The model generates day-ahead dynamic tariffs for EV drivers with a certain elastic behavior while optimizing costs and complying with a carbon emissions budget. Different types of budgets for Scope 2 emissions (indirect emissions of purchased electricity consumed by a company) are conceptualized and demonstrate the advantages of a stochastic approach over deterministic models in managing emissions under forecast uncertainty, improving the reduction rate of emissions per feasible day of optimization by 24 %. Additionally, a surrogate machine learning model is proposed to approximate the outcomes of stochastic optimization, enabling the application of state-of-the-art explainability techniques to enhance understanding and communication of dynamic pricing decisions under forecast uncertainty. It was found that lower tariffs are explained, for instance, by periods of higher renewable energy availability and lower market prices and that the most important feature was the hour of the day.

2025

Human-AI interaction in safety-critical network infrastructures

Authors
Mussi, M; Metelli, AM; Restelli, M; Losapio, G; Bessa, RJ; Boos, D; Borst, C; Leto, G; Castagna, A; Chavarriaga, R; Dias, D; Egli, A; Eisenegger, A; El Manyari, Y; Fuxjäger, A; Geraldes, J; Hamouche, S; Hassouna, M; Lemetayer, B; Leyli-Abadi, M; Liessner, R; Lundberg, J; Marot, A; Meddeb, M; Schiaffonati, V; Schneider, M; Stadelmann, T; Usher, J; Van Hoof, H; Viebahn, J; Waefler, T; Zanotti, G;

Publication
iScience

Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming every aspect of modern society. It demonstrates a high potential to contribute to more flexible operations of safety-critical network infrastructures under deep transformation to tackle global challenges, such as climate change, energy transition, efficiency, and digital transformation, including increasing infrastructure resilience to natural and human-made hazards. The widespread adoption of AI creates the conditions for a new and inevitable interaction between humans and AI-based decision systems. In such a scenario, creating an ecosystem in which humans and AI interact healthily, where the roles and positions of both actors are well-defined, is a critical challenge for research and industry in the coming years. This perspective article outlines the challenges and requirements for effective human-AI interaction by taking an interdisciplinary point of view that merges computer science, decision-making sciences, psychological constructs, and industrial practices. The work focuses on three emblematic safety-critical scenarios from two different domains: energy (power grids) and mobility (railway networks and air traffic management). © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

2025

AI-assistant for intelligent design of controllers in power systems

Authors
Bost, L; Fernandes, FS; Bessa, RJ;

Publication
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY GRIDS & NETWORKS

Abstract
The increasing penetration of renewable energy sources in power systems has heightened the importance of grid-forming (GFM) converters, which emulate the dynamic behavior of synchronous machines and are crucial for ensuring stability in converter-dominated grids. However, the complexity of modern grids calls for innovative control mechanisms to unlock the full potential of GFM technology. This work presents a novel automated framework for control design in power systems. Simulated annealing is used to evolve the structural design of control systems represented as graph-based models. The method achieves greater flexibility by using control graphs instead of traditional tree-based representations, supporting complex feedback loop configurations. A simplification process is also included to reduce complexity and improve interpretability, ensuring practical applicability. Validation on a two-generator power system with one GFM converter demonstrates the method's ability to design robust controllers that enhance system stability, achieving better performance metrics, such as smoother frequency responses with significantly reduced frequency deviations compared to benchmark configurations. The improved frequency response arises from differing terminal angle profiles, enabling faster, stronger power responses that quickly arrest frequency deviations during disturbances.

Supervised
thesis

2024

Communicating Forecast Uncertainty in Predictive Management of Power System

Author
Ferinar Moaidi

Institution
UP-FEUP

2024

Data driven optimization of integrated energy systems

Author
Pedro Miguel Cardoso Félix

Institution
UP-FEUP

2024

David Gomes de Almeida Rocha

Author
David Gomes de Almeida Rocha

Institution
UP-FEUP

2024

Optimization of EV dynamic tariffs in hybrid PV and storage charging stations

Author
Filipe Manuel Gonçalves Lobo

Institution
UP-FEUP

2024

Energy management and storage to decarbonize high-performance computing centers

Author
Liliana da Silva Torres Rodrigues

Institution
UP-FEUP