Paul Scott

Timeline

1. 2016

   A PhD on prosumer coordination

   After a double degree in science and engineering at the ANU, majoring in Physics, Electronics and Sustainable Energy, and several years as a research assistant in the Solar Thermal and Solar PV Labs, they complete a PhD in Computer Science. Their 2016 ANU thesis, Distributed Coordination and Optimisation of Network-Aware Electricity Prosumers, proposes a distributed algorithm that coordinates a network of thousands of prosumers, houses that both produce and consume electricity, without violating their privacy.

2. 2016

   The Bruny Island battery trial

   As an investigator on the ARENA-funded CONSORT project, which trials residential rooftop solar and battery systems on Bruny Island, they investigate the real-world feasibility of using distributed optimal power flow calculations to coordinate batteries with the network. A 2016 paper they coauthor with Sylvie Thiébaux and colleagues introduces the Bruny Island Battery Trial in Tasmania, which plans around 40 photovoltaic and battery systems on the island by April 2017.

3. 2018

   Writing on virtual power plants

   In March 2018, they coauthor a Conversation article with Hedda Ransan-Cooper, Archie Chapman and Veryan Hann, written as a research fellow at ANU, that sets Tesla's South Australian virtual power plant beside the Bruny Island trial. The article explains how Network-Aware Coordination software negotiates with each household's controller box to decide whether a battery discharges onto the grid. They work on CONSORT, developing next generation network-aware optimisation for coordinating distributed energy resources.

4. 2019

   Network-aware coordination in live operation

   In 2019, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid publishes their paper with Dan Gordon, Evan Franklin, Laura Jones and Sylvie Thiébaux on network-aware coordination (NAC), which uses the alternating direction method of multipliers to solve a distributed receding-horizon optimal power flow. In a trial of 31 residential batteries on a constrained Tasmanian feeder, NAC cuts diesel use by 34% over seven peaks and lowers total costs by 13% compared with uncoordinated battery response. In an Innovation Intelligence interview, they describe the ANU work as optimising the batteries for the network as a whole and all the houses involved.

5. 2019–2021

   Frequency support from DER

   From January 2019 to January 2021, they are a co-investigator on Optimal Distributed Energy Resources Scheduling for Frequency Stability, a project with Evan Franklin and Sylvie Thiébaux as principal investigators. The ANU team they lead explores optimisation techniques for bidding frequency support services into the market while respecting the physical constraints of the distribution network.

6. 2020

   Co-optimising DER in frequency markets

   In December 2020, Electric Power Systems Research publishes their paper with Ahmad Attarha and Sylvie Thiébaux on network-aware co-optimisation of residential DER in energy and frequency markets. The method uses the alternating direction method of multipliers, with consumers and the grid negotiating on a receding-horizon framework, and experiments on 69 and 141 bus networks show a significant improvement over a case without co-optimisation.

7. As of October 2026

   Honorary Lecturer at ANU

   They hold the title of Honorary Lecturer in the Intelligent Systems cluster of the ANU School of Computing, where they were a research fellow in 2018. Their research covers renewable energy, smart grids, optimisation and multi-agent systems, including distributed optimisation, forecasting, and markets, game theory and mechanism design.