THE IISE ESD ENERGY Analytics Challenge

Sponsored by Precision AI LLC


The IISE Energy Systems Division (ESD) announces the Energy Analytics Challenge, an analytics-focused challenge centered on short-term power outage forecasting under extreme weather conditions. The competition emphasizes operational realism, extreme-event performance, and uncertainty quantification, reflecting real-world decision-making needs in modern power systems. Participants are invited to develop data-driven forecasting models that address a practical and societally important energy systems challenge using real-world data.

The monetary prizes are sponsored by Precision AI LLC. The outage dataset used in the competition is provided by PowerOutage.us, and consists of high-resolution outage and weather data.

Eligibility Requirements

  • Individuals or teams of up to four members may participate.
  • Participation is open to students, researchers, and practitioners from academia, industry, and government.
  • At least one team member must be a member of IISE ESD.

Registration / Submission Guidelines

  • Individuals or teams are required to register through the official registration link by the announced registration deadline in order to be formally entered into the competition.
  • Participating teams will receive access to the dataset and baseline materials at the competition kickoff, along with detailed instructions on submission formats (forecast outputs and written report).
  • All teams must submit their final forecasts and written report electronically via the designated online submission form by the final submission deadline.

Awards and Recognition

The first-place winner will receive a $1,200 monetary prize and a framed certificate, and up to two runners-up will receive monetary prizes of $500 and $300, respectively, along with certificates. In addition:

  1. The winner will present a lightning talk (10 minutes) on the final winning solution at the Energy Systems Town Hall Meeting.
  2. All finalists will have the opportunity to present their work at the 2026 INFORMS Annual Meeting within a dedicated special session.
  3. The winner and runners-up will be invited to join the Energy Systems Division (ESD). Membership in ESD is free for IISE members. They will also receive certificates and formal recognition.

Click on the button below to see the full description of the 2026 competition.

Full Description

Important Dates (Deadlines)

  • Registration opens: January 28, 2026
  • Registration closes & Competition kickoff: February 17, 2026
  • Submission deadline (forecasts and report): March 30, 2026 (AoE)
  • Finalists announced: April 10, 2026
  • Finalist presentations at IISE annual meeting: May 16-19, 2026

Organizers & Award Committee (Listed alphabetically by last name)

  • Ryan Chen (Carnegie Mellon University)
  • Dr. Lei Fan (University of Houston)
  • Dr. Feng Qiu (Argonne National Laboratory)
  • Dr. Paritosh Ramanan (Oklahoma State University)
  • Dr. Murat Yildirim (Wayne State University）
  • Dr. Yu Zhang (University of California, Santa Cruz)
  • Dr. Shixiang (Woody) Zhu (Carnegie Mellon University)

2025 Winners

1st Place
Catherine Wang, Ziying Ye, & Yue Jiang
Duke University

2nd Place
Agostino Capponi, Millend Roy, Vijay Modi, Vladimir Pyltsov & Yinbo Hu
Columbia University

3rd Place
Yushen Dong, Zekai Fan, and Shixiang (Woody) Zhu
University of Michigan, Carnegie Melon University

Past Winners

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