Midwest ISO wins INFORMS Edelman Award

Midwest ISO, which manages one of the world's largest energy markets, won the 2011 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences at a banquet sponsored by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) in Chicago last night.

The Franz Edelman competition attests to the contributions of operations research and analytics in the profit and non-profit sectors. Since its inception 40 years ago, cumulative dollar benefits from Edelman finalist projects has reached over $170 billion.

"By leveraging operations research, Midwest ISO and its stakeholders added significant value to the region through improved reliability and increased efficiencies of the region's power plants and transmission assets," said John Bear, President and CEO of Midwest ISO. "We are honored and pleased that INFORMS recognized the value of this collaborative project."

Driven by the goal of minimizing delivered wholesale energy costs reliably, Midwest ISO, with the support of Alstom Grid, The Glarus Group, Paragon Decision Technology, and Utilicast, used operations research and analytics to design and launch its energy-only market on April 1, 2005, and introduced its energy and ancillary services markets on Jan. 6, 2009.

The Midwest ISO improved reliability and increased efficiencies of the region's power plants and transmission assets. Based on its annual Value Proposition study, the Midwest ISO region realized between $2.1 and $3.0 billion in cumulative savings from 2007 through 2010. The Midwest ISO estimated an additional $6.1 to $8.1 billion of value will be achieved through 2020.

The six finalists competing in the 2011 Franz Edelman Award Competition also included CSAV, the Chilean shipping company; Fluor Corporation; the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC); InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG); and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.

Provided by Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences