Jorge Valenzuela, department chair of industrial and systems engineering, is working with Jin Wang, Buddy Redd associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory to develop efficient computer algorithms that can improve the economics of electrical power systems by powering transmission lines on and off. Traditionally, transmission switching has been done for periodic maintenance and planning issues. Valenzuela’s research team will create a large-scale mixed integer programming model and explore an efficient solution technique to determine which transmission lines should be removed during a particular time period or season. Valenzuela’s team is working to minimize energy generation cost over the season, as well as to ensure the line on and off plan meets the North American Electric Reliability Corportion’s single contingency reliability standard for power systems.