Qatalyst advanced to Phase 3 of the 2026 Global Industry Challenge in the Department of Energy problem track.
The submission addressed robust battery energy storage siting on the public IEEE 118-bus network. The task was to identify storage locations that continue to perform across changing weather and operating conditions rather than optimising for a single assumed future.
The model evaluated the siting of eight 100 MW battery systems using PTDF-based DC power flow and N-1 screening. This allowed each candidate configuration to be assessed against network constraints as well as its performance across scenarios.
Under equal-time comparisons, Qatalyst’s optimisation approach produced the strongest robust objective in five out of five benchmark runs. D-Wave compute supported the challenge evaluation.
The result provides evidence for the technical direction behind SOLA: energy-infrastructure decisions should be tested for robustness before capital is committed.