Taha Boussaid and Karim Darwich Receive Best Paper Award at the ECOS 2025 International Conference

At the 38th edition of the ECOS International Conference (Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems), held in Paris from June 29 to July 4, 2025, Taha Boussaid, PhD candidate in the ETHIS team, and Karim Darwich, research intern in the same team, under the supervision of Marc Clausse and François Rousset, received the Best Paper Award for their work on intelligent control of district heating networks using deep reinforcement learning methods.

Their paper, entitled “Assessment of Three Deep Reinforcement Learning Algorithms for District Heating Network Optimal Control”, demonstrates how the optimization problem of district heating network control can be reformulated as a policy learning task, by coupling an autonomous agent with a digital twin of the network. Through a comparative study of different types of agents, the results highlight the advantages, limitations, and optimization strategies specific to each approach.

This award-winning contribution illustrates the potential of data-driven methods to accelerate the energy transition and promote the optimal deployment of multi-vector energy systems.

Contact: Marc Clausse, Professor at INSA Lyon, ETHIS team.