Models to Inform Planning for the Future of Electric Power in the United States Proceedings of a Workshop (2020) / Chapter Skim
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2 Modeling the Electric System: Approaches and Challenges
2 Modeling the Electric System: Approaches and Challenges
Pages 9-18
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From page 9... ...
, described several large-scale efforts to integrate models across domains and sectors to address anticipated needs for informing electric system design and event response planning. MODELING THE ELECTRICITY SUBSECTOR FOR ENERGY POLICY AND STRATEGY ANALYSIS John Weyant, Stanford University and Energy Modeling Forum Weyant began the workshop with an introduction to the use of model ing in the electric subsector.
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From page 10... ...
Despite these daunting challenges, modeling is worth doing, Weyant asserted, because it can provide context for anticipating the costs, market dynamics, environmental impacts, and distributional impacts of different technologies or policies. For example, models can help researchers understand how emerging issues, such as increased use of electric vehicles or growing wildfire risks from downed power lines, may impact capacity planning, production cost, load flow, and other key factors.
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PCHES's strengths include its fine-scale climate data translation and use of large-scale Earth systems information, although it falls short in its ability to address administrative and bureaucratic complexities and characterize uncertainty, Weyant noted. Wrapping up, Weyant suggested that future models could be improved by implementing machine learning and data assimilation techniques, incorporating ideas from behavioral and institutional economics, and taking advantage of increased data generation and computing power to create broad-based model diagnostics.
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From page 12... ...
Building on this point, Morgan stressed the importance of thinking long term -- on the scale of decades rather than years -- and incorporating multiple perspectives in order to foresee so-called black swan events that are in fact becoming less and less rare. Asked how modelers could better account for uncertainty, Weyant replied that it is important to carefully frame the problem at the outset, understand what information is required, and then design or apply a model to answer the question, instead of applying models to answer questions that decision makers are not in fact asking or forcing a question into a model that is ill-suited to answering it.
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THE GRID MODERNIZATION LABORATORY CONSORTIUM AND THE NORTH AMERICAN ENERGY RESILIENCE MODEL John Grosh, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Grosh closed the workshop with a reflection on modeling needs and opportunities. He shared examples of several emerging tools and detailed a large-scale effort to better understand how an extreme event would affect the grid and its interdependencies.
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) in order to run them together as a unified simulation, is an important advancement to help planners understand complex emerging issues such as distributed energy resources (DERs)
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, which was created in response to the devastation of Puerto Rico's electric grid after Hurricane Maria, an unprecedented event that exceeded utility, regulatory, and industry boundaries. The project's goal is to develop a modeling and simulation system to understand energy, communications, and natural gas system interdependencies; rapidly predict national consequences of an extreme event; and model responses to create solutions (Figure 2.2)
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Concluding, Grosh identified future needs and opportunities. He urged a close examination of approaches to modeling uncertainty and error; suggested that a yearly conference be held to facilitate dynamic exchange of ideas among vendors, users, and researchers; and stressed the importance of effectively extending and connecting software to create truly integrated systems.
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From page 17... ...
The team is working with software vendors to develop interfaces and utilities to connect these tools into the NAERM framework. For advanced NAERM features, the team is preparing a roadmap to address critical changes such as extending planning models to incorporate protection systems.
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Another participant asked if healthcare infrastructure was being included in NAERM. Grosh replied that that was outside the project's scope and would be addressed by other agencies.
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