Variable Renewable Energy in Long-Term Planning Models: A Multi-Model Perspective

Technical Report · Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1416124· OSTI ID:1416124

Cole, Wesley ^[1]; Frew, Bethany ^[1]; Mai, Trieu ^[1]; Sun, Yinong ^[1]; Bistline, John ^[2]; Blanford, Geoffrey ^[2]; Young, David ^[2]; Marcy, Cara ^[3]; Namovicz, Chris ^[3]; Edelman, Risa ^[4]; Meroney, Bill ^[4]; Sims, Ryan ^[4]; Stenhouse, Jeb ^[4]; Donohoo-Vallett, Paul ^[5]

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1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
2. Electric Power Research Inst. (EPRI), Knoxville, TN (United States)
3. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Washington, DC (United States)
4. US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Washington, DC (United States)
5. Dept. of Energy (DOE), Washington DC (United States)

Long-term capacity expansion models of the U.S. electricity sector have long been used to inform electric sector stakeholders and decision-makers. With the recent surge in variable renewable energy (VRE) generators — primarily wind and solar photovoltaics — the need to appropriately represent VRE generators in these long-term models has increased. VRE generators are especially difficult to represent for a variety of reasons, including their variability, uncertainty, and spatial diversity. This report summarizes the analyses and model experiments that were conducted as part of two workshops on modeling VRE for national-scale capacity expansion models. It discusses the various methods for treating VRE among four modeling teams from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The report reviews the findings from the two workshops and emphasizes the areas where there is still need for additional research and development on analysis tools to incorporate VRE into long-term planning and decision-making. This research is intended to inform the energy modeling community on the modeling of variable renewable resources, and is not intended to advocate for or against any particular energy technologies, resources, or policies.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Analysis (EI-30) (Energy Analysis Corporate)
• OSTI ID: 1416124
• Report Number(s): NREL/TP-6A20-70528; 7829
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
capacity expansion model
concentrating solar power
capacity value
high variable generation
load duration curve
net present value
quadratically constrained program