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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Evaluation of tools for renewable energy policy analysis: The ten federal region model

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/10170797· OSTI ID:10170797

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 establishes a program to support development of renewable energy technologies including a production incentive to public power utilities. Because there is a wide range of possible policy actions that could be taken to increase electric market share for renewables, modeling tools are needed to help make informed decisions regarding future policy. Previous energy modeling tools did not contain the region or infrastructure focus necessary to examine renewable technologies. As a result, the Department of Energy Office of Utility Technologies (OUT) supported the development of tools for renewable energy policy analysis. Three models were developed: The Renewable Energy Penetration (REP) model, which is a spreadsheet model for determining first-order estimates of policy effects for each of the ten federal regions; the Ten Federal Region Model (TFRM), which employs utility capacity expansion and dispatching decision; and the Region Electric Policy Analysis Model (REPAM), which was constructed to allow detailed insight into interactions between policy and technology within an individual region. These Models were developed to provide a suite of fast, personal-computer based policy analysis tools; as one moves from the REP model to the TFRM to the REPAM the level of detail (and complexity) increases. In 1993 a panel was formed to identify model strengths, weaknesses (including any potential biases) and to suggest potential improvements. The panel met in January 1994 to discuss model simulations and to deliberate regarding evaluation outcomes. This report is largely a result of this meeting. This report is organized as follows. It provides a description of the TFRM and summarizes the panel`s findings. Individual chapters examine various aspects of the model: demand and load, capacity expansion, dispatching and production costing, reliability, renewables, storage, financial and regulatory concerns, and environmental effects.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge Inst. for Science and Education, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76OR00033
OSTI ID:
10170797
Report Number(s):
DOE/OR/00033--T592; ON: DE94015958
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English