Existing long-term electric power system resource planning tools do not fully account for the potential reliability challenges introduced by large-scale deployment of many decarbonization technologies such as renewables, energy storage, and distributed energy resources. This is because the stress a system may face from these technologies (e.g., inadequate generation flexibility, insufficient resource adequacy, network deficiencies) often occurs on timescales, at locations, and within sub-systems of the power system that long-term planning models do not typically capture to keep solutions tractable. Electric companies are thus searching for new modeling approaches to support resource planning and asset investments—across generation, transmission, and distribution systems—with the aim of identifying cost-effective, resilient, and technologically-robust decarbonization resource strategies.
EPRI’s Integrated Strategic System Planning (ISSP) Initiative develops such a new resource planning framework and supporting analytical toolbox. Using a series of soft-linked existing power system modeling tools, the new framework is generalizable and may be used for more comprehensively planning reliable, low-carbon resource portfolios across electric power system supply, delivery, and end-use. This report presents the ISSP modeling framework and an application of the analytical toolbox through an initial study on the New York electric power system. The demonstration study illustrates the process of enhancing traditional capacity expansion modeling tools with more spatially- and temporally-granular power system operations modeling tools to validate initially preferred resource portfolios and update portfolios when the more granular tool(s) uncover economic inefficiencies or reliability deficiencies. Key insights on implementing the ISSP framework and lessons learned from the demonstration study are shared.
Authors Gaikwad, A., Nidhi R. Santen, Van Zandt, D.