How New Energy Experts Foresee

Modeling the renewable energy modelers

John Weaver, January 4, 2019 (PV Magazine)

“…[Energy modelers and forecasters are asked] to tell the future using spreadsheets and algorithms…[This requires] considerations of politics, broader global economics, future scientific breakthroughs, and other emergent properties on a globe with seven and a half billion independent actors…The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) has begun a collaboration with other expert modeling teams with a long term goal improving variable renewable energy (VRE) deployment models through 2050…NREL collaborated with the modeling teams at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (which uses the NEMS energy model), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (IPM), and the Electric Power Research Institute (US-REGEN). NREL’s model is named ReEDS…

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…Some of the variances between the models include: transmission and generation resource data, capacity value, dispatch and operational modeling, distributed generation volumes deployed, and temporal and spatial resolution…[An example of the impacts of these differences are that fewer transmission constraints make it easier and less costly] to access lower-cost remote renewable resources…[E]ven when the models normalized the input variables their outcomes can greatly vary. The first image in this article shows three models projecting a difference in deployments between below 20% of total electricity to greater than 40% in their ‘Business as Usual’ projection…[The ‘Low Carbon’ projection] shows a variance of between around 30% to just below 60%...” click here for more

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