[LDES-coremodel] Wind class, ITC and PTC, and remaining cost to-dos

[Sarah Kurtz]

Thanks, Julia!

There is a lot of very useful information here.

Abido has put together a summary about the natural gas prices which we will share shortly. He found that the coal prices hadn’t changed enough to be worth worrying about.  By my assessment, the effect of the coal and nuclear fuel costs will be in the noise, but that the natural gas prices could have substantial effect, so that’s where he focused his effort. In the long run, there is fairly good consistency between the projected natural gas prices, the bigger variation is in the near term, reflecting how natural gas prices seldom do what you predict…. 😊
I think we should be able to get that summary to you on Monday.

Sarah

On Oct 16, 2020, at 4:39 PM, Julia Szinai <jszinai at berkeley.edu<mailto:jszinai at berkeley.edu>> wrote:

Hi Sarah et al,
Here are a couple of things I've promised.

1. This google doc<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YInHwhHxFy4rMweN4OCT1NqBUhiiD2F2GirKd9Z6aWk/edit?usp=sharing> is a table of the key parameters that comprise a SWITCH scenario, from the load forecast to the costs and generator list. I need to do some preliminary SWITCH runs for a separate project that has an upcoming conference deadline, so I've listed what I plan to use for the baseline run for that SWITCH analysis. Some of these parameters will definitely change and be refined for the CEC project's baseline analysis (like the time sampling strategy). The highest priority items left on my to-do list to start doing some runs are highlighted in yellow: updated overnight costs and fuel costs. I'm working on finishing updates on the items in green.

2. Regarding the wind class to use for overnight costs in the ATB, I'm fine with using what the current ATB calls 'class 5' if that is the most common class of speeds in the WECC region. I can't tell from the SWITCH documentation what the average wind speeds or classes were assumed in each load zone but I've copied the relevant info from previous supplemental materials on how the hourly capacity factors were calculated for candidate wind generators. See below:

"Hourly wind turbine output is obtained from the 3TIER wind power output dataset produced for the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study (WWSIS) (3TIER 2010). 3TIER models the historical 10-minute power output from Vestas V-90 3 MW turbines in a 2-km by 2-km grid cells across the western United States over the years 2004-2006 using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale weather model. Each of these grid cells contains ten turbines, so each grid cell represents 30 MW of potential wind capacity. The Vestas V-90 3 MW turbine has a 100 m hub height.
Grid cells were selected by 3TIER using the following criteria:
1.     Wind projects that already exist or are under development
2.     Sites with the high wind energy density at 100 m within 80 km of existing or planned transmission networks
3.     Sites with high degree of temporal correlation to load profiles near the grid point
4.     Sites with the highest wind energy density at 100 m (irrespective of location)



All of the grid cells in the 3TIER dataset (> 30,000) within WECC are aggregated into 3,311 onshore and 48 offshore wind farms. Many of the grid cells are very near each other; adjacent wind points are aggregated if their area is within the corner-to-corner distance of each other, 2.8 km. Wind points with standard deviations in their average SCORE-lite power output greater than 3 MW are aggregated into different wind farms. Offshore and onshore wind points are aggregated separately. The 10-minute SCORE-lite power output for each wind point is averaged over the hour before each timestamp, and then these hourly averages are again averaged over each group of aggregated grid cells to create the hourly output of 3,311 onshore (875 GW) and 48 offshore (6 GW) wind farms. The onshore wind farms are then put through the site selection process (Section 2.10.12: Site Selection of Variable Renewable Projects), resulting in 1,527 sites with 466 GW of potential capacity."

3. These reports from LBNL on Wind and Solar cost forecasts may be helpful in how to adjust the overnight costs to account for the PTC and ITC incentives.

Wind:
https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/2018-wind-technologies-market-report
see p85 in PDF:
https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/wtmr_final_for_posting_8-9-19.pdf

Solar:
https://emp.lbl.gov/utility-scale-solar
see p11 in PDF:
https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/lbnl_utility_scale_solar_2019_edition_final.pdf


Hope this helps. Have a good weekend all!
Best,
Julia

--
Julia Szinai
PhD Candidate | Energy & Resources Group | University of California, Berkeley
Graduate Student Researcher | Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
NSF InFEWS Fellow
Energy & Resources Group, MS '17
Goldman School of Public Policy, MPP '17
University of California, Berkeley
jszinai at berkeley.edu<mailto:jszinai at berkeley.edu>
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