[LDES-coremodel] Update of existing and planned generation for SWITCH WECC db

Thu Sep 17 14:23:55 PDT 2020

This is fantastic.

Sergio I think has the Mexico imports via SENER

dan

On Thu, Sep 17, 2020 at 2:21 PM Julia Szinai <jszinai at berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Hi all,
> Thanks for your feedback on some of these questions at this morning's
> meeting.
> Here are notes on what we discussed for each of the points above:
> 1. Variable cap factors: I'll schedule a meeting with Paty to go over the
> time zones/time stamps associated with the variable capacity factors for
> the existing generation, and how it was done for the proposed generation.
>
> 2. Hydro cap factors: I'll upload the historical monthly data for 2004 -
> 2018, and construct a few scenarios based on this time series that
> calculate the monthly average, medium, maximum, and minimum generation for
> each plant and then repeat that monthly value for each future year.
>
> 3. Non-US part of WECC: I'll go through with Paty or ask Josiah where the
> Canadian and Mexican generation data came from.
>
> 4. Candidate generators: For the baseline scenario I'll start by using the
> set of generators that are environmentally constrained. We will need to ask
> E3 if they have an updated set of candidate generators and/or if they are
> still using the same "screen" to exclude generators based on environmental
> constraints.
>
> 6. Solar cap factors: For now I will average the capacity factors by load
> zone across residential, commercial, and utility scale solar. We will ask
> E3 if they have forecasts of residential solar buildout to add to the
> planned generator list.
>
> On Thu, Sep 17, 2020 at 11:02 AM Julia Szinai <jszinai at berkeley.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>> I'm almost done updating the script and pushing the data of the existing
>> and planned generation in the US portion of the WECC into the SWITCH
>> database. The updated scripts 1) scrape the data from EIA forms 860 and
>> 923, 2) process and standardize the data, and 3) upload the data into the
>> database. They build on the original scripts in github here:
>> https://github.com/RAEL-Berkeley/eia_scrape. (I haven't pushed my
>> updated code to github yet).
>>
>> This data contains the generator parameters that go in the main
>> generation_projects input file into SWITCH (including heat rate, capacity,
>> build year, max age, etc), as well as the variable capacity factors for the
>> renewable generators. The data is as of 2018 (since that is the most recent
>> year for which there is both generator capacity and annual energy data),
>> but I've removed generators which have been retired between 2018 - May 2020
>> (since retirement data is more current). I also added planned retirement
>> dates whenever available.
>>
>> I compared the total capacity in the WECC between the previous data of
>> existing generation (as of 2015) with this update, and with the total
>> current capacity in the WECC according to the WECC website (
>> https://www.wecc.org/epubs/StateOfTheInterconnection/Pages/Capacity.aspx).
>> The updated data has more solar, wind and gas than the 2015 data
>> (interestingly also more coal), and the numbers are pretty close to that of
>> the WECC website. I've attached an Excel file of the comparison.
>>
>> I have a couple of questions for the group that I think need to be
>> settled before I finish preparing the data for a baseline scenario:
>> 1. The variable capacity factors in the original script are added to the
>> "variable_capacity_factors" table in the database. However, the inputs for
>> the WECC SWITCH runs use the capacity factors from the
>> "variable_capacity_factors_historical." What is the relationship between
>> these and is there an additional script I'm missing? More importantly, it
>> appears that the variable capacity factors for solar are off by 7 hours
>> (likely related to time zone). The adjustment in the original script
>> doesn't look like it is properly correcting for this, and I think it is
>> still mismatched in the final data going into SWITCH. This could be the
>> reason for the infeasibility of the 100% renewables run, if for example,
>> solar is not generating during the day because the hours are incorrect. Is
>> there some SWITCH adjustment for timezones, or time points that I'm missing?
>>
>> 2. hydro capacity factors: I've added monthly hydropower data to the
>> database for 2004 - 2018. For the baseline scenario, should I calculate
>> average monthly capacity factors across those years? This would reflect
>> "average" operations under dry and wet years. The previous data only
>> included hydropower for 2010 - 2015, so not as representative of the range
>> of hydroclimatic conditions.
>>
>> 3. Canadian + Mexican parts of WECC: The data I scraped is from the EIA,
>> so it doesn't have data for existing generation in Canada (BC and Alberta)
>> and Mexico (small part of Baja CA). Looking at the prior data in the
>> database, the generators for these load zones were all "proposed" and there
>> was no existing generation. I guess SWITCH just "built" all the
>> existing generation in the first period to meet the load? I'm not sure but
>> that seems a bit weird, and could cause overestimated costs for the first
>> period. Am I missing something? Should I look for updated existing
>> generation data for BC and Alberta, and part of Mexico? The query I ran
>> below came out empty (8 and 9 are the Canadian load zones, and
>> generation_plant_scenario_id 14 is the scenario used in the last CEC
>> report):
>>
>> SELECT *
>> FROM generation_plant
>> JOIN generation_plant_scenario_member
>> USING (generation_plant_id)
>> WHERE generation_plant_scenario_id = 14
>> And name != 'Proposed'
>> AND load_zone_id in (8, 9)
>>
>> 4. This data update was just of the existing generation plants. The
>> baseline scenario will need to also include the data from candidate
>> generators. My plan was to append the list of candidate generators from one
>> of the scenarios used in the prior CEC study. However, there are several
>> scenarios of candidate generators. As we discussed some of the prior
>> scenarios have candidate renewable generators excluded because of
>> environmental restrictions, based on data from E3 I believe. Do you know if
>> we will get an updated set of environmentally-friendly candidate generators
>> from E3? If not, should I use the restricted scenario of candidate
>> generators for the baseline?
>>
>> 5. The existing battery projects that are in the generation_plant_cost
>> table for the new scenarios 19 and 20 will need to be updated in the
>> storage_energy_capacity_cost_per_mwh to reflect whatever is the baseline
>> assumption for battery costs. Right now I've left these as NULL in the
>> table.
>>
>> 6. The capacity factors for solar were previously averaged by load zone
>> across residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar PV. I did the same
>> for this data, but not sure if we want to revisit this simplification or
>> keep the residential and commercial vs. utility-scale solar capacity
>> factors separate.
>>
>> *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
>>
>
>
> --
> *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
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