question · draft
Electricity and energy transitions
As heating, driving and industry move to electricity, where will the network run short, and what mix of wires, storage and generation fixes it?
Electric cars, heat pumps and new industry are arriving on a network built for something else. A utility, a city or a region wants to know where it will pinch first and what to build.
What you are really asking
- Where and when will demand exceed what the local wires and substations can carry? This is a question about particular feeders and particular hours, not a regional total.
- What mix of new generation, storage, network upgrades and demand management meets the demand at least cost, and how does the answer change with the assumptions about adoption?
- What does it cost, and who pays?
What kind of model answers it
Energy system models represent generation, storage and transmission as a network and find the cheapest way to meet demand hour by hour under given constraints, over years of investment. They answer the mix question. Network models represent the physical wires, poles and transformers of a distribution system and answer the where-and-when question for a particular street or substation. The two are often run separately and rarely talk to each other, which is worth knowing before anyone promises a single answer.
On this site, PyPSA is the open energy system model, and PyPSA-Eur its ready-made model of Europe. Neara is a commercial network model built from asset and spatial data. The UK National Digital Twin Programme is a national effort to connect infrastructure data across sectors.
What you need
- Demand by hour and by place: smart-meter data if the utility will share it, or published load profiles if not.
- The network itself: where the substations and feeders are and what they are rated for. This is the data most often locked up.
- Adoption scenarios for vehicles and heat pumps, stated as assumptions and argued openly.
Without a model
Ask the utility for its list of constrained substations. Many publish one. Combine it with where new housing and chargers are going and you have the first map.
Next
Choose the kind of model, because the two kinds here answer different questions. A flooded substation is a reminder that the network is also a thing in a place.
answered with
Website from the Institute for Progress that charts US energy production, consumption, prices and grid reliability, nationally and for every state, from open government data such as the EIA.
open data
Neara's commercial 3D model of an electricity network, built from a utility's LiDAR, imagery and GIS records; simulates loads, clearances, weather and failure risk on every pole and line.
closed source
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PyPSA is an open-source Python framework from TU Berlin for optimising power and energy systems; PyPSA-Eur is the open model of the European energy system built on it, covering electricity, transport, heating and industry.
open sourceopen dataopen participation
The UK government's National Digital Twin Programme, led by the Department for Business and Trade, develops standards, processes and tools for connected digital twins and tests them in demonstrators on the Isle of Wight.
partly open participation