Impact of increased temporal detail in long-term dynamic energy system model with an increasing share of volatile renewable energy sources

• Thesis title in Czech: Vliv zvýšení časového rozlišení v dynamickém modelu energetického systému při rostoucím podílů obnovitelných zdrojů
• Thesis title in English: Impact of increased temporal detail in long-term dynamic energy system model with an increasing share of volatile renewable energy sources
• Key words: definování časové proměnné, TIMES model, TIMES CZ, dlouhodobý energetický model, plánování energického systému, volatilní obnovitelné zdroje, shluková analýza
• English key words: Temporal detail, time slices, TIMES model, TIMES CZ, long-term energy model, energy system planning, intermittent renewable energy sources, cluster analysis
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2018/2019
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Institute of Economic Studies (23-IES)
• Supervisor: Mgr. Lukáš Rečka, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned by the advisor
• Date of registration: 25.05.2019
• Date of assignment: 25.05.2019
• Date and time of defence: 08.09.2020 09:00
• Venue of defence: Opletalova - Opletalova 26, O314, Opletalova - místn. č. 314
• Date of electronic submission: 31.07.2020
• Date of proceeded defence: 08.09.2020
• Opponents: prof. Ing. Karel Janda, Dr., Ph.D., M.A.

References

Collins, S. et al. (2017) ‘Integrating short term variations of the power system into integrated energy system models: A methodological review’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Elsevier Ltd, 76(July 2016), pp. 839–856. doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2017.03.090.

Kannan, R. (2011) ‘The development and application of a temporal MARKAL energy system model using flexible time slicing’, Applied Energy. Elsevier Ltd, 88(6), pp. 2261–2272. doi: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.12.066.

Loulou, R. et al. (2016) ‘Documentation for the TIMES model: PART I. Energy Technology Systems Analysis Programme’, (July), p. 151. Available at: https://iea-etsap.org/docs/Documentation_for_the_TIMES_Model-Part-I_July-2016.pdf.

Nahmmacher, P. et al. (2016) ‘Carpe diem: A novel approach to select representative days for long-term power system modeling’, Energy. Elsevier Ltd, 112, pp. 430–442. doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2016.06.081.

Poncelet, K. et al. (2016) ‘Impact of the level of temporal and operational detail in energy-system planning models’, Applied Energy. doi: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.10.100.

Poncelet, K. et al. (2017) ‘Selecting representative days for capturing the implications of integrating intermittent renewables in generation expansion planning problems’, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 32(3), pp. 1936–1948. doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2016.2596803.

Rečka, L. and Ščasný, M. (2016) ‘Impacts of carbon pricing, brown coal availability and gas cost on Czech energy system up to 2050’, Energy. doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2015.12.003.

Preliminary scope of work in English

Research question and motivation:

Energy models are significant in mitigation of climate change. The ability to calculate greenhouse gas emission enables us to explicitly express the economic cost to the environment. The models allow us to plan for the future and see what the optimal energy mix will be. This will help us understand whether Czech Republic will be able to fulfil European Energy road-map 2050 (Rečka and Ščasný, 2016) with a better accuracy. Therefore, energy modeling is important.


Energy models such as TIMES model are concerned with accuracy because optimisation models can be used to aid policy decisions such as what power plants should be build, how to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, should carbon tax be introduced. These decisions influence the flow of investment, prices of electricity and it eventually influences households and their well-being. As the impacts are significant, the accuracy of energy models is important.
TIMES model is an economic model generator for energy system planning. The model aims to supply energy services at minimum global cost. It calculates equilibrium and maximises market surplus. The scope of TIMES model extends beyond energy-oriented issues to environmental ones (Loulou et al., 2016). This model has been developed for the energy system of the Czech Republic as TIMES-CZ model (Rečka and Ščasný, 2016, 2017).


This thesis will focus on increasing accuracy in energy model TIMES-CZ via increase in temporal detail (Poncelet et al., 2016). This is important for the energy model because as a share of volatile renewable energy sources increases, variation in supply increases as well, and proper detail in temporal level becomes more important (Nahmmacher et al., 2016). The detail in temporal level will make the model better at describing the real process of power generation. This thesis will try to identify the optimal approach to having an increase temporal detail and using the right representative dates method (Poncelet et al., 2017). Kannan (2011) developed different time slices for MARKAL UK model and this thesis will follow his research and compare different time slices for TIMES-CZ model.


This thesis will investigate how will the increased specification in temporal and operational detail influence the output variables of the TIME-CZ model. This will be achieved via an increase in the number of time slices and it will attempt to compare various levels of time resolution in order to be able to compare the impact of the variation in time detail resolution on the outputs of the model.

Contribution:

TIME-CZ model (Rečka and Ščasný, 2016) will be further developed. The thesis will increase the temporal and operational detail of the model and it will assess its impact on the output variables. Poncelet et al (2016) analysed results from long-term TIMES model of Belgian electricity system with short-term operational unit commitment model and concluded that low level of temporal detail creates inaccuracies in the energy system planning models. This thesis will investigate the impact specifically on the TIMES–CZ model. The increase in temporal detail will allow the model to better predict the increase in the share of renewable energy generation (Collins et al., 2017). It will also contribute to the contemporary energy modeling debate on what is a sufficient level of temporal detail.

Methodology:

This thesis will consider TIME-CZ model that is currently modelled on 4 seasons and 3-day slices and it will attempt to increase the number of time slices in order to achieve higher accuracy in description of both demand and supply. This will be achieved through considering data on energy consumption in the Czech Republic and designing time slices optimal for an improvement of the predictive and the descriptive power of the model. The improved temporal detail will require introduction of new parameters to increase level of the operational detail sufficiently to describe the energy generation accurately under the new temporal detail. Ideally, the thesis will compare various scenarios of temporal detail and assess its optimum.

The parameters for the power plants operations will be taken from scientific literature. Data for electricity consumption for the TIMES-CZ model will be taken from various sources including ČEPS, ERÚ, OTE and CSO.

Outline:
Abstract
Introduction
Contemporary issues in European Energy sector
Description of Czech Republic energy system
Methodology of energy modeling
Thesis contribution to the scientific discussion
Literature review
Methodology
Description of TIME-CZ model
Further development of TIME-CZ model
Results
Evaluating the model with low temporal detail until 2050
Sensitivity analysis of different levels of temporal detail
Conclusion
Further implication for the model development
Areas of further research
List of reference