Fundamentals of Capacity Expansion Modeling (CEM) Scenarios

Welcome to the first CEM tutorial. This tutorial is aimed to provide new users with the basic fundamental knowledge in their journey to become expert users of CEM in SAInt. The ideas presented here will assist the user in becoming familiar with the operation of SAInt and the typical workflow while using the software. This series of instructions will use a combination of the GUI and API to leverage SAInt to run an electricity capacity expansion model. In SAInt these models are referred as CEM scenarios.

The CEM is typically used for identifying the least-cost mix of power system resources, considering future scenarios like new policies, technologies, demand forecasts, and fuel price projections. The objective function of the model is to minimize the investment and operational cost of the overall system while supplying the system’s forecast demand.

The first step in CEM workflow is creating a network file and adding lines and nodes to construct the system’s topology in the map window. The next step is to add external objects to the nodes, allowing the injection or extraction of energy at the node. At this point, the network file is completed, and it is time to move on to creating the scenario file that holds information about the solution algorithm and solver settings. Additional input parameters are then specified using CSV files. The final step in the workflow is to execute the optimization and analyze the results.

Time to complete:

Step 1: Create an Electric Network Model and CEM Scenario [10 Minutes]
Step 2: Define Time-series Input Data [10 Minutes]
Step 3: Define Scenario Settings [10 Minutes]
Step 4: Define Object Properties [15 Minutes]
Step 5: Run the CEM Optimization and Analyze Results [15 Minutes]

A copy of the files required for this tutorial are available in the sub-folder .\CEM\Tutorial 1 of the folder Tutorials. Download the tutorials data from the "Model Ready Datasets" category of the community Forum.