Medium Term Modelling

Agenda

1 Load Forecasting

2 MT Schedule

3 Modelling and Decomposition of Long Term Constraints

4 Hydro Efficiency

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Load Forecasting

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Load Forecasting

The Data File class can be used to create load (or other) forecasts for input to a simulation. The load
forecasting exercise takes as input:
• a “base” year’s profile of demand i.e. period-by-period demands;
• a forecast of total energy (GWh) and maximum demands (MW) over the forecasting horizon; and
optionally
• a list of holiday periods that must be preserved in mapping the forecast years to the base year.
The base profile must be stored in a PLEXOS format text file e.g. CSV or TXT file.
Likewise, the output forecast will always be created in a text file

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Advanced Growth Algorithm
The default growth method is suitable for most applications, but can have problems if the implied
growth rate of the maximum and energy are very different. In this case you can instruct the builder to
use another, more sophisticated, algorithm based on quadratic optimisation.
• The Data File property Method by default is equal to 1 (the default "linear" method) but can be set
to 2 (quadratic method).
If you use the quadratic method you should also specify the Relative Growth at Min parameter, which
enforces a constraint that ensures that the specified amount of growth (relative to the growth of the
energy) is applied to the tail of the load duration curve
• i.e. if the energy is growing at 4% and the maximum at 15%, you can try a value for this parameter
of 50%, which implies the minimum observation will grow by 4% × 0.5 = 2%. In the opposite case in
which energy is growing more than the maximum, this parameter should be > 100%.

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 Load Forecast example
Grow ‘Energy’ at 4% p.a and ‘Maximum’ (peak load) at 3%p.a

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MT Schedule

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MT Schedule
MT uses reduced chronology so it can handle constraints with periods as long as whole years or
multi-years

MT ST
LT Plan PASA
Schedule Schedule

• MT run without ST
– Provides lower-resolution simulations in minimum time over study horizons of multiple years

• MT run with ST
– MT Schedule decomposition information is automatically passed to the ST Schedule
– This ensures that the dispatch and pricing impact of constraints such as energy limits and storage targets, and financial impacts
of medium-term trading strategy is correctly accounted for in the short-term schedule

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MT Schedule
• MT Schedule addresses a key challenge in power system modelling, and that is to
optimize medium to long term decisions in a computationally efficient manner.
Primarily this means managing hydro storages, fuel supply and emission constraints, but
there are many other constraints and commercial considerations that need to be
addressed over timescales longer than a day or week.
• The reason that these medium-term constraints create such a challenge is because they
imply that the simulator must optimize decisions spanning weeks, months and years and
simultaneously optimize decisions in the short-term (hour or lower) level.
• MT Schedule solves this problem by:
– reducing the number of simulated periods by combining together dispatch intervals in the
horizon into 'blocks'; and
– optimizing decisions over this reduced chronology; then
– decomposing medium-term constraints and objectives into a set of equivalent short-term
constraints and objectives, that we can then apply in the ST Schedule.

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MT Schedule
It is because of MT Schedule, and its tight integration with ST Schedule, that the simulator is able to handle
aspects such as gamed equilibrium, energy constraints, fuel contracts, and emissions limitations and taxes
without resorting to heuristics.

For example, the simulator allows the direct specification of Max Energy constraints, and MT Schedule
formulates these constraints dynamically, adding them directly into the linear programming (LP) problem.

Thus, the limited energy is utilized optimally, and the energy constraint is always obeyed. Because MT
Schedule uses a reduced chronology it is able to handle constraints with periods as long a whole year or
even multi-year.

Requirements MT Schedule ST Schedule

Model constraints over more than a one week period e.g. emission, fuel, generation constraints required optional
Model medium-term equilibrium e.g. Nash-Cournot or LRMC recovery required optional
Optimize storage trajectories over medium term required optional
Model a full chronology (every dispatch period) recommended required

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MT Schedule Settings

• Chronology: three methods available for modelling the Horizon in MT Schedule

Partial Fitted Sampled

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Partial Chronology
• Load (or Price) duration curves are formed for each day/week/month/year (as controlled by the LDC Type setting).
• Each LDC/PDC contains number of Blocks of simulation periods. For example, 12 blocks with monthly LDC gives 144
simulation periods per year rather than 8760 for hourly simulation.

Load Time Series Load Duration Curve

90000 90000
85000 85000
80000 80000

75000 75000

Load (MW)
70000
Load (MW)

70000
65000
65000
60000
60000
55000
55000
50000
50000
45000
45000
40000
40000
1/1/2017 1/8/2017 1/15/2017 1/22/2017 1/29/2017 LDC Original Load Blocks After Slicing

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Fitted Chronology

• The input Load (or Price) series is fitted with a step function using the weighted least-squares technique so that the total number of
simulation periods per day/week/month/year (as controlled by the LDC Type setting) is equal to the Block Count setting.
• For example, fitting 50 blocks per week gives 2650 simulation periods per year.
• Note that only continuous intervals are aggregated into blocks, thereby preserving chronology

90000 90000

80000 80000
70000
70000
60000
60000
50000
50000
40000
40000 1/1/2017 1/8/2017 1/15/2017 1/22/2017 1/29/2017
1/1/2017 1/8/2017 1/15/2017 1/22/2017 1/29/2017 Load
Load

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Sampled Chronology
• The algorithm is reducing 365 days to 6 typical days.
• Each day in the year is replaced by one of the 6 typical days that is most alike. Then the total number of periods to
simulate are 24x6 = 144

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 Load time series
Chronology 1000

800

Load (MW)
600

400

200

0
01 January 2019 01 April 2019 01 July 2019 01 October 2019

1000
Partial 1000
Fitted 1000
Sampled
800 800 800

Load (MW)
600
Load (MW)

Load (MW)

600 600

400
400 400
200
200 200
0
01 January
16 2019
February032019
April 2019
19 May 2019
04 July 2019
19 August
042019
October
19 November
2019 2019
0 0
01 January 2019 01 April 2019 01 July 2019 01 October 2019
LDC Original LDC after slicing
Load Fitted Fitted + Pin Top

Load Sampled Month Sampled Week

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Modelling and
Decomposition of Long
Term Constraints

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Decomposition

Typical screen output of the MT -> ST Schedule Bridge

• There are two types of decomposition listed above:

– a section dealing with Constraint objects including automatically-generated constraints resulting from the
definition of properties like Generator Max Capacity Factor Month
– there is the Storage section which provides details on what, if any, information is being passed from MT
Schedule to help co-ordinate the storage management in ST Schedule.

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