California ISO is a grid control area where electricity supply must match demand at all times. Generating plants within the area supply electricity to local consumers. Any surplus of electricity is exported to other areas; any deficit must be made up by imports.
For dispatchable plants using coal, natural gas, nuclear, or other fuels, the plant may be down for maintenance or refueling. Therefore, we must adjust or ‘derate’ Nameplate Capacity to reach what can be actually used, ‘Expected Capacity'. Out of the 41,408 MW of dispatchable capacity in California ISO, only 32,701 MW is expected to be available.
For hydro power, we use the peak generation for each month. This adjusts our estimates for the seasonality of water levels in California ISO.
For solar power, we take the average generation for each month and each hour. This accounts for the daily flucuation of solar, and the seasonal change in daylight hours.
For wind power, we take the average generation less 1 standard deviation for each month. Given the variability of wind, our conservative estimate accounts for ~85% of scenarios.
|
Resource | Capacity (MW) | Change Capacity (+/-) | Capacity Factor | Derate Factor | Expected Capacity (MW) |
Dispatchable Capacity (2021) | 41,408 |
| |
| 32,701 |
Natural Gas | 32,872 |
| 27% |
%
| 26,298 |
Nuclear | 2,323 |
| 81% |
%
| 2,160 |
Energy Storage | 2,286 |
| |
%
| 1,852 |
Geothermal | 2,104 |
| 44% |
%
| 926 |
Biomass | 807 |
| 44% |
%
| 646 |
Petroleum | 389 |
| 2% |
%
| 315 |
Waste | 340 |
| 63% |
%
| 272 |
Other Fossil Fuels | 124 |
| 74% |
%
| 100 |
Other | 100 |
| 45% |
%
| 81 |
Coal | 63 |
| 53% |
%
| 52 |
Renewable Capacity (September) | 30,760 |
| |
| 11,438 |
Peak Hydro/Pumped Storage | 8,825 |
| |
%
| 5,119 |
Average Solar at 6PM | 15,871 |
| |
%
| 5,714 |
Average Wind Less 1 Standard Deviation | 6,064 |
| |
%
| 606 |
Peak Imports (September at 6PM) | |
| |
| 9,357 |
Total | 72,168 | | | | 53,496 |
|
To estimate the demand scenario, we use hourly data from the EIA over the selected date range to find peak demand times. Then users are able to increase/decrease demand to best plan for the region's future.
Electric car adoption is estimated using the average daily commute of California ISO residents, paired with the selected car's efficiency rating. This daily demand is then distributed across the day based on observed charging demand.
Demand response is estimated using the reported "Potential Peak Demand Savings (MW)" for each utility in California ISO. This is applied to the demand curve with the assumption that this potential peak could be implemented at any time.
|
|