Electricity Dispatch Model

Client Challenge
The Scottish Government commissioned us to produce a least-cost electricity dispatch model of the Great Britain (GB) electricity market, to show the impact of policy changes to the market on Scottish generation of electricity.

Tangible impact
We provided training on the model for a number of SG analysts and produced a comprehensive user manual. Following delivery of the dispatch model in 2013, they have commissioned further support to use the dispatch model to understand the impact of policy changes, in particular announcements around contracts for difference and network access charging.

Our approach
The model includes detailed nodal representation of the transmission network and wind resource availability by location based on mesoscale climate modelling.
The model includes a long-term yearly module to simulate investment decisions in generation capacity at a GB and Scottish level out to 2050 in response to policy impacting demand (demand-side management, electrification of transport), forecasts of upstream costs (fuel prices, technology learning rates), renewables and climate change policy (renewables subsidies, carbon prices). The model included calculations of the resultant wholesale prices, carbon intensity, security of supply and system nodal prices.
The model includes a short-term hourly module to simulate the operational chronological dispatch (unit commitment) to test the operational feasibility of results produced by the long-term module.