Organised by Prayas (Energy Group) (PEG), CSTEP and Blue Marble Analytics

Date: 23-24 November 2020

Time: 10 am - 1 pm IST (both days)

The low and fixed prices of wind and solar power coupled with its other socio-environmental benefits have resulted in India targeting an ambitious 450 GW of renewables by 2030. This allows us a great opportunity to reduce power procurement costs as long as the increased variability in the system (both from generation and load) is reliably managed. The increased complexity in the power system arising from the energy transition poses numerous new challenges to system planners and operators and thus necessitates the use of advanced modelling tools to understand the optimum level of RE generation that can be integrated without compromising reliability and in a cost effective manner.

In this webinar, a new versatile open-source grid-analytics platform, GridPath, was released to the public. GridPath was developed by Blue Marble Analytics and integrates production-cost and capacity-expansion functions amongst others. VRE technologies such as wind and solar introduce variability and uncertainty to system operations, requiring thoughtful integration through resource diversity and interconnection as well as the deployment of balancing technologies such as energy storage and demand response. Technology characteristics and costs as well as the policy landscape are also evolving rapidly. Improperly accounting for the uncertainty and risk can result in financial losses/stranded assets, jeopardize grid reliability, and/or create environmental damage. In this context, robust planning becomes increasingly important and advanced software tools can help to rapidly and continuously evaluate and plan the evolving electricity system. This was the main motivation for GridPath's development. Apart from an overview of power sector modelling and GridPath, we shared preliminary insights from production cost modelling studies done for the states of Maharashtra (Prayas) and Karnataka (CSTEP). A detailed agenda is available here.

Presentations made at the webinar:

Full recordings of the webinar can be accessed below:

November 23rd recording: High level overview of power sector modelling and GridPath and some studies done in Gridpath

November 23rd recording: Preliminary insights from production cost modelling studies done for the state of Maharashtra (Prayas) and Karnataka (CSTEP)

November 24th recording: Presentation on GridPath features

November 24th recording: Panel discussion on the “importance of modelling for power sector planning”