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Solar Production Fact Sheet

How much solar power capacity is available in the wholesale power market managed by the California Independent System Operator? According to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) as of 11/07/2024 there were 19,853 megawatts (MW) of solar generation connected to the CAISO grid. As of...
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Reliably Reaching California’s Clean

As part of the “Reliably Reaching California’s Clean Electricity Targets” study, concurrent wind and solar resource data was used to project the generation at renewable energy sites throughout California and the broader WECC area. The concurrent data spanned the period 2007 through 2014. During this...
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Innovate Modeling Series: Iterative portfolio

Capacity expansion models are the primary method for developing resource portfolios in electricity planning exercises, including integrated resource plans and transmission plans. These models are complex and imperfect, primarily because investments in the electricity...
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Innovate Modeling Series: Rethinking the role of

Capacity expansion modeling is a crucial part of power system planning. It’s the foundation of the utility’s IRP, setting a roadmap for net investments, retirements, and meeting policy goals of renewable energy production or emissions reductions. It also serves a central role for deregulated markets...
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Innovate Modeling Series: Introducing Innovate

Power system planning has grown in both importance and challenges in recent years. In parallel with rapid integration of variable renewable energy sources and storage, the electric industry is facing rising load growth, evolving weather and natural disaster risks, and increasing operational complexity...
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Assessing Resource Adequacy In Montana Fact Sheet

The primary objective of the Montana resource adequacy (RA) assessment is to identify capacity needs for NorthWestern Energy (NWE) in the next 5-7 years given resource plan uncertainties and evolving coordination opportunities through the Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP). NWE is currently one of 22...
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Reliably Reaching California’s Clean

California’s Senate Bill 100 sets targets of 60% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045. In December of 2020, the California Agencies SB100 report indicated that this timeline could be accelerated in a cost-effective manner; however it noted that the reliability impacts...
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The impact of renewables in ERCOT during the summer

The deployment of renewable energy in Texas, particularly wind and solar, has grown significantly over the past decade. Texas has almost as much wind capacity as the next four states combined1 and ERCOT recently...
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The impact of an additional 10 GW of utility-scale

The winter storm that hit Texas and the surrounding regions in February 2021 (often referred to as Winter Storm Uri) triggered one of the worst blackouts in recent history. In Texas, it was the first time that all 254 counties were under a winter storm...
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The Western Resource Adequacy Program: Considerations

When policy discussions for the establishment of a west-wide resource adequacy program began in 2019, the leading indicators of western reliability risk were just beginning to emerge: long-planned thermal retirements, growing drought risk, and correlated heat events were increasingly dominant anxieties for utilities and regulators...
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Gridlab WRAP Report Slides

WRAP, a first-of-its-kind non-ISO regional Resource Adequacy program, represents a huge step forward toward regional reliability analysis, planning, and coordination for the non-CA West. WRAP has the potential to help address a major collective action problem for the region – the ability to proactively assess...
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The Moonshot 100% clean electricity study

Decarbonizing the power system is a central component of economy-wide decarbonization and climate mitigation. New Mexico is among several states that have set goals to fully decarbonize their power systems, setting a 100% clean electricity target. This study, called the “Moonshot study,” aimed to identify...
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The Moonshot 100% clean electricity study –

Although New Mexico is among several states that have set goals to fully decarbonize their power systems, most states have not yet conducted a detailed evaluation of how to achieve these targets. The original moonshot set an ambitious goal of sending humanity to the moon...
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The Moonshot 100% clean electricity study –

Although New Mexico is among several states that have set goals to fully decarbonize their power systems, most states have not yet conducted a detailed evaluation of how to achieve these targets. The original moonshot set an ambitious goal of sending humanity to the moon...
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The Moonshot 100% clean electricity study –

Although New Mexico is among several states that have set goals to fully decarbonize their power systems, most states have not yet conducted a detailed evaluation of how to achieve these targets. The original moonshot set an ambitious goal of sending humanity to the moon...
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The Moonshot 100% clean electricity study –

Load forecasting objectives- Develop Load shapes and end use profiles for all states in the West. 8 weather years and a TMY weather year. Use the economy-wide demand side model EnergyPATHWAYS so that the forecasted loads incorporate decarbonization impacts, especially in terms of electrification...
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Open-Source Modeling e-Lab Initiative

Electricity system planning is growing more complex as decarbonization is becoming a high priority and power system plans are including increased amounts of variable renewable resources and energy storage. Grid planning processes and software tools need to evolve to support planners and other stakeholders in...
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GridPath RA Toolkit Fact Sheet

WHAT WAS THE MOTIVATION FOR CREATING THE GRIDPATH RA TOOLKIT? Robust resource adequacy (RA) analysis will be increasingly critical as the power sector undergoes the clean energy transition. However, current analytical methods may be insufficient for analyzing RA of power systems that rely heavily on...
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GridPath RA Toolkit Report

Recent years have seen a renewed focus on resource adequacy (RA) in the Western United States, as aging coal plants begin to retire and new technologies and policies are quickly changing the composition of the Western grid. Clean technologies are increasingly cost competitive, but also...
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GridPath RA Toolkit News Release

Berkeley, CA. - Better planning tools will be needed to ensure reliability and avoid cutting off power to consumers as climate change worsens and the Western US continues to add clean energy. GridLab has released a new report, Advancing resource adequacy analysis with the GridPath...
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Reliably reaching California’s clean

California’s Senate Bill 100 sets targets of 60% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045. In December 2020, the Joint Agencies SB 100 report (hereafter, referred to as the “SB 100 report”) analyzed the feasibility of the SB 100 targets and showed...
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