Opening the Black Box: Understanding Optimization in the Energy Sector

Power systems all over the world are experiencing rapid and profound changes. The last decade has seen an inexorable rise in renewable generation technologies, such as wind and solar farms. In the past, these technologies accounted for only a small fraction of total electricity supply. But now they are a critical part of our power system, and their significance will only continue to grow. These are profound changes that have consequences for every part of the energy sector. Against this backdrop, there is now more focus than ever on how we can better understand the outlook for the power system. Despite the many detractors, wholesale market models are in widespread use across the energy sector. We seek to use these models to answer a wide variety of questions, including: Finding the optimal combination of generation and transmission assets to invest in while maintaining low energy cost. Defining the role of different technologies like wind, solar, storage, and gas in the future power system. Retiring existing high-emissions generation without adversely impacting reliability, security and affordability of electricity. Providing models to better understand, design, and conduct stress test configuration on the future power system digitally through the use of prevailing tools such as PLEXOS and Gurobi that are commonly used in the energy sector. In this webinar, we will offer a high-level overview of how optimization can be used in the energy sector to better support decision-making.