Determination of Transmission and Distribution Charges

[vsaini]

Dear All, 

A slightly off topic question. 

TIMES is a generation system planning model but transmission and distribution are also the part of power system so my question is what is a good way to allocated transmission and distribution cost in the power system using TIMES?

Option a: allocating capex and O&M cost for transmission asset similar to a generation asset? But the problem with this transmission of power is dependent on distance? Is there any place where I can find global reference cost of Capex and O&M in per MW terms 

Option B: Allocating a per unit cost for transmission and distribution of each unit of electricity?

Which one is a better option to be used in TIMES based power system model?

Regards
Vinay

[pdas]

Dear All, 

A slightly off topic question. 

TIMES is a generation system planning model but transmission and distribution are also the part of power system so my question is what is a good way to allocated transmission and distribution cost in the power system using TIMES?

Option a: allocating capex and O&M cost for transmission asset similar to a generation asset? But the problem with this transmission of power is dependent on distance? Is there any place where I can find global reference cost of Capex and O&M in per MW terms 

Option B: Allocating a per unit cost for transmission and distribution of each unit of electricity?

Which one is a better option to be used in TIMES based power system model?

Regards
Vinay

Dear Vinay,

It is difficult to incorporate actual national power network in standard sized TIMES models. But various TIMES based models are being used to get broad level insights of inter-regional transmission capacity and energy flow, for policy formulation purpose. They use reduced network to achieve this. I have seen works of some TIMES based models of some European countries. 

Increasing the number of nodes helps to increase the number of connection but it is also prohibitive in most of the cases. 
Though standard version of TIMES does not consider physics of power flow; incorporation of TIMES grid modeling feature can improve results. This feature has been incorporated in various European TIMES models. 

Regarding, 

Option A: We can calculate the actual distance between nodes using simple spatial calculation and use standard transmission cost $/MW/Km to calculate cost in $/MW for each line (NCAP_COST). 

Option B: It is simpler approach. We can specify IRE_PRICE for the lines. But its value needs to be learnt from other models/ previous runs. 

Share yours thoughts.

Thanks. Regards.

[vsaini]

Dear All, 

A slightly off topic question. 

TIMES is a generation system planning model but transmission and distribution are also the part of power system so my question is what is a good way to allocated transmission and distribution cost in the power system using TIMES?

Option a: allocating capex and O&M cost for transmission asset similar to a generation asset? But the problem with this transmission of power is dependent on distance? Is there any place where I can find global reference cost of Capex and O&M in per MW terms 

Option B: Allocating a per unit cost for transmission and distribution of each unit of electricity?

Which one is a better option to be used in TIMES based power system model?

Regards
Vinay

Dear Vinay,

It is difficult to incorporate actual national power network in standard sized TIMES models. But various TIMES based models are being used to get broad level insights of inter-regional transmission capacity and energy flow, for policy formulation purpose. They use reduced network to achieve this. I have seen works of some TIMES based models of some European countries. 

Increasing the number of nodes helps to increase the number of connection but it is also prohibitive in most of the cases. 
Though standard version of TIMES does not consider physics of power flow; incorporation of TIMES grid modeling feature can improve results. This feature has been incorporated in various European TIMES models. 

Regarding, 

Option A: We can calculate the actual distance between nodes using simple spatial calculation and use standard transmission cost $/MW/Km to calculate cost in $/MW for each line (NCAP_COST). 

Option B: It is simpler approach. We can specify IRE_PRICE for the lines. But its value needs to be learnt from other models/ previous runs. 

Share yours thoughts.

Thanks. Regards.

Thank you for your reply. 
My model is for India that solves on national level therefore adding the distance factor using nodes is difficult for me. 
Further, if I try to use option A or B I am not able to find any literature to quote the India Specific numbers.  

Regards
Vinay