Modeling A Notional Carbon-Free Power Grid with 24-hour Dispatch and Power Flow

This paper proposes methods of DC and AC power flow development and the battery configuration for a notional carbon-free power grid. Facing climate change, many governments are seeking carbon-free generation technologies, so there is a great need for carbon-free grid modeling. In this paper, a public synthetic ERCOT model is used as a base case. Also, the actual renewable generation and load profiles in a summer heavy load day from EIA are utilized in the modeling. First, all loads are scaled to project the actual EIA load profile. Second, all fossil-fuel generators in the base case are replaced by the combinations of renewables and batteries, while hydro and nuclear remain unchanged. Third, the PV and wind power are scaled according to the actual EIA generation profile, with the consideration of battery energy balance and reasonable PV/capacity ratio in the future. Finally, AC power flow results of the developed dispatches are obtained by PSS/E. Meanwhile, necessary battery capacity and initial SoC are estimated based on the dispatches. Even though achieving carbon-free power grid is very challenging, the developed cases in this paper can provide insights for the related research. Also, the methods to develop dispatches and conFigure batteries can benefit the researchers who need to build the carbon-free model in a different grid.