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This activity is designed as a pluri-disciplinary teamwork experience around the challenge of building a resilient, efficient and carbon neutral European electricity system for the upcoming decades. This 5-day activity will feature classes given by several experts from academia, industry and European institutions, and a large amount of time will be dedicated to supervised practical sessions taking the form of a serious game based on numerical simulations of the possible futures for the European electricity system. These simulations will be done on a PyPSA-based dedicated environment, using European Resource Adequacy Assessment data.
The aim of this activity is to introduce students to the questions, concepts, models, mathematical and computing tools related to electricity systems planning. The students will play a serious game focusing on the European system, in which they will act out the associated collective decision-making process. Each team of students will be responsible for making the investment decisions in one country: which power capacity for electricity production units in 2035-50? Which network interconnection capacities - allowing to mutualize the “efforts” with their neighbors?
Through the theoretical sessions, students will be given the main concepts and models underlying this work: how to define different scenarios for future electricity demand depending on the specificities of their country? How can the challenge of satisfying electricity demand at minimum cost be cast as a mathematical optimisation problem (Unit Commitment, or UC)? How to find a “good” tradeoff between the level of description of the many techno-economic constraints and the induced complexity on the obtained optimisation problem? How could/should climate change be accounted for in such a planning problem?
Dedicated to both numerical practice and to discussions and negotiations played by participants, students will be able to implement their national strategic investment decisions, simulate the European system and finally, measure, discuss and improve, with other countries simulated by other teams, the global operational behavior of this collective system, even under numerical “stress tests” designed to highlight the difficulties the system will face in upcoming years.
This activity will include:
Theoretically: an introduction to mathematical, economical and physical concepts underlying the electricity system (planning and operation). Including:
· Introduction to the Unit Commitment and the Generation Expansion Planning: key optimization problems to model operational and planning decisions for a “good” supply-demand equilibrium.
· On the specific challenges concerning electricity network(s), in particular for insular systems.
· On the impact of climate change on electricity system planning
· On the application of game-theory models in this context
Practically: a Numerical Serious Game (NSG)
Based on an easy-to-use dedicated environment of code (in a “Github classroom”), students will be able to:
(i) Implement their national strategic investment decisions (by changing values in text-like files).
(ii) Simulate the European UC considering decisions made in (i).
(iii) And finally, measure, discuss and improve, with other countries, the “global operational behavior” of this collective system. In this direction, note that the expected number of participants is such that 2 or 3 different Europes can be simulated and compared, to favor interactions.
Proceeding iteratively between points (i)-(iii) above - thanks to the prepared environment of code, and in relation with the theoretical courses, students will progressively improve their collective (European) and individual (national) decision-making. Numerical “stress tests” will highlight the difficulties of the underlying tools/data assumptions, in relation to the huge current research effort in the field. As an example, what if the climate scenario that happens has not been considered in the ones used to plan the system? Will such a system be “robust” to this?
To go further
“European Resource Adequacy Assessment”, an example of public study to plan the future of an electricity system. See 2024 edition main page, and download its Executive report if you are very curious!
In the case of France, see RTE (France’s “Transmission System Operator”) ”Energy pathways 2050” to get a typical idea of the projection of a “system” to 2050… if you have dozens of engineers * years of work available! Idem, you can find the Executive summary here.
To get a synthetic idea of the different countries "current electrical situation" -> see ACER "Retail monitoring country sheets (for electricity)"
Regarding the fundamental technico-economic and mathematical concepts associated with this summer school, the following Wikipedia page provides the foundations of the Unit Commitment Problem.
Tentative program – some details still to be fixed/confirmed
Monday Nov. 17th
[2 – 4PM] Introductory session – by François BEAUDE, Head of strategy and communication of EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER)
Global introduction to the main technical – and political! – stakes associated to the proposed serious game
[4 – 5PM] (theoretical) Presentation of the Unit Commitment and the Generation Expansion Planning (linear) optimization problems, insights into resolution frameworks – by Cécile ROTTNER, research-engineer at EDF R&D - EDF Lab’ Paris-Saclay
[5 – 6PM] Presentation of the activity, organization details and ice-breaker, to form the “two Europe”, corresponding to two teams of students – by Olivier BEAUDE, research-engineer at EDF R&D (with F. BEAUDE and C. ROTTNER)
Tuesday Nov. 18th
[9 – 11AM] (practical) “Data crunch” & screening curve methodology – by O. BEAUDE, Camille MEGY, researcher at CEA/I-Tésé, and F. BEAUDE
[11AM – 12:30PM] (practical) "Hands-on" planning of per-country investments – using screening curve methodology – by O. BEAUDE, C. MEGY, and F. BEAUDE.
Lunch break
[2 – 3PM] (practical) Presentation of PyPSA / GitHub Classroom environment dedicated to the Numerical Serious Game (NSG) and description of first steps – by O. BEAUDE, C. MEGY, and F. BEAUDE.
[3 – 6PM] (practical) NSG - Session 1 (“NSG1”) – to get familiar with Unit Commitment simulation in provided code environment – by O. BEAUDE, C. MEGY, and F. BEAUDE.
Starting simple, try to reproduce your country parametrization as done in ERAA data (production capacities, demand and Renewable Energy sources production profiles, etc.)
Wednesday Nov. 19th
[9 – 10AM] (theoretical) Beyond the simple "copper plate" model: the role of network and stability constraints, by Luis BADESA BERNARDO, Prof. at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid/Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
[10AM - 12:30PM] (practical) NSG2, with a focus on grid (network, interconnections) constraints – by L. BADESA BERNARDO (with support of a research-engineer from France’s Transmission System Operator RTE?)
Lunch break
[2 – 3PM] (theoretical) On challenges related to the energy transition - by Robin GIRARD, Full Prof. at Paris Sciences & Lettres/Energy and processes department PERSEE Centre
[3 - 6PM] (practical) NSG3, propose – and numerically test – the first investment plans for your country/Europe – by C. MEGY, C. ROTTNER, and R. GIRARD
Thursday Nov. 20th
[9 – 10AM] (theoretical) On the impact of climate change on electricity system planning studies – by Boutheina OUESLATI, research-engineer at EDF R&D
[10AM - 12:30PM] (practical) NSG4, with first stress tests under various climatic scenarii – by C. MEGY, C. ROTTNER, and B. OUESLATI
Lunch break
[2 - 3PM] (theoretical) On the application of (non-)cooperative game-theory to European – collective – electricity system planning: two illustrative examples - by Laurent LAMY and Emma JAGU, researchers at CIRED
[3 - 6PM] (practical) NSG5 – continuing NSG3, assessing/discussing in more detail the “performance” of the European electricity systems planned – comparatively between the two Europe simulated - by E. JAGU, O. BEAUDE, C. MEGY, C. ROTTNER
[Evening] Social event in Paris with all participants; in presence of colleagues from academic labs and companies of the field (RTE, EDF R&D, CIRED, etc.)
Friday Nov. 21st
[9AM - 1PM] – NSG6 The End - by E. JAGU, O. BEAUDE, C. MEGY, C. ROTTNER
Final (stress) tests
Discussions / Debrief
Writing of position papers to be shared on the EELISA Community associated to this summer school Society Transition towards Digitalization and Energy Decarbonization (from the EELISA Community platform)
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