SWITCH

Switch is an open-source power system planning model that is uniquely suited for designing and studying future power systems that may have large shares of renewable energy, storage and/or demand response. It optimizes investment decisions for renewable and conventional generation, battery or hydrogen storage, hydro, and other assets, based on how they would be used during a collection of sample days in many future years. This allows it to identify the least-cost system design to meet policy goals such as carbon or renewable energy targets while maintaining a reliable supply of power. It is an ideal choice for "what if" analyses of the cost of decarbonization or the appropriate role of new technologies.

Switch uses a state-of-the mathematical formulation that considers multiple investment periods and chronologically sequences of hours, enabling optimization and assessment of a long-term renewable transition based on a direct consideration of how these resources would be used hour-by-hour.

The Switch platform is also highly modular, allowing easy selection between prewritten components or addition of custom components as first-class elements in the model.