A toy model for Lion Hirth's scenario
Let's get interactive
Last week, Lion Hirth posted a scenario highlighting problems caused by Germany’s lack of local electricity pricing.1
While intriguing, the scenario isn’t terribly precise and so I thought it would be useful to construct a toy model to go beyond the loose description.
This post introduces this toy model which is available for subscribers to play around with in a small interactive ‘app.’ The aim is to put a bit more colour into the scenario and develop our thinking about the grid.
The Toy Model
Lion Hirth’s Grid Scenario
It’s a windy day, and wind generation is overloading the grid in the north. Transmission grid operators thus curtail wind to protect the grid. To make up for the shortfall from curtailed wind, thermal power in the south is ramped up.
In a simplified world where battery energy storage systems are optimised based on prices in the Day-Ahead Market (price profile as per Lion Hirth’s post), a BESS charges between 10:00-16:00 and discharges later in the evening.
Hirth points out that a BESS charging at a time of curtailed wind power may increase the need for thermal power rather than supporting renewable energy.
We’ve had fun with a toy model before and our skills in app development or the tools available may have advanced since then. I’ll introduce the model and then provide the link and the access code at the end (scroll down if you’re impatient and like to try things yourself first).
Baseline
In our toy world, overall power demand is somewhere between 0.8-1.6 GW with a shaped demand profile, which varies with the time of day as you would expect. There is a limited transmission capacity from north to south, which can be set as a parameter.