Development of an integrated analysis platform for long-term strategic planning of the national electricity system

The National Electric System (SEN) faces great challenges in the long term, which imposes the need to have a tool that allows carrying out its long-term strategic planning considering the different impacts of the phenomenon of Climate Change and the new disruptive technologies that will affect it in the future.

This need arises because currently long-term planning, on the one hand, only considers some elements associated with the impacts of Climate Change, not including aspects such as the effect on the transmission capacity of power lines and on the capacity for hydroelectric, solar, and wind, among others. On the other hand, it does not include in detail the impact on the SEN of a massive penetration of new technologies that present great opportunities for Chile, such as electromobility, distributed generation of renewable energies, electric energy storage, and the production of green hydrogen.

To respond to this need, this project seeks as a general objective "Develop an integrated and modularized analysis platform for long-term strategic planning of the expansion of the national electrical system, considering the impacts of climate change on its main elements and facilitating the analysis of the incorporation of electromobility, storage, distributed generation of renewable energies and the production of green hydrogen .”

This computing platform will be developed in a modular way and will integrate the following components:

• A module with the SEN's optimization model for the expansion and operation of electricity generation and transmission that integrates modules for estimating the impacts of Climate Change and disruptive technologies.
• Individual projection modules of the magnitude of the long-term effects of different Climate Change impacts on the SEN, including, among others, the impact of temperature on the transmission capacity of transmission lines and on fuel infrastructure (especially LNG).
• Individual projection modules of the evolution of disruptive technologies and their impact on the SEN.
• A robustness analysis module of the results obtained.

The proposed platform will facilitate the incorporation of new elements that are expected to significantly affect the electricity market in the medium and long term, will allow the analysis of the different possible scenarios of technological disruption that impact the SEN, and will facilitate the incorporation of the impacts of Climate Change on its main elements. Thus, it is expected to take advantage of the opportunity to develop a tool that allows satisfying the need faced by the SEN to carry out optimal long-term planning (minimum cost), which considers not only different scenarios of technological development but also the context of the threats that the Climate Change phenomenon entails for the SEN. Finally, this platform will allow various energy policy analyses such as promoting the incorporation of the green hydrogen supply chain or various Climate Change mitigation measures.

Project duration: 24 months. 1/1/2022 to 31/12/2023.

Director: Enzo Sauma; Alternate Director: Sonia Vera.

Other researchers: Margarita Castro, Francisca Jalil, Andrés Pereira and Francisco Manríquez.