Renewable Energy and Efficiency Modeling Analysis Partnership: An Analysis of How Different Energy Models Addressed a Common High Renewable Energy Penetration Scenario in 2025
The Renewable Energy and Efficiency Modeling and Analysis Partnership (REMAP) sponsors ongoing workshops to discuss individual 'renewable' technologies, energy/economic modeling, and - to some extent - policy issues related to renewable energy. Since 2002, the group has organized seven workshops, each focusing on a different renewable technology (geothermal, solar, wind, etc.). These workshops originated and continue to be run under an informal partnership of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE). EPA originally funded the activities, but support is now shared between EPA and EERE. REMAP has a wide range of participating analysts and models/modelers that come from government, the private sector, and academia. Modelers include staff from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), NREL, EPA, Resources for the Future (RFF), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), Regional Economic Models Inc. (REMI), ICF International, OnLocation Inc., and Boston University. The working group has more than 40 members, which also includes representatives from DOE, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and ACORE. This report summarizes the activities and findings of the REMAP activity that started in late 2006 with a kickoff meeting, and concluded in mid-2008 with presentations of final results. As the project evolved, the group compared results across models and across technologies rather than just examining a specific technology or activity. The overall goal was to better understand how and why different energy models give similar and/or different answers in response to a set of focused energy-related questions. The focus was on understanding reasons for model differences, not on policy implications, even though a policy of high renewable penetration was used for the analysis. A group process was used to identify the potential question (or questions) to be addressed through the project. In late 2006, increasing renewable energy penetration in the electricity sector was chosen from among several options as the general policy to model. From this framework, the analysts chose a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) as the way to implement the required renewable energy market penetration in the models. An RPS was chosen because it was (i) of interest and represented the group's consensus choice, and (ii) tractable and not too burdensome for the modelers. Because the modelers and analysts were largely using their own resources, it was important to consider the degree of effort required. In fact, several of the modelers who started this process had to discontinue participation because of other demands on their time. Federal and state RPS policy is an area of active political interest and debate. Recognizing this, participants used this exercise to gain insight into energy model structure and performance. The results are not intended to provide any particular insight into policy design or be used for policy advocacy, and participants are not expected to form a policy stance based on the outcomes of the modeling. The goals of this REMAP project - in terms of the main topic of renewable penetration - were to: (1) Compare models and understand why they may give different results to the same question, (2) Improve the rigor and consistency of assumptions used across models, and (3) Evaluate the ability of models to measure the impacts of high renewable-penetration scenarios.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Environmental Energy Technologies Division
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 983329
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-3485E; TRN: US201014%%613
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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