electricity transmission

Default in PyPSA-Eur

The default setting for the line capacity expansion of the electricity grid is limited only by the costs of added AC lines and DC links.

PyPSA-Eur inherently supports either cost or volume limitations, and either optimal or a fixed percentage of expansion. The time of the expansion limit applies between investment years and will depend on myopic planning_horizons.

Value	Part	Description
v-	prefix	sets a limit on the line volume
c-	prefix	sets a limit on the line cost
-opt	suffix	line expansion is optimized according to capital costs
-1.xx	suffix	line expansion will be limited to a maximum of xx %

For example: \ The default value 'vopt' only limits transmission expansion via link and line costs. The value 'copt' also limits by allocating costs, but in a more detailed way (distinguishes overhead vs underwater sections etc).
The value 'v1.1' limits the volumetric transmission expansion of the grid by an additional installation of maximum 10% of currently installed lines in the next investment period.

What exactly is limited?

The defaults describe above are GlobalConstraints, limiting the expansion of the grid as a whole. Additionally, per-line extension limits are possible. They are set in prepare_network.py via the set_line_nom_max() function.

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In PyPSA-AT

A theoretically limitless expansion of the electricity grid lines seems highly unlikely. However, official statements hardly specify exact numbers for the complete potential expansion of the grid. Until better data is available, an educated guess on the potential expansion of the electricity transmission grid has been made at a maximum of 25%. This is a high, but limited upper boundary for the expansion of the grid. In any case, it is more realistic than the default limitless expansion.

To implement this, the following additions were made in the config.at.yaml:

scenario:

change

scenario:
  ll: 
  -vopt 

to

scenario: 
  ll: 
  -v1.25 

electricity:

change

electricity:
  transmission_limit: vopt

to

electricity:
  transmission_limit: v1.25