Value of Model Enhancements: Quantifying the Benefit of Improved Transmission Planning Models

A framework to quantify the value of model enhancements (VOMEs) in transmission planning models is proposed and applied to a case study of the large-scale, long-term planning of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) system. The VOME, which is closely related to the concept of the value of information from decision analysis, quantifies the probability-weighted improvement in the system performance resulting from changes in decisions that result from model enhancements. The WECC case study shows that it is practical to quantify VOME and illustrates the type of insights that can be obtained. The values of four types of model enhancements are compared. The results show major benefits from considering long-run uncertainty using multiple scenarios of technology, policy, and economics; these benefits are as much as 14% of total benefits of new transmission built in the first ten years. However, less benefit is obtained from more temporal granularity, more complex network representations, and inclusion of unit commitment constraints and costs. This framework can be applied to quantify the VOMEs in any planning context, such as integrated resource planning.