This working group convenes ESIG members to recommend, analyze, and report on energy system planning topics. The SPWG sponsors Task Forces that conduct targeted economic and engineering analysis on the transition to a decarbonized energy future. Topics include: transmission planning, generation planning, interconnection, electrification, resource adequacy, and long term market design.
Members of the System Planning Working Group are encouraged to interact with one another via Groups.IO, an online discussion platform and community network. The ESIG Resource Library is also a valuable tool for those seeking information on System Planning, as well as other topics.
Links to both can be found below:
(Please note: only members of ESIG may participate in the Working/Users Groups. If you are interested in membership, please email us at info@esig.energy.)
Resilience Benefit Quantification for Transmission Planning
This task force is evaluating the benefits of transmission during extreme grid events. The work of the task force has started with an assessment of the diversity of customer demand, renewable generation output, and thermal unit outages across the nation during normal and extreme grid conditions. This diversity of resource availability will be compared to available inter-regional transmission capacity. Phase II will include a detailed look at a specific region, building off of a recent resource adequacy study, evaluating specific extreme events to quantify the benefits that additional transmission capacity could provide.
Task Force Lead: Warren Lasher, Lasher Energy Consulting
Warren Lasher is President of Lasher Energy Consulting, a firm he founded in October, 2021, focused on providing specialized analysis and insight designed to help clients meet their strategic energy goals. Prior to this role, he spent seventeen years in the System Planning organization at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, serving as Director and then Senior Director of System Planning from 2012 to 2021. Prior to his work at ERCOT, Lasher was employed by the Southern Company in Birmingham, Alabama, where he worked in the Engineering and the Generation Planning organizations.
Long-term Load Forecasting
The Long-term Load Forecasting task force follows on ESIG’s Long-term Load Forecasting Workshop in Denver. This task force examines how demand will evolve in the next 10-25 years, due to climate change, electrification of buildings/transportation/industry, and new loads such as hydrogen. The summary findings of the June workshop will be used to describe the state of the art, and the initial activities are planned to be focused around identifying use-cases, best practices and gaps.
Task Force Lead: Julieta Giraldez, Kevala
Julieta Giraldez is Director, Grid Planning at Kevala where she contributes to solving the challenges facing energy market participants interacting with the evolving electricity grid. Prior to joining Kevala, Julieta worked for a decade at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) where she lead Smart Grid and Grid Integration related projects integrating emerging technologies such as PV, energy storage and microgrids in distribution systems.
Integrated Planning
The Integrated Planning project team, under support from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, will launch in March 2024 and focuses on integration of generation, transmission and distribution planning. It consists of three efforts: an executive-level meeting of utilities and ISO/RTOs on organizational structures to enable integrated planning, a monthly educational forum on integrated planning topics, and creation of a guidebook on processes and methodologies for integrated planning.
Guidebook Lead: Carlo Brancucci, encoord
Carlo Brancucci is the CEO and co-founder of encoord, a software company helping energy utilities plan for the energy transition with an integrated planning solution. Carlo has been working in energy modeling for planning in the US and Europe since 2010.
DER Impacts on Transmission
The project team seeks to investigate if we meet future clean energy needs with distributed generation and distributed storage, do we still need transmission? Can we defer, reduce or eliminate transmission needs by using distributed resources instead of utility-scale resources? How do flows change? The team co-optimizes generation and transmission expansion and assesses hourly operations for the Western Interconnection for three scenarios to answer these questions.
Project Team Lead: Keegan Moyer, Energy Strategies
Keegan Moyer joined Energy Strategies in 2014 and directs the firm’s transmission and market analyses. His project teams combine grid simulation tools, complex industry datasets, and economic analyses to help clients identify and evaluate generation and transmission investments, market strategies, and energy policies. Keegan is also responsible for the firm’s client services related to interconnections and transmission service.
Integrating Across Siloes of Transmission Planning
The task force is exploring how the industry can adopt more holistic and coordinated transmission planning processes that lead to the most efficient and effective expansion of the grid of the future. The goal is to identify best practices and highlight current innovative work in the industry to enhance traditional planning, which has often been done in a siloed manner with limited coordination across planning functions.
Project Team Lead: Tim Kopp, Electric Power Engineers
Tim Kopp is Vice President of T&D Planning & Operations with Electric Power Engineers. Tim Kopp has over 14 years of experience in transmission system planning. His experience includes performing technical studies, including dynamic stability analysis, steady state load flow analysis, generation interconnection studies, PV and QV analysis, capacity planning, and energy market analysis. He has a strong background in programming, process improvement, and transmission advisory services. Tim is currently responsible for leading the Transmission Planning line of business at EPE including developing growth strategies, meeting business development goals, achieving revenue requirements, developing and managing annual budgets, overseeing hiring/growth, and providing technical support and guidance.
Recently Completed Work
Transmission Benefits Valuation