Xcel Energy will evaluate the potential of Sunairio's high-resolution climate simulations to anticipate future energy variability and ensure grid reliability as the utility continues its transition to cleaner power sources.
BALTIMORE, Md., Nov. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Sunairio, the first software platform to provide high-resolution climate simulation for energy investment and grid planning, announced today a pilot program with Xcel Energy-Colorado to simulate the electric grid of Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo) — an operating company subsidiary of Xcel Energy — as it adds significant new wind and solar generation capacity over the next 15 years.
The Sunairio/Xcel Energy pilot program aims to improve the accuracy and increase the granularity of weather data used in grid planning. If successful, it will demonstrate how Sunairio's high-resolution climate data can be used for real-world grid improvements.
Integrating significant amounts of renewable energy presents new challenges for utilities like Xcel Energy. Given the highly variable nature of wind and solar generation, accurately modeling renewable energy intermittency — and quantifying the risk of low renewable generation that coincides with high customer demand — is critical to ensure future grid reliability and prevent blackouts.
Grid planning studies have traditionally quantified weather and energy variability risks by using historical weather data as an analogue for future weather events — a practice that has significant shortcomings. Historical weather datasets, which often span less than 20 years, are not long enough to capture potential extreme events or account for the effects of climate change. Incorporating climate change, however, is not an easy task, as conventional forward-looking global climate model data lacks the geographic and time-based precision necessary for site-specific wind and solar farm modeling. The Xcel Energy/Sunario pilot program hopes to overcome these problems by providing high-resolution (down to 50-meter resolution) weather data that both extends further into the past (1950-present) and applies the latest intelligence from global climate models when looking to the future.
"We're thrilled to apply our advanced modeling platform to Xcel Energy's utility portfolio and show how this technology can support grid reliability in Colorado — with many renewable energy sites, diverse geographies, and complicated weather patterns," said Rob Cirincione, CEO of Sunairio.
To achieve these goals, Xcel Energy will start by validating Sunairio's historical weather and renewable energy generation datasets against both known measurements and proprietary Xcel Energy generation data. Then, Sunairio will employ its National Science Foundation-funded high-resolution climate simulation engine to simulate 1,000 probabilistic outcomes of future hourly weather. These simulations, each of which will extend to 2040, will incorporate climate trends consistent with the most current generation of physics-based global climate models (CMIP6).
Finally, Sunairio will model future Xcel Energy's customer demand, wind, and solar generation by applying best-in-class energy models to the weather simulations — enabling Xcel Energy grid planners to quantify the probability and magnitude of energy events that can stress the grid.
All told, Sunairio's datasets boil down to four categories:
● Hourly high-resolution weather: High-fidelity, high-resolution climate data (down to 50 meter spatial resolution) of the weather variables that drive wind generation, solar generation, and customer demand
● Hourly generation potential: Ideal weather-dependent renewable generation at every current and future utility-scale wind plant and solar plant in the Xcel Energy generation portfolio
● Hourly plant availability losses: Probabilistic simulations of wind and solar plant energy losses that result from system degradation, mechanical derates, and occasional full plant outages
● Hourly customer load: Xcel Energy-Colorado customer demand simulations
To stay up-to-date on milestones related to this research and other initiatives at Sunairio, or to explore collaboration opportunities, please send an email to [email protected].
About Sunairio
Sunairio is the first software platform to leverage high-resolution historical climate data and high-resolution future climate simulation for energy investment, planning, and portfolio management. Sunairio helps utility-scale asset developers, energy traders, and reliability organizations make better commercial decisions in the face of increasing grid variability and unprecedented weather. Sunairio was awarded an NSF Small Business Innovation Research grant for its energy-industry-focused climate simulation technology in 2024. For more information, visit www.sunario.com.
About Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy (NASDAQ: XEL) provides the energy that powers millions of homes and businesses across eight Western and Midwestern states. Headquartered in Minneapolis, the company is an industry leader in responsibly reducing carbon emissions and producing and delivering clean energy solutions from a variety of renewable sources at competitive prices. For more information, visit xcelenergy.com or follow us on X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook.
Media Contact
Nikki Arnone, Inflection Point Agency for Sunairio, 1 (719) 357-8344, [email protected], https://sunairio.com/
SOURCE Sunairio
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