Topic: Capacity Factor in LEAPSubscribe | Previous | Next
Nour Shihabuddin 6/22/2020
Hello,
Is the Availability Percentage in LEAP equivalent to the Capacity factor? would I be able to use the CF percentage in the max availability field?
Thanks
Charlie Heaps 6/22/2020
>>Is the Availability Percentage in LEAP equivalent to the Capacity factor? Would I be able to use the CF percentage in the max availability field?
Max Availability is a constraint on the availability (capacity factor) of each process. If you are dispatching processes by merit order (in simulation mode), the process will be dispatched as needed but not more than this value. Typically this means that baseload (merit order=1) processes run up to their Maximum availability, while peak load plants (with higher merit orders) do not. If you set a process dispatch rule to "FullCapacity" then it will always run up to the Maximum Availability.
Note that this constraint applies is applied in every time slice. So if a process is more available at some hours or in some seasons than in others then you may want to specify a time-sliced expression. For example, you could use the YearlyShape function to specify the availability in each time slice.
Nour Shihabuddin 6/30/2020
Thank you.
But it's still a bit unclear to me how to calculate the max availability if I have a 45% Capacity factor for Wind. Also, Would Varying the Max availability through YearlyShapes be able to cover the variability of renewables over seasons?
Charlie Heaps 7/1/2020
>>But it's still a bit unclear to me how to calculate the max availability if I have a 45% Capacity factor for Wind. Also, Would Varying the Max availability through YearlyShapes be able to cover the variability of renewables over seasons?
Suggest you enter the maximum value for availability that you believe each plant could be used IF NEEDED. The actual capacity factor will emerge from the modeling (as an output of the model). It will depend on the level of requirements for electricity and the order of dispatch of power plants. So, base load plants will probably run up to their maximum availability, while peak load plants will be used less depending on how much reserve margin there is. If the reserve margin is too small, all power plants may run up to their maximum availability. Often times in these circumstances you will also see LEAP resort to using imports to meet unmet requirements. Overall though, please bear in mind that every energy system is different!
On your last question, yes, You can use YearlyShapes to describe how some plants (e.g. solar, wind ) have different availabilities in different time slices (seasons, times of the day). Alternatively, you can enter a simple number that will be used to set maximum availability in all time slices. Note also that in your scenarios you can also specify how the maximum availability might change in future years.
You may want to take a look at the Time Slices Demo data set which shows some example of how to do this. It's available from the Area: Install: Install from Internet menu option within LEAP.
Hope this helps!
Charlie