Applicability of NESO’s Dynamic Dispatch Model to Variable-Renewable Electricity Systems

Determine whether the National Energy System Operator’s Dynamic Dispatch Model, originally designed to assess investment options for dispatchable generation, has a structure capable of analysing the performance of electricity systems predominantly powered by variable renewable energy.

Background

The paper evaluates the National Energy System Operator’s Clean Power 2030 pathway using models based on real-time historical records of UK electricity generation and demand. The authors report substantially higher projected emissions than NESO and argue that systems dominated by intermittent wind and solar generation require modelling methods that capture real-time variability, curtailment, and wind-lull conditions.

Because NESO’s modelling approaches are proprietary, the authors cannot directly compare their models with NESO’s Dynamic Dispatch Model. They therefore explicitly question whether a model originally developed for investment analysis of dispatchable generation is structurally suitable for evaluating electricity systems in which variable renewable generation predominates.