Adaptive Network Planning with Integrated Time Series Simulation and Investment Decisions in a Decarbonizing Energy Transition Landscape

Peninsular Malaysia constitutes a paramount responsibility of the national utility as the designated grid owner. To fulfil this important responsibility, the grid owner performs annual grid system planning review, known as the Annual Transmission Development Plan (ATDP), to comprehensively assess the adequacy and security of the transmission system over a rolling ten-year horizon. Traditionally, the grid planning methodology employed is deterministic and primarily relies on peak demand snapshots for power system study. Moving forward, existing grid planning methodology may be insufficient to best accommodate the variability and intermittency introduced by escalating variable RE penetration, load fluctuations and volatile power flow. As the market environment shifts to embrace the country’s ambition to achieve net-zero carbon emission, key planning input data becomes increasingly dynamic as the forecast horizon extends into the future. This places substantial demand on grid planning exercise with the increasing number of generation, load and network permutations to capture possible future system conditions and to ensure grid readiness while balancing energy trilemma, upholding paramount system security and ensuring affordability in a sustainable manner. Anticipating the challenges, the grid planners strive to enhance the traditional planning framework, moving beyond deterministic and snapshot scenario power system planning towards a more comprehensive, multiple scenarios based and probabilistic planning methodology. As a result, the ATDP exercise can capture the increasingly large number of planning scenarios. By utilizing additional time series tool pack on existing planning software, grid planners are able to factor in higher resolution of system demand data, generation availability, unit commitment schedule and network open points during the power system study. A pilot project with 24 hours hourly simulation on projected yearly peak system demand was carried out successfully. The rigorous sensitivity analyses yield simulation results with greater insights into future grid network conditions, in the effort to enhance grid reliability and cost efficiency. Further to that, 168 hours hourly simulation was conducted, offering greater clarity on the unique system constrain and power flow patterns in relation to weekday and weekend load profiles respectively. Analyses on the assembled power flow case files is then conducted for disturbances, adhering strictly to the requirements outlined in the Grid Code for Peninsular

Malaysia (GCPM) and the Transmission System Reliability Standards (TSRS). The time series simulation result also facilitates probabilistic assessments, combining quantitative understanding on the likelihood of disturbance events and the impact on system security. This will enable more effective project cost-benefit analyses and identification of optimal investment strategies to enhance system resilience and contribute decisively to the nation's ambitious

Energy Transition target. In conclusion, time series power system simulation fundamentally transcends the limitations of conventional deterministic models by employing high-resolution temporal data and systematically accounting for the multifaceted uncertainties intrinsic to the Energy Transition across the energy sector. Nevertheless, optimizing computational resource allocation is crucial for effectively balancing the cost of rigorous, multi-scenario simulations with available computing power.