Accelerating System Adequacy Assessment using the Multilevel Monte Carlo Approach

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how the Multilevel Monte Carlo framework can significantly accelerate power system adequacy assessments by efficiently combining multiple simulation levels, maintaining accuracy while reducing computational time.

Contribution

It introduces the application of MLMC to power system adequacy assessment, detailing the requirements and benefits of this approach for complex models.

Findings

Large speedups achieved in simulation times

MLMC maintains accuracy while reducing computation

Effective for systems with heterogeneous storage units

Abstract

Accurately and efficiently estimating system performance under uncertainty is paramount in power system planning and operation. Monte Carlo simulation is often used for this purpose, but convergence may be slow, especially when detailed models are used. Previously published methods to speed up computations may severely constrain model complexity, limiting their real-world effectiveness. This paper uses the recently proposed Multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) framework, which combines outputs from a hierarchy of simulators to boost computational efficiency without sacrificing accuracy. It explains which requirements the MLMC framework imposes on the model hierarchy, and how these naturally occur in power system adequacy assessment problems. Two adequacy assessment examples are studied in detail: a composite system and a system with heterogeneous storage units. An intuitive speed metric is introduced for easy comparison of simulation setups. Depending on the problem and metric of interest, large speedups can be obtained.