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Agents
The model has an agent-based structure. This means that all energy demand and supply are calculated within agents. The agent-based structure maintains flexibility for dynamic energy transition models. Many agents are either supplying or consuming energy, however, this does not have to be the case. They could also supply at some times and consume at others, or only decide upon transition dynamics. Therefor the traditional categorization of agents is let down in this model. Instead the documentation follows an alphabetical list of agents. However, to give the reader some structure an list of all agents and their roles is supplied below.
| Agent type | Agent population | Agent classification | Agent role | Agent description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main | - | environment | - | main environment other agents live in |
| PowerPlant | - | - | - | general power plant others inherit from |
| GasPowerPlant | gasPowerPlants | technological object | electricity and supply | gas power plant generating electricity and heat |
| CoalPowerPlant | coalPowerPlants | technological object | electricity and heat supply | coal power plant generating electricity and heat |
| NuclearPowerPlant | nuclearPowerPlants | technological object | electricity supply | nuclear power plant generating electricity and heat |
| PVSystem | pVSystems | technological object | electricity supply | PV system generating electricity |
| WindFarm | windFarms | technological object | electricity supply | wind farm generating electricity |
| HydroPowerPlant | hydroPowerPlants | technological object | electricity supply | hydro power plant generating electricity |
| WasteIncinerationPlant | wasteIncinerationPlants | technological object | electricity and heat supply | waste incineration combined heat and power plant |
| BiomassCHP | biomassCHPs | technological object | electricity and heat supply | Biomass combined heat and power plant |
| BiomassDigestionPlant | biomassDigestionPlants | technological object | electricity, heat and biogas supply | Biomass digestion plant |
| BiomassGasificationPlant | biomassGasificationPlants | technological object | electricity, heat and biogas supply | Biomass gasification plant |
| Province | provinces | placeholder | electricity demand | geograhpic area with heat, fuel and electricity demand |
| Battery | batteries | standardized technological object | electricity balancing | battery aimed at balancing demand and supply at the spotmarket |
| FuelCell | fuelCells | standardized technological object | electricity balancing | part of hydrogen storage aimed at balancing the electricity market |
| HydrogenStoragePlant | hydrogenStoragePlants | standardized placeholder technological object | electricity balancing | hydrogen storage aimed at balancing the electricity market, currently just a single facility, in future updates seperate electrolyzer, storage and fuel cell/power plant agents |
| Interconnectors | interconnectors | single agent representing multiple interconnectors | electricity market | interconnection capacity used in electricity market calculations |
The main agent is a computational agent in AnyLogic which can be seen as the environment in which other agents live. Therefor it also contains most code. Connections between agents, aggregates of agent populations and agent representations on maps are calculated in the main.
Power plants are the 'parent' (see this page on agent inheritance) agent type defining similar characteristics for all power plants. Note this is just a type, the actual populations are defined on a specific type of power plants to enable more detailed energy system modelling. The parent agent type is a way to model general aspects of all types which inherit from the general parent type.
Power plants have two types of input data. The first is a list of current, plannend and potential power plants in the Netherlands of all sorts. These define exact capacity, location and other power plant specific data. For this see the excel Power plants NL.xlsx. The data was obtained from combining databases by the grid operetor TenneT, WRI's Global Power Plant Database, and a review of Dutch power plant operators. See the source in the excel or the data tab in the Wiki for a further description. Each row in the table will generate an agent in the model. The agent will be of the corresponding type (e.g. nuclearPowerPlant or windFarm) and posses the attributes of the power plant as stated in the power plant list. The table underneath shows all relevant parameters originating from these power plants.
The second type of input data is technology specific. Each technology has it's own operation, installation and maintaince costs and characteristics. This list is matched to a specific power plant on basis of technology, meaning that each power plant of a specific type has the same costs, efficiency and other technology specific characteristics. See the Technology Characteristics file.
| Parameter name | Description |
|---|---|
| producer | power plant owner |
| powerPlant | power plant name |
| name | unit name |
| city | city |
| capacityMWel | rated nominal electric power |
| capacityMWth | rated nominal thermal power |
| technology | specific technology |
| chpBoolean | boolean if the power plant is a combined heat and power plant |
| typeInMo | type in merit order, can be Must-run, Dispatchable or Volatile |
| latitude | power plant latitude |
| longtitude | power plant longtitude |
| province | province power plant is located in to connect to province agents |
| weatherLocation | closest weather station to connect to weather database, is usually at province level except for offshore wind |
| startOperatingYear | start operating year of power plant |
| status | status of power plant, can be Operational, Decommissioned, Maintenance, Mothballed, Dismantled, Installed Capacity, Scheduled, or Potential. See capacity expansion for futher detail. |
| primaryFuel | primary fuel used |
| secondaryFuel | secondary fuel used |
| secondaryFuelPercentage | percentage of secondary fuel used |
| tertiaryFuel | tertiary fuel used |
| tertiaryFuelPecentage | percentage of tertiary fuel used |
All agents inheriting from the PowerPlant type are structured underneath.
Gas power plants include all current gas power plants in the Netherlands. In general these power plants hold to the parameters in the PowerPlant agent. Specific options are described here. Technology options within gas power plants are:
| Technology options | Fuel | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Conventional | Natural gas | Conventional gas turbine |
| OCGT | Natural gas | Open cycle gas turbine, or ordinary gas turbine. Less efficient but cheaper to use, start up and operate than CCGT. Can be used as gas peaker |
| CCGT | Natural gas | Closed cycle gas turbine. More efficient but also more expensive to build and less flexible in operation |
Other important parameters for Gas turbines are:
- Fuel, as gas turbines could be used for green gas combustion, or be retrofitted for hydrogen combustion.
- CHP, gas power plants can be connected to district heating, making them a CHP and giving them a 'Must-run' status in the Merit-order if heat is required
- CCS: gas power plants can be used in combination with carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Coal power plants include all current gas power plants in the Netherlands. In general these power plants hold to the parameters in the PowerPlant agent. Specific options are described here. Technology options within coal power plants are:
| Technology options | Fuel | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Pulverized | Coal or biomass | Relatively modern and clear supercritical pulverized coal power plant |
| Conventional | Coal or biomass | Old fashioned coal power plant. The last (Hemweg) decommissioned in 2019 in the Netherlands |
Other important parameters for Gas turbines are:
- Fuel: many coal plants are suitable for co-firing of woody biomass (pellets).
- CHP: coal power plants can be connected to district heating, making them a CHP and giving them a 'Must-run' status in the Merit-order if heat is required
- CCS: coal power plants can be used in combination with carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Nuclear power plants include the single nuclear power plant currently operating in the Netherlands, and 9GW of expansion as described in Dutch policy studies. In general these power plants hold to the parameters in the PowerPlant agent. Specific options are described here. Technology options within nuclear power plants are:
| Technology options | Fuel | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2nd gen | Uranium | Generation II nuclear reactors are relatively old nuclear reactors. The only running Dutch nuclear reactor is of this type |
| 3th gen | Uranium | Generation III nuclear reactors are the most modern currently build |
Future solutions such as small modular reactors (SMR) Generation IV, nuclear fusion or thorium are not in scope.
Provinces are the placeholder agents describing demand profiles and are used to generate local energy balances as a proxy to local transformer loads. The provincial level is chosen as it alligns to the high-voltage grid and has detailed energy consumption statistics. Annual energy demand per province and other provincial statistics and characteristics are detailed here, with CBS and Klimaatmonitor as main data sources.
More detailed modelling of demand subsectors (instead of province as a placeholder) will be done in future versions of the model.
A representative subset of 500 battery agents is created, each representing a 100MWh/50MW battery. Modular batteries are required as the optimization algorithm used can only with a maximum charging power. Batteries either charge, discharge or maintain idle based on market imbalance and additional costs of charging (additionalChargingCosts). Each of the batteries creates a daily optimal charge schedule, aimed at reducing the mismatch between intermittent renewables and fixed demand.
One single plant comprising an electrolyzer, storage and stationary fuel cell. Future updates of the model will include the seperate components in more detail as individual entities within the energy markets.
Single agent representing all interconnectors from the Netherlands to neighboring countries. Agent is used in the spotmarket calculations to export residual supply in cases of surplus or import in cases of demand when import is cheaper than own production. Based on fixed price time series for 2017. Updating this to dynamic prices is work in progress.