Contact: Communications@naruc.org

WASHINGTON (October 8, 2021) — The National Regulatory Research Institute has released a paper highlighting the benefits of using a new class of resource planning models to manage the complicated and complex process of planning for a decarbonized future.

The Insights paper, “Making the Right Resource Choice Requires Making the Right Model Choice,” argues that today’s older generations of resource planning models do not capture the emerging dynamics of a power grid supplied primarily by renewable energy. This limitation leads to imprudent investments in assets that will become functionally useless and ultimately disallowed.

Authors Gary W. Dorris, PhD, and David Millar recognize that because of the emphasis on decarbonization and the dramatic decline in the cost of renewable and storage technologies, planners must model more complex and uncertain portfolio options. Their paper provides a new terminology to classify the ability of a planning resource model to capture the new market dynamics, high-definition production cost models versus traditional production cost models.

“This paper describes useful next steps in improving the modeling used in resource planning,” said Paul Centolella, president of Paul Centolella & Associates and a senior consultant at Tabors Caramanis Rudkevich. Centolella is also a former Ohio commissioner.

To learn more and download this new addition to the NRRI Insights library, visit https://bit.ly/3Dk4oAR or https://pubs.naruc.org/pub/9F384B91-1866-DAAC-99FB-94A9489C14B9.

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About NRRI

The National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI) was founded in 1976 by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC). NRRI serves as a research arm to NARUC and its members, the utility regulatory commissions of the fifty states and the District of Columbia in the United States. NRRI’s primary mission is to produce and disseminate relevant and applicable research for NARUC members.