Skip to content
home /

Services and products

/

Simulation tools

Simulation tools

We develop and apply next-generation optimisation models to analyse the behaviour of electricity systems in scenarios of high renewable penetration.

Let's talk about your case

Our AMEBA platform

It simulates the operation, planning and expansion of power markets at hourly precision and with stochastic modelling, covering short-, medium- and long-term dynamics. These tools support strategic decision-making in a context of deep decarbonisation and technological transformation of the power sector.

ameba.spec.cl

Our main tools are:

HOURLY DISPATCHMARGINAL COST001223

AMEBA

Software (SaaS) to simulate the operation and planning of highly decarbonised systems. Used by several companies in the sector for the commercial and technical analysis of their portfolios.

Explore AMEBA
PRICEchargedischargeBESS

ARGOS

A model for evaluating generation and storage asset portfolios, to determine the revenue and operational impacts of BESS, PV and other technologies.

AGENTSWORKS PLAN

ABEX

Agent-based expansion model: it projects the works plan by simulating each market player's investment decision, instead of the system's least-cost solution.

Explore ABEX
SOURCESoperation · prices · capacity · regulationSINGLE SERIESfull and continuous series

Galilei

The data model of the Chilean power market: operation, prices, capacity and regulation over a full and continuous series, which is what feeds the simulation models.

Explore Galilei

The models we work with are our own. That is not a point of pride: it is what lets us open up the method when a client, a bank or an authority asks where a result comes from, adapt the formulation to Chile's National Electricity System — which has dispatch, capacity and transmission rules a generic model does not represent — and extend the model when a technology appears that the formulation did not cover.

A model for each time scale

An operating decision and an investment decision are not answered by the same model. The first needs hourly detail and unit constraints; the second needs decades and cannot afford that detail across the whole horizon.

AMEBA brings four models together on a single database, and they chain: the long-horizon result sets the context for the short one, and the short one's detail corrects the long one's assumptions.

Decision horizonhoursdaysweeksmonthsyearsdecadesMaxHidroBasin operationUCShort-term schedulingCHTHydrothermal coordinationINVXExpansion planning
Decision horizonhoursdaysweeksmonthsyearsdecadesMaxHidroBasin operationUCShort-term schedulingCHTHydrothermal coordinationINVXExpansion planning
The four AMEBA modules and the time scale each one covers. They overlap on purpose: the overlap is where one module hands its results to the next.

What can be asked

1

How does the system operate tomorrow?

Short-term scheduling with start-ups, technical minima, reserves and network constraints, hour by hour.

2

What is the stored water worth?

Hydrothermal coordination and basin operation, which is where the reservoir's opportunity cost is decided.

3

What will get built?

Works plans for generation, storage and transmission under different demand, fuel and regulatory scenarios.

4

What if the hydrology fails?

Uncertainty modelling on hydrology, demand, fuel prices and line capacity.

The works plan is not decided by an optimiser

The usual way to project expansion is to solve for the least cost of the whole system. It is a good reference for what ought to be built, but it does not describe what will happen: in the Chilean market each company invests on its own, with its portfolio, its contracts and its price expectations.

ABEX simulates that decision agent by agent. The works plan it produces is not the central planner's optimum but the one that emerges from individual decisions, which is what a project or a commercial position is best assessed against.

System least costEach agent's decisionCentral optimisationOne works planexpectations · portfolio · contractsAgent AAgent BAgent CAgent DThe plan that emerges
System least costCentral optimisationOne works planEach agent's decisionexpectations · portfolio · contractsAgent AAgent BAgent CAgent DThe plan that emerges
Two ways of projecting the same works plan. The first answers what ought to be built; the second, what is likely to be built.

Where these tools are applied:

Expansion planning

Works plans for generation, storage and transmission over horizons of decades.

Operational scheduling

Hourly unit commitment, with start-ups, technical minima and network constraints.

Asset evaluation

Revenue and operational impacts of batteries, solar plants and mixed portfolios.

Public policy analysis

Counterfactuals to measure the effect of a regulatory or market design change.

A public sample

Studies where these models did the work, with their methodology and their assumptions in plain sight. It is the way to see what they produce before commissioning anything.

2022Towards a 100% Renewable System: Long-Duration Energy StorageA study by SPEC, Universidad de Chile and ISCI on long-duration energy storage (LDES) in Chile: 2030 expansion simulations, required volumes, and the 2020Storage Systems as Transmission InfrastructureA paper by SPEC, UAI and Universidad de Chile on using energy storage systems to raise network transfer capacity: why block-based models underestimate2023Systemic actions for transmission development — Final reportFinal report by SPEC and ISCI for Generadoras de Chile and Transmisoras: 141 pages across four modules on the use of existing transmission, fast-deplo

Need to run a case?

Tell us which system you want to simulate and over what horizon, and we will tell you which model fits and how it is accessed.

Get in touch