Advancing Energy Infrastructure Expansion Planning with the GRIDCERF Data Package
Photo by Loïc Manegarium
Addressing the challenge of climate change and rising electricity demand, researchers have developed a data product, the Geospatial Raster Input Data for Capacity Expansion Regional Feasibility (GRIDCERF), to help identify optimal locations for new power plants in the United States. This product utilizes comprehensive geographical data to assess potential sites for both renewable and non-renewable energy infrastructure. It takes into account a variety of factors, including water availability and land conservation. GRIDCERF represents a significant advance towards enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of our energy systems amidst evolving environmental considerations, technological changes, and population shifts.
The study introduces GRIDCERF, a novel data product for planning power plant construction in the US. As electricity demand increases, new power plants are needed and determining plant locations is becoming increasingly complex due to factors like climate change, population growth, and technological shifts. GRIDCERF, an open-source tool, provides detailed, location-specific data, considering 264 factors for 56 power plant types. This comprehensive tool aids scientists and policymakers in making informed decisions, balancing electricity needs with environmental and community impacts. Its potential extends to urban planning and environmental conservation.
Researchers have developed the GRIDCERF data package to address the challenges of power plant siting in the context of climate change, energy system transitions, and socioeconomic change. The GRIDCERF data package uses a portfolio of geospatial data to create land suitability layers tailored to the siting requirements of different power plant technology configurations. The data package is designed to provide necessary inputs for models simulating power plant siting for regional capacity expansion planning. This high-resolution product helps evaluate siting suitability for renewable and non-renewable power plants across the United States, offering 264 suitability layers for use with 56 power plant technologies. It is the only open-source data package providing centralized data to evaluate power plant siting suitability in a harmonized, rasterized format for use with energy system expansion planning models. This research is a significant step towards a comprehensive, exploratory modeling approach to evaluate the impacts of siting feasibility on alternative electricity system capacity expansion plans.