The CPUC recently released the 2021 version of the electric and gas Avoided Cost Calculators (ACC). These updates will directly impact the valuation and cost-effectiveness of demand side programs in California. Recurve has incorporated the new 2021 ACC values into the FLEXvalue toolkit, an open source suite of cost effectiveness tools and databases that allow users to utilize custom or measured load shape impacts among other enhanced functionality. For more information see flexvalue.recurve.com and the GitHub library. The FLEXvalue calculator has been updated to enable users to input either 2020 or 2021 in their cost-effectiveness calculations to designate which version of avoided cost data is to be used. The ACC models are published in macro-driven Excel workbooks. These workbooks are useful for a quick look or to copy a small slice of data, but with hundreds of utility/year/climate zone combinations, a database structure is essential for many use cases. For users who would benefit from having a clean database version of all avoided cost data, Recurve has scraped all avoided cost data and made the full SQLite databases publicly available for download (here). Note that the ACC is subject to change, so please check back in the coming weeks for updates. For those interested in producing comparisons between the 2020 and 2021 avoided cost data and the impact on TRC, Recurve has also assembled a Colab Notebook, which enables this type of exploration using FLEXvalue. Recurve has also copied the ACC models themselves (Download .xlsb files here).
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Who is it for? Utility Program Administrators, Energy Efficiency Implementers In this trainings, you will get step-by-step support to get the FLEXvalue engine up and running and answer your most urgent questions. The FLEXvalue engine is an open-source package of tools to simplify and bring to life the valuation of demand-side resources. With the FLEXvalue application, users have the power to generate the dollar value and avoided emissions of demand-side resources using either measured load shapes or standard “deemed” values. The ability of FLEXvalue to compute grid and carbon benefits from customizable load shapes removes a significant barrier to the more holistic and innovative demand-side solutions needed to address today’s climate challenges. Along with quantifying cost-effectiveness and emissions impacts, FLEXvalue produces a series of graphics that showcase a portfolio’s value and provide insights on pathways to optimize. With FLEXvalue, users also gain access to a clear price signal that all parties can utilize to connect observed program impacts to their grid and carbon value. Recurve is excited to announce the release of an open-source package of tools to simplify and bring to life the valuation of demand-side resources. The FLEXvalue™ engine solves some of the biggest problems across our industry today: the lack of transparency, accessibility, and functionality in the calculation of cost-effectiveness and valuation of demand-side resources for market transactions. With the FLEXvalue™ application, users have the power to generate the dollar value and avoided emissions of demand-side resources using either measured load shapes or standard “deemed” values. The ability of FLEXvalue™ to compute grid and carbon benefits from customizable load shapes removes a significant barrier to the more holistic and innovative demand-side solutions needed to address today’s climate challenges. Along with quantifying cost-effectiveness and emissions impacts, FLEXvalue™ produces a series of graphics that showcase a program’s value and provide insights on pathways to optimize. Users also gain access to a clear price signal that all parties can utilize to connect observed program impacts to their grid and carbon value. FLEXValue™ Graphic: Savings and Net Benefit Value Based on CalTRACK Hourly Measurements Recurve has publicly open-sourced the FLEXvalue™ Python codebase, complete with directions and examples, on GitHub. The FLEXvalue™ engine takes simple user inputs and computes the lifecycle grid and carbon value of measures, projects, or portfolios. Outputs are complete and transparent, and the software is easy to run. Users can often be set up in 30 minutes or less. Recurve has tested hundreds of FLEXvalue™ scans and compared the results to the California Public Utilities Commission’s Cost-Effectiveness Tool (CET). Resulting Total Resource Cost (TRC) and Program Administrator Cost (PAC) values consistently match the CET to within 3%. (TRC and PAC tests are the most common cost-effectiveness tests applied for demand-side programs. See FLEXvalue™ documentation for details.) Cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost analysis (BCA) has been foundational to demand-side programs since their inception. Publicly available tools have been the primary means for conducting cost-effectiveness calculations, but they have generally been the domain of consultants and regulatory compliance offices. Instead of this model, an open-source tool that is carefully governed can help everyone who depends on cost-effectiveness and needs transparency in how resources are valued. Most jurisdictions need to frequently modify their existing cost-effectiveness tools to keep up with technological advances, new assumptions, or updated policies. Keeping pace with these changes creates IT hurdles and structural barriers to better programs. Adopting a mutually agreed upon open-source codebase, rather than a specific proprietary or even public software tool, helps remedy these issues. FLEXvalue™ will adopt an open governance model to allow those most familiar with the tool to work together to ensure that the code accurately and transparently reflects current policies. The open-source codebase can be cited-by-reference for use in any relevant proceeding, maintaining complete regulatory control to review and verify compliance with policy direction and manage vintage control for use in any of their processes. The first iteration of the FLEXvalue™ engine is now available for use in California. Market actors can estimate the value and cost-effectiveness of their combined demand flexibility projects, energy efficiency, or any other demand-side resource that would reference the CPUC’s avoided costs. While this implementation is specific to California, the FLEXvalue™ calculator is extendable to virtually any demand flexibility market to operationalize cost-effectiveness policies and house a market’s price signal.
FLEXvalue™ also aligns with core benefit-cost principles in the recently released DER National Standard Practice Manual, particularly #1 (treat DERs a utility system resource using consistent methods and assumptions) and #7 (ensure transparency to foster trust in benefit-cost methods). Coupled with the manual's other recommendations, FLEXvalue™ can improve market accessibility while supporting any cost-test that may be adopted in your jurisdiction. It represents another powerful tool for democratizing and dramatically expanding the use of behind-the-meter resources to address grid and climate challenges. We need modern tools built with modern code to modernize the grid — and we need to be working from the same page. When combined with open, meter-based methods and software such as CalTRACK and the OpenEEmeter, the FLEXvalue™ engine enables regulators and utilities to readily screen projects in advance, track if their programs are cost-effective during deployment, generate the most accurate claim for the resources' actual impact to the grid, and optimize going forward. Learn more about the California application of the FLEXvalue™ engine here. The FLEXvalue™ design team is also hosting two introductory webinar trainings to give users step by step support in getting the FLEXvalue™ engine up and running. Join us and get the answers to your most urgent FLEXvalue™ questions. Apr 15, 2021 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada) Register When: Apr 21, 2021 02:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada) Register FLEXvalue™ gives us the start on demand-side resource valuation. Your contributions can help all of us along. California has long been a leader in demand-side programs, including the development of computational tools for valuation. However, with the growing need for demand-side programs that can truly compete against an intensifying duck curve, the state needs a modernized approach to valuation that is capable of assessing and optimizing the actual hourly grid and carbon value of demand flexibility projects and portfolios. Transparent and flexible valuation is a critical bridge between today’s piecemeal programs and tomorrow’s coordinated, market-driven solutions. The open-source FLEXvalue™ engine now provides California aggregators, program administrators, utilities, and regulators a pathway to consistently and transparently gauge the value of their projects, portfolios, and programs. The FLEXvalue™ Python codebase is universally accessible on GitHub, along with examples and documentation. This package currently utilizes the CPUC’s published avoided cost data and enables market actors across the state to assess demand flexibility value from either pre-defined or custom/measured load shapes, and to inform decisions in near real-time. Overview Recurve has publicly open-sourced the FLEXvalue™ Python codebase, complete with directions and examples, on GitHub. The FLEXvalue™ engine takes simple user inputs and computes the lifecycle grid and carbon value of measures, projects, or portfolios. Outputs are complete and transparent, and the software is easy to run. The FLEXvalue™ engine operationalizes the key inputs to the current cost-effectiveness tool (CET) required for regulatory savings claims in the energy efficiency proceeding, including the CPUC’s hourly avoided cost values. But where the current CET input structure is built only for energy efficiency, FLEXvalue™ is capable of calculating the value and cost effectiveness of any combination of integrated behind-the-meter resources. Removing this technical barrier is critical to enabling the next generation of more holistic demand flexibility programs. Recurve has extensively tested FLEXvalue™, comparing the results of hundreds of FLEXvalue™ scans against the current CET. Resulting Total Resource Cost (TRC) and Program Administrator Cost (PAC) values consistently match the CET to within 3% as shown in the figure below, which plots FLEXvalue™ TRC outputs vs the CET. Data points are differentiated by load shape but span a wide variety of climate zones, effective useful lives, net-to-gross values, savings and cost inputs and other important variables of the calculation. Resulting TRC and PAC values consistently match the CET to within 3%. See FLEXvalue™ documentation for details FLEXvalue™ is not intended to just copy the CET. Instead, FLEXvalue™ provides several important advancements including a simplified input and output structure that also includes emissions impacts, and full transparency with up-to-date and accessible documentation and an open source codebase. Importantly, FLEXvalue™ can compute grid and carbon benefits from measured or custom load shapes, an essential feature for any program seeking to optimize results. FLEXvalue also allows users to modify parameters such as discount rates to readily assess the impact that associated policy changes may have on cost-effectiveness. Finally, FLEXvalue fixes certain known computational anomalies found in the CET. The FLEXvalue™ package extends beyond the calculation of important numerical values. To help members of the community who rely on these data, Recurve is also releasing a database that contains all of the CPUC GHG and marginal hourly avoided cost data by component for all utility/climate zone combinations. The FLEXvalue™ codebase also includes a package for users to simultaneously generate CET and FLEXvalue™ input files and then automatically parse and compare outputs. In addition, FLEXvalue™ produces a series of graphics that showcase a program’s benefits and provide insights on pathways to optimize. FLEXValue™ Graphic: Savings and Net Benefit Value Based on CalTRACK Hourly Measurements. Users also gain access to a clear price signal that all parties can utilize to connect observed program impacts to their grid and carbon value. With more adaptable and open source tooling, the FLEXvalue™ engine solves one of the biggest problems facing demand flexibility in California today. It provides streamlined access and a price signal tied to the current state-approved value stack. Aggregators and implementers can optimize their projects against the long-term recognized value of changes in energy consumption.
The FLEXvalue™ engine democratizes access to key information about the value of projects to the grid, which is especially urgent in the age of NMEC (Normalized Metered Energy Consumption) and third-party pay-for-performance opportunities in California. It opens a new horizon for accountability and alignment for implementers to build the bridge from customer actions to the grid value and be paid for measured performance delivered. Getting credit for real impacts grounded in hourly value streams is critical to effective decarbonization and can help put an end to the upfront handwringing on integrated program design. When combined with open, meter-based methods and software such as CalTRACK and the OpenEEmeter, the FLEXvalue™ engine enables regulators and utilities to screen projects in advance, track if their programs are actually cost-effective during deployment, and generate the most accurate claim for the resources' actual impact to the grid. The Value of the Open-Source Governance and Maintenance Model Benefit-cost analysis (BCA) has been foundational to the demand-side program model in California since its inception. Publicly available tools have been the primary means for conducting cost-effectiveness calculations, but they have been the domain of consultants and regulatory compliance offices and difficult for implementers to use. California's Public Utilities Commission staff has needed to frequently modify their existing cost-effectiveness tools to keep up with technological advances, new assumptions, or updated policies. Keeping up with these changes has created insurmountable IT contracting hurdles that have translated to real pain and delay for all stakeholders involved – and hobbling staff accountable for regulatory oversight. Adopting a mutually agreed upon code-base, rather than a specific proprietary or even public software tool, helps remedy these issues. FLEXvalue™ will adopt an open governance model that allows those most familiar with the tool to work together to ensure that the code accurately and transparently reflects current cost-effectiveness policies. This collaborative process can foster a community of knowledgeable experts to contribute bug fixes, make annual updates in a timely manner and reduce the development burden for any individual organization. FLEXvalue™ can be version-controlled for each filing (forecast and reported savings), just as current tools are. The FLEXvalue™ code is available without restriction on GitHub, and the technical function and documentation are maintained by a technical advisory committee using a charter modeled after the Linux Foundation's open-source projects. An example of this charter structure is available for the OpenEEmeter open source project currently maintained in the Linux Foundation Energy. Regulators or others with formal authority can also contribute their expertise within the open-source community. The open-source codebase can be cited-by-reference for use in any relevant proceeding. Regulators have full control to review and verify compliance with policy direction and manage vintage control for the use in any of their cost-effectiveness processes. Cost Effectiveness analysis is required in multiple demand side proceedings and the IDER proceeding currently handles the updates for the avoided costs. More information on the current tools and proceeding are on the CPUC website. Conclusion We need modern tools built with modern code to modernize the grid — and we need to be working from the same page. When combined with open, meter-based methods and software such as CalTRACK and the OpenEEmeter, the FLEXvalue™ engine enables regulators and utilities to readily screen projects in advance, track if their programs are cost-effective during deployment, generate the most accurate claim for the resources' actual impact to the grid, and optimize going forward. The FLEXvalue™ design team is also hosting two introductory webinar trainings to give users step by step support in getting the FLEXvalue™ engine up and running. Join us and get the answers to your most urgent FLEXvalue™ questions. Apr 15, 2021 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada) Register When: Apr 21, 2021 02:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada) Register FLEXvalue™ gives us the start on demand-side resource valuation. Your contributions can help all of us along. |
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