Required Level of Detail of Optimization Models for the Control of Flexible Energy Resources

In future energy systems, different energy resources must be controlled simultaneously. To determine their optimal operation, these energy resources must be modeled adequately.In most cases, an adequate model requires a trade-off between the time required to solve the corresponding optimization problem and the model’s level of detail. However, optimization models can vary in their level of detail, which affects the modeling effort as well as the computational power and time required to solve. An analysis of modeling approaches shows that there is no consensus in the scientific community regarding the required level of detail of a model to accurately represent the energy resource and its energy flexibility. This paper addresses this gap by comparing models of an energy resource with different levels of detail. The models are applied as optimization models to schedule the operation of energy resources. The qualities of the optimized schedules of the different models are compared and the validity of the optimized schedules is confirmed by a detailed simulation model. The results indicate that accurate results can be obtained without in-depth modeling of the underlying physical processes. Thus, the computational effort can be reduced by using less complex models without compromising the accuracy of the predictive capabilities, especially in use cases where many different energy resources need to be modeled and subsequently optimized.