Unlocking Planning Accuracy with CERES: Seeking Real-World Use Cases Where Load Blocks and Typical Days Fall Short

SUMMARY

CERES is a next-generation power system planning tool that replaces the simplifications of conventional models—such as load blocks and typical days—with a full chronological simulation of every hour over a 30-year planning horizon. This enables planners to capture the true complexity of modern power systems while delivering results in under 30 minutes.

Where CERES Delivers the Greatest Value

We are actively seeking real-world use cases where CERES can demonstrate its strengths and provide measurable benefits over conventional approaches. CERES is particularly advantageous in the following contexts:

1. High Shares of Variable Renewable Energy (VRE)
   In systems with significant solar and wind penetration, accurately modeling the interplay between generation and demand on an hourly basis is essential. Conventional tools relying on load blocks or typical days often fall short:

• Load blocks aggregate hours by similar demand levels, discarding time sequence and smoothing out critical variations in renewable feed-in and curtailment events.
• Typical days preserve chronological order but average renewable generation patterns in a way that misrepresents extremes, leading to underestimated storage and flexibility needs and distorted capacity expansion signals.

CERES avoids these simplifications, allowing planners to correctly capture:

• Short-term curtailment and overgeneration events.
• Storage operation cycles, sizing, and dispatch strategies.
• Flexibility and adequacy requirements under realistic variability.

We are especially interested in use cases from VRE-rich regions where such distortions could materially affect investment decisions or policy design.

2. Medium Voltage and Distribution-Level Integration
   Many new renewable projects connect at the medium voltage level, where grid impacts are increasingly localized and time-sensitive. CERES can capture:

• Hourly voltage constraints, congestion, and backfeed effects.
• Interactions among distributed energy resources (DERs), batteries, and responsive demand.
• Impacts of renewable variability on distribution network planning and reinforcement.

We are looking for case studies involving distributed PV, community batteries, or emerging grid-edge flexibility solutions.

3. Electrification and System Transformation
   CERES excels in modeling systems undergoing rapid demand evolution due to electrification and sector coupling (e.g. EVs, electric heating). It can:

• Simulate evolving load shapes and behaviorally responsive consumption.
• Test dynamic pricing and smart control strategies across hourly profiles.
• Identify resilient investment strategies robust to future demand uncertainty.

Relevant use cases include regions with ambitious electrification plans or new tariff structures that challenge conventional modeling tools.

Call for Collaboration

We invite planners, regulators, utilities, and researchers to collaborate with us on identifying real-world use cases where CERES can demonstrate its full potential. These collaborations will help validate the tool’s capabilities and accelerate innovation in power system planning under high renewable penetration.

About the authors 

This article was written by Diego Luca de Tena, Managing Director of Pharoes, who is based in Madrid.