The existing infrastructures for the electric power and transportation sectors, which collectively accounted for ~69% of energy-related CO2 emissions for the U.S. in 2019, evolved nearly independently over the past century and entail significant under-utilization of capital-intensive assets (e.g. personal automobiles, distribution networks, peaking power plants). With recent advances in digitization and modular technologies for energy generation, conversion and storage, there is an opportunity to design and operate energy infrastructure to serve multiple end uses in an integrated manner. As illustrated below, low-carbon energy systems are expected to involve high degree of coupling between infrastructure for various commodities like electricity, hydrogen, and CO2, which increases complexity of planning and operating energy systems as well as potential risk of cascading failures.
We develop and apply mathematical models to study planning and operation of integrated energy systems and resulting technology, market and policy implications. We draw upon insights developed from the literature on power system planning and operations and extend it to study broader energy system, which includes dynamic interactions between the electric grid and other end-use sectors as well as roles for other energy vectors like hydrogen.
Our developed open-source models, can be used for system planning as well as inform technology and policy development in a timely manner. For example, we recently published an analysis on the emissions and cost impact of alternative time-matching requirements between contracted renewable electricity supply and electrolytic hydrogen production, that has stirred up an vigorous policy debate owing to the availability of emissions-indexed production subsidies for H2 in the U.S. The answer to the above question is not obvious because instantaneous power flows from a particular producer cannot be directly associated with a particular user. Grid-connected electrolyzers that contract variable renewable energy (VRE) supply to offset their grid consumption (say on an hourly, monthly or annual basis), could also impact overall grid emissions due to competition for often-limited VRE supply as well as temporal pattern of resulting electricity demand (both electrolyzer and non-H2 demand).
Relevant Past Projects
- Exploring Decarbonization Pathways via Direct and Indirect Use of Electricity for Coupled Power, Transport, and Industrial Sectors
- Grid impacts of highway electric vehicle charging and role for mitigation via energy storage
- Economic and environmental analysis of H2-based transportation supply chain and role for liquid organic hydrogen carriers
- System impacts of power sector decarbonization – wind, solar integration and the role for storage
- Investment Planning under Uncertainty and its Application to Bulk Power System Decarbonization
Relevant Ongoing Projects
- Macro-energy system modeling for net-zero emissions analysis
- Electricity rate design as an enabler of an electrified, cost-efficient, resilient, and inclusive lowcarbon
economy - Electricity-H2-CO2 infrastructure interactions in a deeply decarbonized energy system
- Impact of time-matching requirements on cost and emissions of electricity-driven fuels and chemical production
Recent Publications
- Khorramfar, R., Mallapragada, D., and Amin, S. (2024). Electric-gas infrastructure planning for deep decarbonization of energy systems. Applied Energy 354, 122176. 10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.122176. (link)
- Dvorkin, V., Mallapragada, D., and Botterud, A. (2023). Multi-Stage Decision Rules for Power Generation & Storage Investments with Performance Guarantees. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 1–14. 10.1109/TPWRS.2023.3257129. (link)
- Barbar, M., and Mallapragada, D.S. (2022). Representative period selection for power system planning using autoencoder-based dimensionality reduction. 10.48550/arxiv.2204.13608. (link)
- Barbar, M., Mallapragada, D.S., and Stoner, R.J. (2023). Impact of demand growth on decarbonizing India’s electricity sector and the role for energy storage. Energy and Climate Change 4, 100098. 10.1016/j.egycc.2023.100098. (link)
- He, G., Mallapragada, D.S., Bose, A., Heuberger, C.F. and Gençer, E., 2021.Sector coupling via hydrogen to lower the cost of energy system decarbonization. Energy & Environmental Science, 14, 4635-4646. (link)