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SDDP 18.0 โ€“ Integrated Energy System Planning Platform

๐Ÿ“… Date: 2025-05-19 (to be released)
๐Ÿ”— Download: Windows | Linux

Please visit the release site to explore the highlights of this release.

๐Ÿš€ A unified experience across all planning horizons

This release marks a major milestone. SDDP 18.0 introduces a unified platform for operation and expansion planning, reliability analysis and maintenance scheduling โ€” offering a seamless experience, from graphical interface to execution and results analysis.

๐Ÿ”ท Graphical interface

The new interface delivers a fully redesigned and unified environment for energy system planning. All modules โ€” operation (SDDP), expansion (OptGen), reliability (CORAL) and maintenance โ€” are now accessible from a single platform, offering a consistent, responsive, and user-friendly experience.

๐ŸŒ Unified layout and planning integration

  • Single platform for configuration, execution, and analysis of all SDDP-based models.
  • Fully integrated environment for operation and expansion planning, reliability analysis and maintenance scheduling.
  • No need for external tools or switching contexts โ€” everything is accessible in one place.

๐Ÿ—‚๏ธ Flexible data interaction

  • Bulk data edition: tabular views support editing, grouping, and filtering of all input data.
  • Smart filters: dynamic grouping by system, region, technology, or other dimensions.
  • Inline charting: visualize key relationships (e.g., volume ร— production) directly within data grids.
  • Excel integration: import/export supported for all input data and output results.
  • Mass-editable grids: scrollable, filterable tables provide a comprehensive overview of modeling data.

๐Ÿ—บ๏ธ Georeferenced system visualization

  • Interactive visualization of hydraulic cascades, transmission networks, and energy supply chains.
  • Unified topology maps with integrated spatial and operational data.
  • Multiple visualization modes, including:
    • Animated flows on circuits and cascades
    • Scaled node representation (e.g., capacity, cost, stored energy)
    • Contour plots for marginal costs, generation, and energy balance

๐Ÿ“Š Built-in dashboards and result analysis

  • Interactive charting through the graphical interface: point-and-click customization of dashboards by selecting variables, time horizons, scenarios, and filters.
  • Automated dashboards with PSRIO: customized post-processing dashboards are generated automatically after each execution, supporting standardized and collaborative workflows.
  • Built-in dashboard: each case includes a ready-to-use dashboard summarizing solution quality, convergence, cost and revenue breakdowns, constraint violations, results by region, marginal costs, execution times, and key information.
  • Comparative dashboards: analyze multiple cases side-by-side, either with the built-in comparison view or fully customized dashboards via PSRIO.

๐Ÿ“š Help system and support

  • New integrated help platform, the PSR Knowledge Hub, with direct access to:
    • Interface guide
    • Methodological documentation
    • Mathematical modeling references
    • Troubleshooting articles

โšก Energy system modeling

๐Ÿ”— Energy supply chains

Detailed modeling of energy supply chains, enabling integrated planning of electricity, natural gas, hydrogen, biomass, Power-to-X, X-to-Y, and more.

  • Comprehensive supply chain modeling: represent the full cycle of energy transformation, including production, transport, conversion, storage, and demand.
  • Multiple energy carriers: define energy networks for fuels such as natural gas, hydrogen, methanol, biogas, electricity, and synthetic products.
  • System-wide integration: energy supply chains are directly linked to the power system through converters, fuel-consuming units, and electrification modules.
  • Element types:
    • Producers (e.g., gas wells, steam reformers, anaerobic digesters)
    • Converters (e.g., electrolyzers, methanol synthesis, biogas purifiers)
    • Storage facilities (e.g., hydrogen tanks, gas cylinders, long-term storage)
    • Transport links between nodes with capacity, cost, and losses
    • Demands, elastic or inelastic, at any node in the chain
  • Applications:
    • Natural gas: from gas wells to thermal plants and households via pipelines and storage
    • Hydrogen: production from electrolysis or reforming; distribution and use in vehicles or industry
    • Biomass: conversion to biogas, biomethane, and electricity, with links to transport and heat sectors
    • Power-to-X and X-to-Y: enabling sector coupling between power, mobility, heat, and synthetic fuels

๐Ÿ—ผ Power network representation

A detailed transmission model is essential for accurately representing key aspects of modern energy systems โ€” such as renewable integration, curtailment management, and operational flexibility. This enhanced modeling capability supports both operation and expansion planning with a high level of electrical and spatial granularity.

  • Supports a wide range of AC and DC components: lines, 2- and 3-winding transformers, LCC and VSC converters, flexible AC transmission systems, and reactive power compensation
  • Includes advanced attributes such as electrical parameters, flow capacities, fault probabilities, tap settings, and voltage/reactive power control
    Represents corridor constraints, simple and multiple contingency conditions, and flexible network topologies
  • Improved compatibility with other AC grid analysis tools such as PSSยฎE and others, allowing importing and exporting data

๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Maintenance planning

Enables the explicit and high-resolution modeling of maintenance schedules, allowing users to move beyond simplified capacity derating and achieve more accurate planning results.

  • Particularly valuable in contexts where hourly dynamics and short-term constraints matter for both operation and expansion planningโ€”helping avoid distortions caused by average availability assumptions.
  • Also supports system operators and coordination agents in approving, aggregating, or rescheduling maintenance requests under reliability and feasibility criteria.
  • Maximizes the system reserve margin by identifying and protecting the most critical periods using risk-based metrics.
  • Captures key operational constraints, including minimum up/down times, ramp limits, precedence and association between maintenance requests, non-coincident maintenance rules, and forbidden periods or priority preferences.
  • Fully integrated into the broader planning methodology, complementing operation planning with SDDP and expansion planning with OptGen.

๐Ÿ’ก Energy efficiency

Modeling of energy efficiency programs as investment decisions that reduce or reshape energy demand across the system.

  • Explicit representation of efficiency programs: each program is linked to a specific demand class and represents an improvement that reduces energy consumption.
  • Flexible modeling structure:
    • Allows modeling demand reductions across different time resolutions, reflecting seasonal or intraday efficiency impacts.
    • Supports varying levels of efficiency adoption over time, enabling the representation of progressive program deployment.
  • Endogenous investment decisions: the level of deployment can be optimized considering cost-effectiveness in both operation and expansion planning.
  • Typical applications include more efficient lighting in public infrastructure, industrial equipment retrofits, and residential upgrades such as improved air conditioning or heating systems.
  • Expansion planning integration: efficiency programs are considered alongside generation and transmission projects as viable investment alternatives.

๐Ÿ“ˆ Expansion planning: efficient frontier analysis

  • Multi-criteria optimization to identify portfolios that minimize cost while managing risk in expansion planning.
  • Allows decision-makers to explore the trade-off between total cost and risk, selecting robust and cost-effective energy mixes.
  • Accounts for uncertainty sources like fuel prices, climate variability, and policy shifts.
  • Compatible with complex system interdependencies, including energy supply chains and technology interactions.
  • Supports the visualization of optimal and sub-optimal portfolios, enhancing understanding of planning alternatives.

โš™๏ธ Modeling improvements

This version introduces several improvements to modeling capabilities, enabling more accurate representations, new investment options, and expanded flexibility for users.

โฑ๏ธ Dynamic convergence strategy for hourly MIP

  • Supports a dynamic relative gap strategy to enhance computational efficiency while maintaining solution quality
  • Users can define multiple time intervals with different maximum relative gaps, which the solver adapts to during execution

๐Ÿ’ง Representation improvements

  • Hydro unit commitment modeling, enabling more realistic unit-based dispatch decisions
  • Explicit modeling of individual units for hydro, thermal, and renewable plants
  • Detailed connection of generator groups to the transmission network, improving spatial resolution and flow accuracy
  • Combined-cycle plants modeled as unit-based configurations, replacing the traditional operational state abstraction
  • Hydro tables parameterized by net head, enhancing accuracy for production-volume relationships
  • Generation offers with multiple O&M cost tranches, enabling price-based dispatch behavior and better price pattern replication

๐Ÿงฉ Generic modeling extensions

  • Generic variables can now be either continuous or binary, and may include cost terms in the objective function
  • Multi-stage generic constraints and new variables support modeling of green certificates, export limits, energy swaps, and other advanced policies
  • New variables added since version 17.3 include:
    • Hydro joint reserve
    • Circuit flow
    • Fuel reservoir final storage
    • System total demand, generation, and net generation
    • Waterway flow
    • Bus demand
    • Fixed converter commodity (SDDP 18.0 only)
    • Hydro commitment (SDDP 18.0 only)
  • If your use case requires additional variables, feel free to contact us โ€” weโ€™re continuously expanding the modeling possibilities.

๐Ÿ“† Maintenance representation

  • Hourly maintenance modeling for renewables and DC links, allowing precise unavailability scheduling and interaction with reserve requirements

๐Ÿ” Transmission network enhancements

  • Multi-contingency SCOPF: support for custom N-k contingency sets
  • Improved loss modeling: better selection of linearizations and marginal cost calculation methods

๐ŸŽฒ Uncertainty representation

  • Markov-based SDDP:
    • Allows the representation of uncertainties in energy transactions via power injections or fuel price scenarios
    • Provides improved modeling of uncertainty in the objective function
    • Users can either apply the built-in Markov clustering tool to generate transition matrices or supply their own scenario data
  • Dynamic Line Rating (DLR):
    • Supports user-defined DLR scenarios, in addition to automated scenario generation via the Time Series Lab

๐Ÿ“ Data compatibility and migration

  • Internal architecture restructured to unify all models under one execution framework
  • Discontinued legacy files and input formats. Migration tools and warnings guide the transition