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Models

Power-system models for emerging and regional markets

The Institute builds nodal and zonal power-system models from public data. Each regional model runs on OPEN-PCM, a shared engine for hourly production cost, capacity expansion and transmission planning.

665West Africa nodal buses
7regional models
2,131Central Asia buses in build
881Pakistan substation buses

Architecture

The OPEN-PCM engine

Every model follows the same sequence. Public inputs are assembled into a network, the fleet is dispatched hour by hour, and expansion runs test new generation, storage and transmission against that dispatch. Results are published to a secure client portal.

OPEN-PCM model flow from public data through production cost, capacity expansion and transmission expansion to outputs and the client portal expansion plans re-tested in hourly dispatch 01 · INPUTSPublic dataNetwork, fleet, load,fuel, solar and wind 02 · DISPATCHProduction costHourly nodal dispatch,DC power flow, reserves 03 · SUPPLYCapacity expansionGeneration and 4-hourbatteries, rolling plans 04 · NETWORKTransmissionLine and interconnectorbuilds, co-optimised 05 · OUTPUTSClient portalNodal prices, congestion,dashboards and data
  1. 01 · INPUTSPublic dataNetwork, fleet, load, fuel, solar and wind
  2. 02 · DISPATCHProduction costHourly nodal dispatch, DC power flow, reserves
  3. 03 · SUPPLYCapacity expansionGeneration and 4-hour batteries, rolling plans
  4. 04 · NETWORKTransmissionLine and interconnector builds, co-optimised
  5. 05 · OUTPUTSClient portalNodal prices, congestion, dashboards and data
  6. Expansion plans are re-tested in hourly dispatch.

Programme

Regional models

Maps plot each model’s buses and lines at their real coordinates; basemap from Natural Earth (public domain). Model results are available to clients through the portal.

Central Asian network, 220 kV and above on a Natural Earth basemap

Central Asia (CAPS)

In build

High-voltage nodal network for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, with the CASA-1000 link to Pakistan. The network is built and tested, and the first solves are scheduled.

Buses
2,131
Lines
2,396
Transformers
270
Countries
6
About the modelRequest a briefing
Pakistan NTDC and K-Electric network on a Natural Earth basemap

Pakistan

In build

Substation-level model of the NTDC and K-Electric systems at 500, 220 and 132 kV, including the Matiari–Lahore HVDC link.

Buses
881
Branches
1,147
HVDC
2,700 MW
About the modelRequest a briefing
Southern African Power Pool network, 220 kV and above on a Natural Earth basemap

Southern African Power Pool

Live

Hourly model of the twelve-country pool, run for every hour of 2024. A zonal version splits South Africa into nine transmission zones; the substation-level nodal version, 2,237 buses mapped from public data, now has a full-year run.

Nodal buses
2,237
Branches
2,967
Results
Client portal
About the modelClient loginRequest a briefing

OPEN-PCM

Open source

TEI’s open-source core production cost model: hourly nodal dispatch with DC power flow, line losses, thermal fuel costs and wind and solar profiles, solved as one sparse linear programme with the open-source HiGHS solver. MIT licensed, Python.

Licence
MIT
Solver
HiGHS
Version
0.1
View on GitHubAsk about OPEN-PCM

Approach

Standards

Open data

Inputs come from system operators, regulators, statistics agencies, multilateral lenders and open map data. Each series is recorded with its source.

Reproducible builds

Models use open-source solvers, and every dataset can be rebuilt from its original download.

Recorded gaps

Where no open source exists, the gap is logged and a documented class value is used until better data is found.