Overview
An open model of the California ISO (CAISO) power system across 58 county-level zones, modelling 2025 dispatch and production cost at 3-hourly resolution. It is derived from the open-source PyPSA-USA toolchain (more flexibly configurable through its full workflow); we host a ready-to-run 2025 model here for free, in Convexity .db and PyPSA .nc formats.
Model
A production-cost (historical back-cast) of the CAISO market for 2025 at 3-hourly resolution:
- Fleet — every operable generating unit from the latest EIA record (EIA-860 2024 final plus EIA-860M 2025 monthlies, so 2025 build-out is included), placed at its true coordinates.
- Renewables — wind and solar capacity factors from ERA5 reanalysis (2025 weather), mapped to each bus.
- Demand — hourly EIA-930 / GridEmissions actuals for the balancing authority.
- Dispatch — an economic-dispatch LP (coal on a must-run floor; no unit commitment yet), fixed transmission, load-shedding priced at value of lost load, solved with MOSEK.
CAISO imports roughly a quarter of its energy from neighbouring states; these are modelled explicitly as capacity-limited boundary links calibrated to observed net interchange, so gas and CO₂ read realistically rather than over-dispatching the in-state fleet. It is a research-grade back-cast: indicative, not settlement-grade. Unit fuel costs and heat rates are held at 2024 (no 2025 EIA-923 yet), and wholesale-price validation is deferred (the energy-only LP clears at marginal fuel cost and underprices vs day-ahead LMP).
A one-week demo of the 2025 model opens in Convexity and solves in about two minutes in the browser.
Sources
- Fleet & demand: EIA-860 / EIA-923 / EIA-930 (US Energy Information Administration, public domain).
- Weather & renewables: ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus / ECMWF); profiles via NREL GODEEEP.
- Network & methodology: PyPSA-USA (MIT).
- Solver: MOSEK.