The IAEA has been supporting its Member States in studies of sustainable electricity
system expansion planning. These studies aim at incorporating peculiar features
of electricity demand and techno-economic features of alternative sources of electricity
generation in modelling of electricity generation system. Computation of environmental
impacts of electricity generation and modelling of environmental standards are
essential parts of these studies. The IAEA has developed the WASP-IV model (Wien
Automatic System Planning package) for carrying out such studies. This manual presents
the latest version of WASP-IV model with a User Interface. This interface provides
a user-friendly environment for execution of the WASP-IV model.
WASP was originally developed in 1972 for the IAEA by the Tennessee Valley Authority
and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA to analyse the economic competitiveness
of nuclear power in comparison to other sources of electricity generation in meeting
electricity requirements of a country or region in the medium- to long-term period.
Many Member States applied the model in their national and regional studies to
analyse the issues of electric power system expansion planning and the role of
nuclear energy in particular. These applications helped in development of the model
into a very comprehensive planning tool for electric power system expansion analysis.
Over the period, WASP has been evolving to cater the needs expressed by its users
for modelling important issues that have been emerging in the electric system planning.
In 1979, WASP-III was released followed by WASP-III Plus in 1995.
The IAEA initiated work on WASP-IV with the cooperation of some Member States
following the recommendations of the Inter-Agency International Symposium on Electricity
and the Environment held in 1991 in Helsinki. Advisory group and consultancy meetings
on the subject were convened to identifying necessary enhancements to the model
and appropriate methodological approaches to address the new issues. Like its predecessors,
the WASP-IV version is designed to find the economically optimal expansion policy
for an electric utility system within user-specified constraints. It utilises probabilistic
estimation of system's production costs including costs of un-served energy and
reliability. The model uses linear programming technique for determining optimal
dispatch policy satisfying exogenous constraints on environmental emissions, fuel
availability and electricity generation by some plants. The dynamic programming
method is applied for optimising the costs of alternative system expansion policies.
The main features and enhancements incorporated in WASP-IV are: Option for introducing
constraints on environmental emissions, fuel usage and energy generation. Each
type of constraints can be introduced to a group of power plants; existing or candidates.
Liner programming technique is employed to determine an optimal dispatching of
plants satisfying these constraints. This option is very useful in view of increasing
environmental concerns and awareness of issues such as health impacts of air pollution,
regional acidification etc. As well in some cases, availability of a certain fuel
for power generation may be limited.
Representation of pumped storage plants to accommodate the increasing importance
of pumped storage plants and other energy storage technologies under development.
Fixed maintenance schedule. This option allows the user to specify a certain schedule
for annual maintenance of some of the plants in the system. Environmental emission
calculation. WASP-IV version calculates environmental emissions from electricity
generation for each year and for each period within a year, based on estimates
of electricity generated by each plant and the user-specified characteristics of
fuels used.
Expanded dimensions for handling up to 90 types of plants and a larger number
of configurations (up to 500 per year and 5000 for the study period). This manual
presents the latest WASP-IV version with a User-Interface that has been developed
in the MS Windows system. The User-Interface provides a very convenient environment
for creation of case studies and alternative scenarios, preparation of input data,
execution of the model and review of the results. The WASP model is released to
interested Member States for their national studies on electric system expansion
planning. The manual provides detailed guidelines for operation of the WASP-IV
model along with the technical details. However, the reader of this manual is assumed
to have experience in the field of power generation expansion planning and to be
familiar with all concepts related to such type of analysis. Additional technical
information on power generation expansion planning can be found in the IAEA publications:
“Expansion Planning for Electrical Generating Systems, A Guidebook”, Technical
Reports Series No. 241 (1984) and “User’s Manual of WASP-III Plus”, Computer Manual
Series No. 8 (1995).
All suggestions for improving this manual, based on user experience, are welcome
and should be addressed to: Planning and Economic Studies Section, Department of
Nuclear Energy,
Wagrame Strasse 5, P.O. Box 100, A-1400 Vienna, Austria
