data: Eastern generation update 2017-2020

[danielolsen]

This data update adds wind, solar, and natural gas generators that have been added to the Eastern grid since 2016. Data comes from EIA Form 860, filtering on the operating year (>=2017).

For solar plants, we added 58 generators representing 50% of the total added capacity. All solar farms 50 MW or larger are sited. These generators were placed at buses with voltages 69-161 kV.

For wind generators, we added 42 generators representing 76% of the total added capacity. All wind farms 150 MW or larger are sited. These generators were placed at buses with voltages 69-161 kV.

For gas generators, we added 95 generators representing 88% of total added capacity. All generating units >330 MW are sited, plus any generating units part of a larger plant (same location) that are individually 200 MW or more. These generators were placed at buses with voltages 230-500 kV. This higher voltage is to ensure that these larger generators are able to push their rated power to the bulk grid, which I believe is more representative of big generating plants with high capacity factors than it is for wind and solar plants.

Notes from @danlivengood summarizing our process, with some light elaboration by me.

1. Our goal was to create cost curve values that (a) mimicked the TAMU system and (b) reflected that most new generators are almost entirely more cost effective combined cycle units.
2. The TAMU system has equivalent c0 values at a substation, and the c1 & c2 values are also fairly similar
3. We took a random sample of c0, c1, and c2 values from existing generators for the first generator at each substation
4. From there, we modified the c1 value for the "next" generator at that substation by multiplying by a random number uniformly distributed between 0.7 and 1.0. This is done to represent that the new generators are likely to be more efficient (fleet vs. fleet) as compared to the previous generators.
5. We then modified the c2 value for the "next" generator by the same ratio. This step is not perfectly consistent with the TAMU data, but for this subset of generators, we felt comfortable with this approximation
6. In the end, looking at the summary statistics below, we feel we accomplished the goal of providing new cost curve values that are consistent with the original TAMU values while also reflecting the lower costs of newer generators.

Summary numbers:

New NG Generators	c2	c1	c0	slope
Min	0.005	9	603.9975	10.3455
Median	0.010317	12.01068	791.615	16.65723
Max	0.02217	21.56718	1221.155	32.8991
Stdev				4.621304
Original Eastern NG Generators
Min	0.004943	9.621	564.688	9.669756
Median	0.014174	16.582	759.6861	18.76513
Max	0.038357	27.821	1797.959	38.25309
Stdev				4.315235

[BainanXia]

Thanks for the details, which help a lot. The changes in files are consistent with the logic that explains.