eps-4.0.5-us

4.0.5 - July 7, 2026

• New Features
  • Unifies the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and Clean Energy Standard (CES) into a single portfolio-standard framework, subscripted by a new RPS/CES (Clean Elec Requirement) dimension. This puts the RPS on the same credit-price and cost-effectiveness machinery as the CES and shares qualifying-resource definitions through subscript subranges (the two standards still clear their credit prices in separate optimization passes); the former separate "non-BAU RPS qualifying resource definitions" lever is folded into this unified framework
  • Adds data center electricity demand as a selectable BAU load assumption
  • Adds an annual cap on how quickly each electricity source's capacity can grow (a soft cap based on the largest existing vintage and a hard cap based on a share of total system capacity)
  • Rebuilds the reliability capacity mechanism: removes the separate "seasonal residual reliability" sub-pass and sizes reliability additions from a single binding peak hour, and adds effective load carrying capability (ELCC) discounting with timeslice/hour/technology-specific values computed separately for generation sources and demand-altering technologies
  • Adds an optional retirement pathway that retires power plants at a fixed economic lifetime by source type
  • Adds a policy lever to extend production tax credits (a per-unit-output production subsidy) for existing power plants
  • Adds a lever to increase domestic fuel production from expanded oil and gas leasing
  • Adds an exogenous, policy-driven fuel-price adjustment lever (by fuel and sector)
  • Adds alternative LCFS fuel-substitution maximums accessible by a policy lever
  • Adds explicit electric vehicle charger (EVSE) installation costs to vehicle cost calculations, a battery-pack price markup that varies by vehicle type (e.g. higher for heavy-duty vehicles), and a third "consumer preference" shadow cost for battery-electric vehicles
  • Adds a cost-of-service electricity rate pathway (alongside the existing market-based rates)
  • Tracks generation capacity by vintage and recovers historical construction costs on a vintage basis
  • Substantially expands the public health outputs: the set of tracked health outcomes grows from 11 to 22 (adding infant mortality, a five-way asthma-symptom breakout, hay fever, lung cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's hospital admissions, stroke, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, cardiac ER visits, and school-loss days); splits the demographic mortality breakdown into infant vs. child-and-adult; monetizes the non-fatal outcomes (premature mortality is still valued via the value of a statistical life); reports monetized health benefits per household; and includes health benefits in the social cost of carbon summation
  • Adds a foresight trendline to the RPS/CES performance graphs (with range limited by a control setting set to 10 years in the U.S. model)
  • Adds a control lever to exclude electricity exports from RPS/CES compliance
  • Endogenous learning now tracks cumulative built capacity rather than comparing last-year vs. two-years-ago fleet capacity
  • Nets on-site distributed generation out of the buildings electricity fuel-cost calculation
  • Adds an independent grid-battery storage mandate path (separate from the generation-capacity mandate) and tracks standalone vs. hybrid battery storage separately throughout the model and in outputs; the standalone grid-battery output subsidy added in 4.0.4 is removed, with battery-related subsidies now handled through the production and capacity-construction subsidy structures
  • Refines the input-output model to compute fossil and energy-utility industries' direct economic impacts on a per-BTU rather than per-dollar basis (adding dedicated source/target ISIC-code subscripts)
  • Integrates battery additions and capacity retirements within the capacity mechanism for reliability; avoided retirements and new storage can now contribute to meeting incremental reliability in each year
• Bug Fixes
  • Fixes RPS/CES under-compliance and caps positive-cost RPS/CES dispatch at expected qualifying capacity to prevent overgeneration
  • Corrects hybrid power plant treatment in RPS/CES compliance (applies appropriate hybrid capacity factors; removes the source-plant RPS/CES revenue when evaluating CCUS retrofits, e.g. removing conventional-biomass CES revenue from BECCS retrofit calculations)
  • Corrects capacity factors used for reliability (applies the regional availability factor in hypothetical and peak-timeslice bid capacity factors; salvages otherwise-curtailed electricity)
  • Fixes the CCUS retrofit cost calculation (no longer amortizes variable-cost changes under the new structure)
  • Corrects capacity-payment units to $/(MW-day) and applies the generation (not capacity) regional availability factor in the capacity mechanism
  • Reorganizes battery stock-and-flow tracking and removes an extra time-step delay in the battery portion of capacity-market costs
  • Removes natural gas exports from the fuel production mapped to ISIC 352T353
  • Fixes vehicle allocation for vehicle types with no qualifying technologies, passenger-rail technology shares, and aircraft inputs
  • Limits the change in hourly electricity demand from demand-altering technologies to 95% of existing hourly demand
  • Fixes the wind annual capital-cost formula
  • Corrects tillage emissions accounting and an incorrect subscript in the avoided-asthma-incidence output
• Data updates
  • Recalibrates U.S. model to the EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2026 (with AEO 2025 High Zero-Carbon Technology Cost and Alternate Transportation cases used for selected industries as a post-OBBBA baseline proxy)
  • Updates U.S. model start-year plant and battery capacities to the latest EIA Form 860 (2024), updates BAU planned capacity additions, and updates coal retirements to incorporate state policies for pre-2030 retirements
  • Updates U.S. model wind and battery capital costs to NREL ATB (conservative wind, advanced battery), natural gas plant construction costs (GridLAB), and hydrogen costs
  • Updates U.S. model short-term natural gas prices (latest STEO / futures), vehicle prices, insurance costs by vehicle technology, and home-charging power
  • Updates U.S. model historical process emissions and pollutant intensities (EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory, University of Maryland National Greenhouse Gas Inventory; updated EPA non-CO2 report)
  • Updates U.S. model economic data to 2024 BEA value-added and 2024 BLS data, adds 2025 CPI, and sets the output currency year to 2025
  • Updates representative-day selection (SYSHECF / SHELF) and slice/hour/technology-specific ELCC values
  • Updates transmission and spur-line costs (now median rather than weighted average)
  • Updates U.S. model BAU hydrogen production shares (BNEF) and demand forecasts incorporating data center load
  • Updates first modeled year to 2025 and all policy implementation schedules to start in 2026
  • Adds hydrogen combustion turbine cost multipliers (capacity, fixed O&M, and variable O&M) relative to gas turbines