Abstract
In support of work to assess and ensure the reliability and resiliency of Florida's power generation, transmission, and distribution system as load and generation evolve in future years, groundwork is presented for the development of an open, dynamic model of the Florida grid and geographically distributed projections for growth in load and generation within the state. Using load forecasts provided by the state's major utilities, in conjunction with geographical population projections, load projections are developed for each of the state's counties. Projected load information is to be combined with both planned generation and information regarding the potential for renewable energy resources that may be brought to bear, in order to provide a probabilistic view of the future loads and insight into potential generation growth within the state for assessing the suitability and potential needs of Florida's power grid in an open research context. The framework for a flexible and representative model of Florida's electric power system is subsequently presented, and initial efforts toward construction of the model are discussed.