Think You Know Power Market Simulation? The Cloud Just Changed Everything

For over 50 years, Hitachi Energy’s PROMOD® software solution has been a cornerstone of grid simulation and production cost modeling and trusted by utilities, ISOs, developers, researchers, and planners to navigate the evolving complexities of the U.S. and global power systems. What began as a tool for fuel budgeting has grown in lockstep with the grid itself - from modeling zonal to nodal markets, regulated markets to deregulated ones, and now into a new era of electrification driven by a massive surge in adding renewables and data centers.

PROMOD’s legacy and reputation of adaptability and depth is built into the newly launched Asset Modeling software solution, which is not a replacement for the evergreen PROMOD engine but instead an amplification and extension of capabilities. Modeling the power grid is increasingly complex. There are a lot more variables, uncertainties, and risks, but also a lot more opportunities. All of these translate into a fundamental requirement of running more simulations and diverse scenarios at speed and scale.

Breaking Barriers: High-Performance Modeling

Hitachi Energy’s newest Asset Modeling solution brings the PROMOD engine to the cloud, unlocking new levels of accessibility, performance, scalability, and collaboration. It removes the infrastructure barriers that once limited high-performance modeling, allowing users to run one or thousands of simulations in parallel directly from a browser.

No installs. No IT bottlenecks. Just powerful, production-grade modeling—available anytime, anywhere.
 

The Hidden Costs of On-Premises Modeling

Running software solutions on-premises has traditionally meant more than just a software license; it comes with layers of expenses–hardware, IT resources, maintenance, and upgrades. Cloud-native solutions remove those complexities entirely. No scrambling to scale, no surprise outages, and no ongoing infrastructure headaches.

Asset Modeling is a turnkey SaaS product with a predictable subscription pricing model, and built-in resilience and disaster recovery, enabling you to focus on what truly matters – running more simulations more quickly, from anywhere in the world.

With Asset Modeling, we want to bring our customers' time back to the only thing that should matter to them: modeling and simulations—when and where they need it — and not hardware, maintenance, and IT challenges.

Why Cloud Matters for High-Performance Energy Market Modeling

The power system is one of the biggest and most complex machines in the world. Simulations require substantial computing power to simulate the “state” of the grid every hour of the year across complex transmission networks, market rules, and generation portfolios. Traditionally, that meant queuing for simulation runs overnight or investing in dedicated high-performance computing (HPC) clusters.

Our latest Asset Modeling software solution changes that paradigm.

By leveraging the elasticity of the cloud, Asset Modeling lets users run thousands of simulations in parallel—without lag and limits. Whether you're evaluating a single policy change or running a full 30-year integrated resource plan, the Asset Modeling cloud infrastructure delivers unmatched scale. In addition, because it’s browser-based, you can launch and monitor jobs from anywhere—no VPN, no remote desktop, no IT tickets.

What’s new in our Asset Modeling software solution? A cloud-native evolution

Our latest Asset Modeling solution isn’t just PROMOD software deployed on a virtual machine—it’s a complete re-thinking from the ground up of how to leverage the many powerful aspects of cloud computing, carefully integrated with the proven, trusted PROMOD engine for over 50 years.
While some tools are simply “cloud-based”—lifted from their desktop roots and hosted on virtual machines, the Asset Modeling solution is cloud-native. That distinction matters.

Cloud-native applications are designed specifically for the cloud, using microservices architecture to deliver greater flexibility, resilience, and scalability. This means immediate deployment, faster calculations, seamless updates, and the ability to scale simulations dynamically based on user demand.

Here’s why that’s a big deal:

• Faster Time to Value: Get started instantly—no IT setup, no installation…just log in and model.
• Always Up to Date: Updates are deployed continuously, without interrupting your work or requiring manual intervention.
• Scalable by Design: Whether you’re running one simulation or a thousand, the infrastructure scales automatically.
• Cost-Efficient: Eliminate a large portion of the true costs outside of license fees that are normally associated with on-premises installs. You only pay for the resources you use—no idle servers, no overprovisioned hardware.
• Resilient and Modular: Each component of the application can be updated or scaled independently, reducing risk and improving performance.

In short, the Asset Modeling solution takes everything that makes PROMOD software powerful and wraps it in a modern, cloud-native architecture that’s faster, lighter, and more scalable to the evolving needs of grid planners and energy market analysts. Solutions like PROMOD are part of Hitachi Energy’s ongoing commitment to powering the world’s energy system to be more sustainable, secure, resilient, and affordable, making electricity more accessible to all and empowering societies to thrive.

Ready to Model Smarter?

Explore how Hitachi Energy’s Asset Modeling software solution allows you to model and simulate energy markets like a system operator—without the infrastructure overhead.

👉 Request a demo or visit our Asset Modeling software solution webpage to learn more.