SWITCH (Solar and wind ener­gy inte­grat­ed with trans­mis­sion and con­ven­tion­al sources) is a lin­ear pro­gram­ming mod­el­ing plat­form used to exam­ine least cost ener­gy sys­tems designed to meet spe­cif­ic reli­a­bil­i­ty, per­for­mance and envi­ron­men­tal qual­i­ty standards.

SWITCH is a capac­i­ty expan­sion mod­el that invests in new gen­er­a­tion and trans­mis­sion assets as well as in end-use and demand-side man­age­ment options (includ­ing elec­tri­fied vehi­cles and stor­age) with a high-res­o­lu­tion assess­ment and plan­ning pack­age to explore the sys­tem per­for­mance rest­ing from dif­fer­ent scenarios.

SWITCH was ini­tial­ly devel­oped for Cal­i­for­nia, but has been expand­ed and refined to explore ener­gy choic­es across the US West (the WECC, Chile, Nicaragua, Chi­na), with future plans to cov­er the East African Pow­er Pool (EAPP) and India.

A wide range of SWITCH pub­li­ca­tions are in print and in use at var­i­ous ener­gy, cli­mate, and devel­op­ment agencies.