Modeling and Forecasting Energy Markets with the Intermediate Future Forecasting System

This paper describes the Intermediate Future Forecasting System (IFFS), which is the model used to forecast integrated energy markets by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The model contains representations of supply and demand for all of the major fuels consumed in the United States, and is a partial equilibrium model containing a large number of equations and inequalities. We discuss methods for solving the models, as well as the convergence properties of the solution procedure. We also present issues associated with managing large models.