Energy system models are essential for planning and supporting the energy transition. However, increasing temporal, spatial, and sectoral resolutions have led to large-scale linear programming (LP) models that are often (over)simplified to remain computationally tractable—frequently at the expense of model fidelity. This paper challenges the common belief that LP formulations cannot be improved without sacrificing their accuracy. Inspired by graph theory, we propose to model energy systems using energy assets (vertices), as a single building-block, and flows to connect between them. This reduces the need for additional components such as nodes and connections. The resulting formulation is more compact, without sacrificing accuracy, and leverages the inherent graph structure of energy systems. To evaluate performance, we implemented and compared four common modelling approaches varying in their use of building blocks and flow representations. We conducted experiments using TulipaEnergyModel.jl and applied them to a multi-sector case study with varying problem sizes. Results show that our single-building-block (1BB-1F) approach reduces variables and constraints by 26% and 35%, respectively, and achieves a 1.27x average speedup in solving time without any loss in model fidelity. The speedup increases with problem size, making this approach particularly advantageous for large-scale models. Our findings demonstrate that not all LPs are equal in quality and that better reformulations can lead to substantial computational benefits. This paper also aims to raise awareness of model quality considerations in energy system optimisation and promote more efficient formulations without compromising fidelity.

Fast and accurate large-scale energy system models are needed to investigate the potential of storage to complement the fluctuating energy production of renewable energy systems. However, standard Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) models that describe optimal investment and operation of these storage units, including the optional capacity to provide up/down reserves, do not scale well. To improve scalability, the integrality constraints are often relaxed, resulting in Linear Programming (LP) relaxations that allow simultaneous charging and discharging, while this is not feasible in practice. To address this, we derive the convex hull of the solutions for the optimal operation of storage for one time period, as well as for problems including investments and reserves, guaranteeing that no tighter MIP formulation or better LP approximation exists for one time period. When incorporating this convex hull into a multi-period formulation and including it in large-scale energy system models, the improved LP relaxations can better prevent simultaneous charging and discharging, and the tighter MIP could positively affect the solving time. We demonstrate this with illustrative case studies of a unit commitment problem and a transmission expansion planning problem.