## 1 Introduction  
### Background  
The world energy demand grew by 2.3% in 2018, which is the fastest growth within the last decade [1]. The rapid increase in the global economy and population has resulted in more energy demand in certain regions, particularly in developing countries like India and China. With energy demand being on the rise, the world is faced with high dependence on fossil fuels, leading to increased greenhouse emissions and global climate change. With the overall increase in fossil fuel demands, even though renewable energy is growing fast, it is not growing fast enough to meet the rise in energy demand at 1% for developed countries and 5% for developing ones [2]. With very limited resources, Jordan faces significant challenges in its energy sector due to heavy reliance on importing most of its energy resources. Losing access to Iraq's crude oil in 2003 and Egypt's natural gas, the country was put under critical economic conditions that had an adverse impact on both private and public sectors, placing the country under massive debt. By 2015, the total accumulated commercial loans and the advances from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) reached 4.9 Billion JDs by the national electric power company (NEPCO), which was 18.8% of Jordan's GDP and accounted for one-quarter of the total consolidated public-sector debt, limiting the borrowing capacity of the government [3]. In 2018, the imported crude oil and natural gas accounted for 92% of the total energy requirements, constituting 10% of the country's GDP [4]. A shortage in affordable energy supplies directly affects the public sector, increasing the budget deficit and leading to revenue-boosting measures (hike taxes and fees). In contrast, private sectors face immense production costs due to high energy costs and higher taxes, leading to lower productivity and profitability. With Jordan's annual energy demand growing at a rate of 3% [5] and the surge of Syrian refugees estimated between 660,000 and 1.26 million [6], coupled with the previous challenges mentioned, the government had a strong commitment to reform its energy sector. In 2013, the National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP) was introduced in Jordan to set the targets for achieving 20% energy saving and increasing the share of renewable energy to cover 10% of the national energy consumption by the year 2025. To this aim, a five-year electricity tariff plan adjustment was implemented between 2013 and 2017 to increase NEPCO's revenue, and an automatic electricity tariff adjustment mechanism (AETAM) was adopted in 2016 to reflect global oil price changes in consumer's tariffs, except those under 300 kWh per month, in order to protect poor households [7]. Due to the tremendous efforts, financial incentives, and government promotion to attract overseas investments and expertise, there has been significant progress in the renewable energy sector, reaching a capacity of 1470 MW by late 2019, which represents 25.7% of total generation capacity, with solar accounting for approximately 75% of renewable power [8]. Renewable energy's contribution to the total electricity generation reached 15.1%, with solar energy, wind power, and hydropower accounting for 10.4%, 4.4%, and 0.1%, respectively [8]. While this sheds hope for the future of the Jordanian energy sector and increases energy resilience [9], an increase in renewable energy in both transmission and distribution levels introduces grid-level operational challenges that must be met to achieve optimized and efficient operation. Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are non-dispatchable power units characterized by uncertainty, stochasticity, and being intermittent as they are dependent on variable weather conditions, which increase the flexibility needed to achieve supply-demand balance [10] and the need for energy storage systems [11; 12].