Investigating the impact of wind–solar complementarities on energy storage requirement and the corresponding supply reliability criteria

A.A. Solomon, Daniel M. Kammen and D. Callaway

Applied Energy, 2016, vol. 168, issue C, 130-145

Abstract: This paper explores various questions regarding very high penetration of intermittent renewable to electricity grid. The study was performed using one-year hourly demand data of California’s electricity grid together with the hourly-simulated output of various solar and wind technologies distributed throughout the state. The result shows that wind–solar complementarities carry significant multidimensional benefits to the future grid as compared to a stand-alone wind/solar based grid. Specifically at 20% total energy loss, it was shown that their optimal complementarities lead to very high renewable penetration with smaller storage and backup requirement. Our study of system dispatch shows that storage provides flexible dispatch strategy, which makes it applicable for various services depending on season of the year including reduction of summer backup capacity need. We have also found that the existing peak load based long term planning reserve criteria may no longer be applicable to very high renewable grid. Finally, comparing our result to literature data, we conclude that some of the pessimistic views of storage technology are borne out of our lack of understanding about its role and design requirement.

Keywords: Energy storage; Grid penetration; Grid reliability; Resource complementarities; Solar energy; Wind energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (44)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261916300575
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:168:y:2016:i:c:p:130-145

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.01.070

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().