Curtailment in a Highly Renewable Power System and Its Effect on Capacity Factors

Alexander Kies, Bruno U. Schyska and Lueder Von Bremen
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Alexander Kies: ForWind, Center for Wind Energy Research, Ammerlaender Heerstreet 136, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
Bruno U. Schyska: ForWind, Center for Wind Energy Research, Ammerlaender Heerstreet 136, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
Lueder Von Bremen: ForWind, Center for Wind Energy Research, Ammerlaender Heerstreet 136, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

Energies, 2016, vol. 9, issue 7, 1-18

Abstract: The capacity factor of a power plant is the ratio of generation over its potential generation. It is an important measure to describe wind and solar resources. However, the fluctuating nature of renewable power generation makes it difficult to integrate all generation at times. Whenever generation exceeds the load, curtailment or storage of energy is required. With increasing renewable shares in the power system, the level of curtailment will further increase. In this work, the influence of the curtailment on the capacity factors for a highly renewable German power system is studied. An effective capacity factor is introduced, and the implications for the distribution of renewable power plants are discussed. Three years of highly-resolved weather data were used to model wind and solar power generation. Together with historical load data and a transmission model, a possible future German power system was simulated. It is shown that effective capacity factors for unlimited transmission are strongly reduced by up to 60% (wind) and 70% (photovoltaics) and therefore of limited value in a highly renewable power system. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that wind power benefits more strongly from a reinforced transmission grid than photovoltaics (PV) does.

Keywords: renewable energy systems; capacity factor; effective capacity factor; energy system modeling; German power system; renewable site assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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