Planning Reliable Wind- and Solar-Based Electricity Systems
Advances in Applied Energy(2024)
Abstract
Resource adequacy, or ensuring that electricity supply reliably meets demand, is more challenging for wind- and solar-based electricity systems than fossil-fuel-based ones. Here, we investigate how the number of years of past weather data used in designing least-cost systems relying on wind, solar, and energy storage affects resource adequacy. We find that nearly 40 years of weather data are required to plan highly reliable systems (e.g., zero lost load over a decade). In comparison, this same adequacy could be attained with 15 years of weather data when additionally allowing a traditional dispatchable generation to supply 5% of electricity demand. We further observe that the marginal cost of improving resource adequacy increased as more years, and thus more weather variability were considered for planning. Our results suggest that ensuring the reliability of wind- and solar-based systems will require using considerably more weather data in system planning than is the current practice. However, when considering the potential costs associated with unmet electricity demand, fewer planning years may suffice to balance costs against operational reliability.
MoreTranslated text
Key words
Low–carbon electricity systems,Cost-optimization,Weather,Resource adequacy,Reliability
AI Read Science
Must-Reading Tree
Example
![](https://originalfileserver.aminer.cn/sys/aminer/pubs/mrt_preview.jpeg)
Generate MRT to find the research sequence of this paper
Chat Paper
Summary is being generated by the instructions you defined