IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v85y2015icp1-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integrating solar PV (photovoltaics) in utility system operations: Analytical framework and Arizona case study

Author

Listed:
  • Wu, Jing
  • Botterud, Audun
  • Mills, Andrew
  • Zhou, Zhi
  • Hodge, Bri-Mathias
  • Heaney, Mike

Abstract

A systematic framework is proposed to estimate the impact on operating costs due to uncertainty and variability in renewable resources. The framework quantifies the integration costs associated with sub-hourly variability and uncertainty as well as day-ahead forecasting errors in solar PV (photovoltaics) power. A case study illustrates how changes in system operations may affect these costs for a utility in the southwestern United States (Arizona Public Service Company). We conduct an extensive sensitivity analysis under different assumptions about balancing reserves, system flexibility, fuel prices, and forecasting errors. We find that high solar PV penetrations may lead to operational challenges, particularly during low-load and high solar periods. Increased system flexibility is essential for minimizing integration costs and maintaining reliability. In a set of sensitivity cases where such flexibility is provided, in part, by flexible operations of nuclear power plants, the estimated integration costs vary between $1.0 and $4.4/MWh-PV for a PV penetration level of 17%. The integration costs are primarily due to higher needs for hour-ahead balancing reserves to address the increased sub-hourly variability and uncertainty in the PV resource.

Suggested Citation

  • Wu, Jing & Botterud, Audun & Mills, Andrew & Zhou, Zhi & Hodge, Bri-Mathias & Heaney, Mike, 2015. "Integrating solar PV (photovoltaics) in utility system operations: Analytical framework and Arizona case study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1-9.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:85:y:2015:i:c:p:1-9
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2015.02.043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421500198X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2015.02.043?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, J. & Botterud, A. & Bessa, R. & Keko, H. & Carvalho, L. & Issicaba, D. & Sumaili, J. & Miranda, V., 2011. "Wind power forecasting uncertainty and unit commitment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 4014-4023.
    2. Mai, Trieu & Mulcahy, David & Hand, M. Maureen & Baldwin, Samuel F., 2014. "Envisioning a renewable electricity future for the United States," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 374-386.
    3. Hirth, Lion & Ueckerdt, Falko & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2015. "Integration costs revisited – An economic framework for wind and solar variability," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 925-939.
    4. Eichman, Joshua D. & Mueller, Fabian & Tarroja, Brian & Schell, Lori Smith & Samuelsen, Scott, 2013. "Exploration of the integration of renewable resources into California's electric system using the Holistic Grid Resource Integration and Deployment (HiGRID) tool," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 353-363.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Munoz, Francisco D. & Pumarino, Bruno J. & Salas, Ignacio A., 2017. "Aiming low and achieving it: A long-term analysis of a renewable policy in Chile," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 304-314.
    2. Kumar, Dhivya Sampath & Sharma, Anurag & Srinivasan, Dipti & Reindl, Thomas, 2019. "Stability implications of bulk power networks with large scale PVs," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    3. Zepter, Jan Martin & Weibezahn, Jens, 2019. "Unit commitment under imperfect foresight – The impact of stochastic photovoltaic generation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 243(C), pages 336-349.
    4. Nghitevelekwa, K. & Bansal, R.C., 2018. "A review of generation dispatch with large-scale photovoltaic systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 615-624.
    5. Jenkins, J.D. & Zhou, Z. & Ponciroli, R. & Vilim, R.B. & Ganda, F. & de Sisternes, F. & Botterud, A., 2018. "The benefits of nuclear flexibility in power system operations with renewable energy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 872-884.
    6. Kovacic, Zora & Giampietro, Mario, 2015. "Empty promises or promising futures? The case of smart grids," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(P1), pages 67-74.
    7. Pierro, Marco & Perez, Richard & Perez, Marc & Moser, David & Cornaro, Cristina, 2021. "Imbalance mitigation strategy via flexible PV ancillary services: The Italian case study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1694-1705.
    8. Sanzana Tabassum & Tanvin Rahman & Ashraf Ul Islam & Sumayya Rahman & Debopriya Roy Dipta & Shidhartho Roy & Naeem Mohammad & Nafiu Nawar & Eklas Hossain, 2021. "Solar Energy in the United States: Development, Challenges and Future Prospects," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-65, December.
    9. Fikru, Mahelet G. & Gautier, Luis, 2021. "Electric utility mergers in the presence of distributed renewable energy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    10. Cole, Wesley & Frew, Bethany & Gagnon, Pieter & Reimers, Andrew & Zuboy, Jarett & Margolis, Robert, 2018. "Envisioning a low-cost solar future: Exploring the potential impact of Achieving the SunShot 2030 targets for photovoltaics," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 690-704.
    11. Panos Kouvelis & Hirofumi Matsuo & Yixuan Xiao & Quan Yuan, 2023. "Long‐term service agreement in electricity supply chain with renewable energy penetration," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(6), pages 1830-1845, June.
    12. Babatunde, A.A. & Abbasoglu, S. & Senol, M., 2018. "Analysis of the impact of dust, tilt angle and orientation on performance of PV Plants," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 1017-1026.
    13. Paulescu, Marius & Brabec, Marek & Boata, Remus & Badescu, Viorel, 2017. "Structured, physically inspired (gray box) models versus black box modeling for forecasting the output power of photovoltaic plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 792-802.
    14. Carvallo, Juan Pablo & Sanstad, Alan H. & Larsen, Peter H., 2019. "Exploring the relationship between planning and procurement in western U.S. electric utilities," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 4-15.
    15. Joseph Nyangon & John Byrne & Job Taminiau, 2017. "An assessment of price convergence between natural gas and solar photovoltaic in the U.S. electricity market," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), May.
    16. Zhu, Xiaodong & Zhao, Shihao & Yang, Zhile & Zhang, Ning & Xu, Xinzhi, 2022. "A parallel meta-heuristic method for solving large scale unit commitment considering the integration of new energy sectors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(PC).
    17. Kaur, Amanpreet & Nonnenmacher, Lukas & Coimbra, Carlos F.M., 2016. "Net load forecasting for high renewable energy penetration grids," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1073-1084.
    18. Thomas Carrière & Rodrigo Amaro e Silva & Fuqiang Zhuang & Yves-Marie Saint-Drenan & Philippe Blanc, 2021. "A New Approach for Satellite-Based Probabilistic Solar Forecasting with Cloud Motion Vectors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-19, August.
    19. Abujarad, Saleh Y. & Mustafa, M.W. & Jamian, J.J., 2017. "Recent approaches of unit commitment in the presence of intermittent renewable energy resources: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 215-223.
    20. Marco Pierro & David Moser & Richard Perez & Cristina Cornaro, 2020. "The Value of PV Power Forecast and the Paradox of the “Single Pricing” Scheme: The Italian Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-27, August.
    21. Susanto, Julius & Shahnia, Farhad & Ludwig, David, 2018. "A framework to technically evaluate integration of utility-scale photovoltaic plants to weak power distribution systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 207-221.
    22. Pierro, Marco & Perez, Richard & Perez, Marc & Prina, Matteo Giacomo & Moser, David & Cornaro, Cristina, 2021. "Italian protocol for massive solar integration: From solar imbalance regulation to firm 24/365 solar generation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 425-436.
    23. Pierro, Marco & Perez, Richard & Perez, Marc & Moser, David & Cornaro, Cristina, 2020. "Italian protocol for massive solar integration: Imbalance mitigation strategies," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 725-739.
    24. Pierro, Marco & De Felice, Matteo & Maggioni, Enrico & Moser, David & Perotto, Alessandro & Spada, Francesco & Cornaro, Cristina, 2020. "Residual load probabilistic forecast for reserve assessment: A real case study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 508-522.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Herath, N. & Tyner, W.E., 2019. "Intended and unintended consequences of US renewable energy policies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    2. Jiang, Yibo & Xu, Jian & Sun, Yuanzhang & Wei, Congying & Wang, Jing & Liao, Siyang & Ke, Deping & Li, Xiong & Yang, Jun & Peng, Xiaotao, 2018. "Coordinated operation of gas-electricity integrated distribution system with multi-CCHP and distributed renewable energy sources," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 237-248.
    3. Mai, Trieu & Lopez, Anthony & Mowers, Matthew & Lantz, Eric, 2021. "Interactions of wind energy project siting, wind resource potential, and the evolution of the U.S. power system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    4. Ebrahimi, Siavash & Mac Kinnon, Michael & Brouwer, Jack, 2018. "California end-use electrification impacts on carbon neutrality and clean air," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 435-449.
    5. Mai, Trieu & Cole, Wesley & Reimers, Andrew, 2019. "Setting cost targets for zero-emission electricity generation technologies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 582-592.
    6. Gorman, Will & Montañés, Cristina Crespo & Mills, Andrew & Kim, James Hyungkwan & Millstein, Dev & Wiser, Ryan, 2022. "Are coupled renewable-battery power plants more valuable than independently sited installations?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    7. Bojana Škrbić & Željko Đurišić, 2023. "Novel Planning Methodology for Spatially Optimized RES Development Which Minimizes Flexibility Requirements for Their Integration into the Power System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-34, April.
    8. Østergaard, P.A. & Lund, H. & Thellufsen, J.Z. & Sorknæs, P. & Mathiesen, B.V., 2022. "Review and validation of EnergyPLAN," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    9. Levi, Peter G. & Pollitt, Michael G., 2015. "Cost trajectories of low carbon electricity generation technologies in the UK: A study of cost uncertainty," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 48-59.
    10. Sandrine Mathy & Patrick Criqui & Katharina Knoop & Manfred Fischedick & Sascha Samadi, 2016. "Uncertainty management and the dynamic adjustment of deep decarbonization pathways," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(sup1), pages 47-62, June.
    11. Jenkins, J.D. & Zhou, Z. & Ponciroli, R. & Vilim, R.B. & Ganda, F. & de Sisternes, F. & Botterud, A., 2018. "The benefits of nuclear flexibility in power system operations with renewable energy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 872-884.
    12. Yang, Zhaoqing & García Medina, Gabriel & Neary, Vincent S. & Ahn, Seongho & Kilcher, Levi & Bharath, Aidan, 2023. "Multi-decade high-resolution regional hindcasts for wave energy resource characterization in U.S. coastal waters," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 803-817.
    13. Alessandrini, S. & Sperati, S. & Pinson, P., 2013. "A comparison between the ECMWF and COSMO Ensemble Prediction Systems applied to short-term wind power forecasting on real data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 271-280.
    14. Alexis Tantet & Philippe Drobinski, 2021. "A Minimal System Cost Minimization Model for Variable Renewable Energy Integration: Application to France and Comparison to Mean-Variance Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-38, August.
    15. He, Ke-Lun & Chen, Qun & Ma, Huan & Zhao, Tian & Hao, Jun-Hong, 2020. "An isomorphic multi-energy flow modeling for integrated power and thermal system considering nonlinear heat transfer constraint," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    16. Batalla-Bejerano, Joan & Costa-Campi, Maria Teresa & Trujillo-Baute, Elisa, 2016. "Collateral effects of liberalisation: Metering, losses, load profiles and cost settlement in Spain’s electricity system," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 421-431.
    17. Xu, Jiuping & Wang, Fengjuan & Lv, Chengwei & Huang, Qian & Xie, Heping, 2018. "Economic-environmental equilibrium based optimal scheduling strategy towards wind-solar-thermal power generation system under limited resources," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 355-371.
    18. Sen Guo & Haoran Zhao & Huiru Zhao, 2017. "A New Hybrid Wind Power Forecaster Using the Beveridge-Nelson Decomposition Method and a Relevance Vector Machine Optimized by the Ant Lion Optimizer," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-20, July.
    19. Aghajani, Saemeh & Kalantar, Mohsen, 2017. "Optimal scheduling of distributed energy resources in smart grids: A complementarity approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 2135-2144.
    20. Deetjen, Thomas A. & Martin, Henry & Rhodes, Joshua D. & Webber, Michael E., 2018. "Modeling the optimal mix and location of wind and solar with transmission and carbon pricing considerations," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 35-50.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:85:y:2015:i:c:p:1-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.