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Capacity configuration of hydropower-PV complementary station that is robust to the inter-annual variability in streamflow and PV energy

Author

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  • Zheng, Yifei
  • Zhang, Juntao
  • Cheng, Chuntian
  • Cao, Hui
  • Yang, Yuqi

Abstract

Conventional methods for sizing variable renewable energy (VRE) capacity integrated into hydropower are fed with several typical weather days or a single weather year dataset, which reduce computational complexity while neglecting the inter-annual variability of VRE and streamflow and yielding potentially unreliable results. This study proposes a novel tractable long-term model at hourly resolution to investigate the potential of hydro–VRE complementary operation for load following, reliable electricity supplying and to size the VRE capacity integrated into the hydropower stations. This methodology was applied to an actual hydropower-photovoltaic (PV) complementary station in China. We found that (1) PV capacity integrated into the hydropower is highly sensitive to the inter-annual variability of streamflow and PV energy; the PV capacity sized based on single-year-simulation ranges from 446 MW to 725 MW. (2) The PV deployment capacity based on 12-year-simulation is 510 MW. Compared with the PV deployment capacities based on single-year-simulation, it enables better hydropower-PV complementary load following performances and an average increase of 2.06 × 105 MWh in the annual electricity supply.

Suggested Citation

  • Zheng, Yifei & Zhang, Juntao & Cheng, Chuntian & Cao, Hui & Yang, Yuqi, 2025. "Capacity configuration of hydropower-PV complementary station that is robust to the inter-annual variability in streamflow and PV energy," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:248:y:2025:i:c:s0960148125008250
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2025.123163
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