Explained: Maintaining a Reliable Future Grid with More Wind and Solar

Program Document · Thu Jan 25 04:00:00 EST 2024

OSTI ID:2283525

Since the early 2000s, maintaining grid reliability has become more complex due to a variety of factors, including the changing generation mix, the creation of wholesale energy markets, and a growing number of extreme weather events. Parts of the U.S. grid are already operating with significant amounts of wind and solar generation - with 2022 annual wind and solar generation in the range of 25% to 40%. Even without considering the effects of extreme weather, maintaining reliability will require new capacity to address both growth in electric demand and retiring capacity. Based on the 2022 North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Long-Term Reliability Assessment, the combination of both growth in peak demand and retirements suggests a need for more than 100 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity by 2032. In general, there are a five categories of resources that are expected to be deployed and used to meet the challenge of maintaining an adequate source of supply in the coming decades: new wind and solar resources (accounting for their reliability contributions), energy storage, demand response resources, expanded transmission, and continued use of thermal generators.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Policy (OP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 2283525
• Report Number(s): NREL/FS-6A40-87298; MainId:88073; UUID:1a496bc4-12c7-439a-9a93-3889b87962c8; MainAdminId:71708
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
power grid
reliability
renewable energy
resource adequacy