Wind resource quality affected by high levels of renewables

Journal Article · Wed Jun 17 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Resources

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/resources4020378· OSTI ID:1220676

Diakov, Victor ^[1]

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1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

For solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind resources, the capacity factor is an important parameter describing the quality of the resource. As the share of variable renewable resources (such as PV and wind) on the electric system is increasing, so does curtailment (and the fraction of time when it cannot be avoided). At high levels of renewable generation, curtailments effectively change the practical measure of resource quality from capacity factor to the incremental capacity factor. The latter accounts only for generation during hours of no curtailment and is directly connected with the marginal capital cost of renewable generators for a given level of renewable generation during the year. The Western U.S. wind generation is analyzed hourly for a system with 75% of annual generation from wind, and it is found that the value for the system of resources with equal capacity factors can vary by a factor of 2, which highlights the importance of using the incremental capacity factor instead. Finally, the effect is expected to be more pronounced in smaller geographic areas (or when transmission limitations imposed) and less pronounced at lower levels of renewable energy in the system with less curtailment.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• OSTI ID: 1220676
• Report Number(s): NREL/JA-6A20-63649
• Journal Information: Resources, Vol. 4, Issue 2; ISSN 2079-9276
• Publisher: MDPI
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
renewable energy
curtailment
capacity factor