Empowering Variable Renewables – Options for Flexible Electricity Systems
IEA/OECD | Oct. 2009 | ISBN: 9264077200 | 36 pages | PDF | 5 Mb
 


A number of renewable electricity technologies, such as wind, wave, tidal, solar, and run-of-river hydro share a characteristic that distinguishes them from conventional power plants: their output varies according to the availability of the resource.

This is commonly perceived to be challenging at high shares, but there is no intrinsic, technical ceiling to variable renewables’ potential. Variability has to be looked at in the context of power system flexibility: if a power system is sufficiently flexible, in terms of power production, load management, interconnection and storage, the importance of the variability aspect is reduced.

Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Executive summary
1 Introduction
2 Variable renewable electricity technologies
Factors with a smoothing effect on variability
Forecasting
3 Power system flexibility
Assessing flexibility
4 Operational measures to increase flexibility
Aggregating power systems
Trading closer to real time
Demand side management and response
5 Transmission and distribution
Optimal use of transmission capacity
Intelligent network operation
New transmission technologies
6 Conclusions
Bibliography
List of figures

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