Full Title: Remodeling the Grid: Challenges, Solutions, and Costs Associated with Integrating Renewable Resources
Author(s): Patrick Luckow, Tommy Vitolo, PhD, Joseph Daniel
Publisher(s): Synapse Energy Economics Inc.
Publication Date: August 1, 2015
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Over the last ten years, the amount of utility-scale wind and solar capacity in the United States has jumped from 9 GW to 75 GW. New installations are projected to continue, spurred by environmental regulations and declining costs to build and operate renewable technology. While system operators are well equipped to meet much higher levels of renewable energy penetration than currently exists on the grid, they will have to make incremental changes to the grid in order to bring on even higher levels in the long term. The thrust of the challenge is that the existing U.S. power grid was designed for fossil fuels, and renewable resources behave differently than fossil resources. Wind and solar output fluctuates throughout the day and can change relatively rapidly and unpredictably. Older coal and nuclear plants have limited capabilities to respond to these changes as they have high minimum operating levels and an inability to increase their output level at a rapid rate. As a result of these limitations, represented in Figure 1, these older resources impose cost on the system.