Techno-economical design study for a sustainable power station powered by simultaneity of wind, solar, and an integrated Li-ion battery

Abstract

Our present-day society is utterly dependant on electricity. This dependence will only grow as electrification of sectors such as manufacturing, transportation and building heating takes off. Most of the electricity these days comes from conventional plants running on coal and natural gas. Despite that these are reliable and cheap, the disadvantage of emitting greenhouse gases is no longer acceptable. Sustainable alternatives such as solar PV and wind have the highest potential. However, the replacement of conventional power plants by sustainable alternatives is subject to understanding the intermittent and unpredictable behaviour of both wind and solar PV and thereby ensuring that generation equals demand at all times. Energy storage technologies allow for separation between generation and supply to the grid. The aforementioned makes the large-scale integration of wind and solar PV more difficult. This study lays the foundation for an interconnected system model where solar PV, wind, and battery storage is combined. This study is therefore deliberately different than existing studies focussing on small, already severely constrained systems, such as island systems. The problems experienced and possible solutions are first identified by conducting a literature review and simultaneity analysis of wind and solar PV power. It turns out that it is possible while being self-reliant, using all the potential renewable energy and shifting the generation by arbitrage on the APX market to design a system with an increasing rate of income. The simulations showed that when the combined generation (of both wind and solar PV) during peak availability is higher than the grid connection capacity, the computed battery size [MWh] increases rapidly, causing a swift decrease in rate of return. This research also shows that with current imbalance settlement prices and battery installation cost minimizing imbalance is less viable than arbitrage on the APX market. The presented results are consistent with how the electricity system currently operates. At last, the results indicate that curtailing ’cheap’ solar PV energy with significant overplanting on the existing limiting grid connection is beneficial. In this research some important steps have been taken towards the design for a grid-connected optimal system. The method proposed should be tested with more wind and solar PV generation data. Further research should consider longer periods with real generation data making the results presented more accurate.