Definition of the Optimal Generation Mix in Decarbonized Power System

Abstract

The development of the environmental tendencies in the previous decade led to the alteration of the way in which the perspective of the power systems is seen, where the largest number of adaptations was made to the sector of energy production, in which the role that was occupied by the thermal plants was taken over by the wind and solar plants. However, this change was met with a dose of scepticism, where the variability of the generation power of these plants and the oscillations in their daily production diagram were commonly listed as the arguments against the massive integration of these sources. What was neglected, nonetheless, is the fact that the daily production diagram depends on the type of the source, so the diagrams of the wind and solar plants, for instance, are not identical. Hence, the daily minimums and maximums of generation power of these units would not occur simultaneously, so the unified diagram of both plants would show less oscillations than their individual diagrams. The level of the variations’ reduction would depend on the ratio of the installed capacities of the plants. Therefore, the paper will contain analysis of the test system supplied from the wind and solar plants, with two types of solar panels (monofacial and bifacial) considered. The total installed capacity of these sources will be kept constant, but their share in this amount will be varied in order to define the ratio of the individual installed capacities for which the variations of the total production power on a yearly level is minimal. As the indicator of the variations’ reduction, the minimal mean square deviation of the total hourly production powers from their yearly average will be selected.