Solar power generation intermittency and aggregation

Abstract

The inherent intermittency of solar power due to diurnal and seasonal cycles has usually resulted in the need for alternative generation sources thereby increasing system operation costs. However, when solar power is spread over a large geographical area with significant time differences, the intermittency can be significantly reduced and also the electricity market balancing cost. The aim of this article is to address the fundamental scientific question on how the intermittency of solar power generation is affected by aggregation, which is of great interest in the wider power and energy community and would have profound impacts on the solar energy integration into the energy supply and Net-Zero Implementation. This article goes beyond the typical regional analysis by investigating solar power intermittency at 5 aggregation levels from a global perspective based on global 7 year hourly meteorological re-analysis data with a fine spatial resolution of $${0.25}^{\circ }\times {0.25}^{\circ } (\sim 28 \; \mathrm{km} \times 28 \; \mathrm{km})$$ 0.25 ∘ × 0.25 ∘ ( ∼ 28 km × 28 km ) . In the proposed assessment framework, a coefficient of variation (CV) is used to quantify solar power intermittency and hence characterize the potential benefits of wide area solar power aggregation. A duration curve is used to characterize the intermittency in terms of power availability and a probability density function is further employed to investigate the dispersion and scaling behavior of CV at different aggregation levels. The findings indicate that the CV of solar power generation of ‘Inner Mongolia’ in China drops from 129.65 to 105.65% in the level of ‘Asia’ (by 24% decrease), to 56.11% in ‘Asia-North_America’ (by 73.54% decrease) and to the smallest 43.50% in ‘Global’ (by 86.15% decrease), nearly 3.5 times of that in ‘Asia’; (b) the availability of solar power generation increases from 52.17% in Germany, to 73.30% in ‘Europe_EU_plus’, to 77.82% in ‘Europe’, to 98.59% in ‘Europe-North_America’ (80.60% in ‘Europe-Africa’, 96.90% in ‘Europe-Asia’), to 100% in ‘Global’. Finally, conclusions and recommendations are provided to support a Net-Zero strategy.

Distributed desalination using solar energy: A technoeconomic framework to decarbonize nontraditional water treatment

“…Finally, in the PV-RO with WS and DWI configuration ( Configuration 5 in the Supplementary Materials), an oversized PV-RO desalination plant that operates at a CF of 0.25 is used to produce enough freshwater for the entire day when operating only during sunlight hours. 90 , 91 , 92 The excess water produced during daytime is stored in WS for consumption during nighttime when the desalination subsystem is shut down. All of these 4 systems have limited water recovery and generate brine, which is then disposed by DWI at an associated cost (see Table S3 of the Supplemantary Materials).…”

“…Specifically, to compare the different solar desalination configurations, we use an average DNI of 6 kWh/m 2 for water-stressed regions with a good solar resource (see Figure 1 ) and a CF of 0.25. 90 , 91 , 92 These inputs are used to size the desalination plant to produce 1000 m 3 /day of clean water with or without energy storage (24-h operation or only daytime operation, respectively). We note however that energy storage will also be needed to maintain near-constant power supply to both RO and MED (and MVC when present) for the WS configurations and address fluctuations in the solar flux.…”

Solar Energy as a Sustainable Energy for Power Generation

“…The global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while achieving significant cost reductions, have generated demand for solar electricity making it one of the fastest growing renewable energy resources. The global solar power deployment increased from 40 GW in the year 2010 to 586 GW in the year 2019 (Wu et al 2022).…”

“…Polytetrafluoroethylenes are characterized by the release of high global warming potential GHG gases such as chlorofluorocarbon and hydrofluorocarbon. Electrolytes and case manufacturing (aluminum and steel) account for 15% and 19% of battery-related GHG emissions (Mehedi, 2022, Al Shetwi, 2022, Wu et al 2022, Okoye et al 2019 The second largest GHG emissions are from the production phase of the solar PV panels (Figure 6). The most GHGintensive processes in the production phase are associated with upgrading the quartz sand to a usable form, namely industrial grade (14.40 g CO2 eq /kWh) and solar grade silicon (15.99 g CO 2 eq /kWh).…”

Assessing the techno-economic feasibility of hybrid solar-hydrogen systems: A review of recent studies

“…The escalating global demand for clean and sustainable energy solutions has intensified the exploration of innovative technologies that harness renewable energy sources [4][5][6][7][8] . Among these, hybrid solar-hydrogen systems (HSHSs) have emerged as promising candidates because they combine the sporadic nature of solar energy with the storage capabilities of hydrogen.…”