The impact of energy storage on the reliability of wind and solar power in New England

In this study, the potential of wind and solar power to reliably meet the electricity demand of New England is evaluated, as well as the role of energy storage in improving the reliability of the region's renewable energy system. Using 44 years of hourly weather data from 1980 to 2023 obtained from the NASA MERRA-2 reanalysis product, the variability of these renewable resources and their impact on the region's electricity supply and demand is investigated. With varying mixes of wind and solar resources and sufficient resources capacity to generate electricity equal to annual demand, we find that a wind-dominant system can meet approximately 73% of the region's hourly electricity demand, whereas a solar-dominant system can only meet about 69%. However, incorporating 12 h of energy storage enhances the overall reliability of a wind-dominant system to 86%. In comparison, incorporating the same amount of energy storage in a solar-dominant system results in an overall reliability of approximately 87%. Ultimately, our analysis shows that achieving 100% reliability in meeting the annual electricity demand of New England requires addressing the mismatch between electricity demand and resource availability in terms of both location and time. This can be achieved through the integration of significant amounts of energy storage and/or wind and solar resources installations capable of generating electricity that exceeds peak demand by at least 3 times.

Large-scale wind power grid integration challenges and their solution: a detailed review

Despite global warming, renewable energy has gained much interest worldwide due to its ability to generate large-scale energy without emitting greenhouse gases. The availability and low cost of wind energy and its high efficiency and technological advancements make it one of the most promising renewable energy sources. Hence, capturing large amounts of wind energy is essential today. The large-scale integration of wind power sources must be evaluated and mitigated to develop a sustainable future power system. Wind energy research and the government are working together to overcome the potential barriers associated with its penetration into the power grid. This paper reviews the social, environmental, and cost-economic impacts of installing large-scale wind energy plants. A valuable review of wind energy technology and its challenges is also presented in this paper, including the effects of wind farms on nearby communities, generation uncertainty, power quality issues, angular and voltage stability, reactive power support, and fault ride-through capability. Besides, socioeconomic, environmental, and electricity market challenges due to the grid integration of wind power are also investigated. Finally, potential technical challenges to integrating large-scale wind energy into the power grid are reviewed regarding current research and their available mitigation techniques.

Challenges, strategies and opportunities for wind farm incorporated power systems: a review with bibliographic coupling analysis

Wind power is a rapidly developing energy source. Many nations use wind power to meet a considerable amount of their energy needs. Moreover, the technology of wind power has evolved over the period of time. As a result, the wind farm-incorporated power system has received more attention for its outstanding contributions. The purpose of this study is to review the research works published on four key topics within the theme of wind farm-incorporated power systems. We survey the research papers that are featured in the Web of Science database. We employ an approach called Methodi Ordinatio to filter the papers. The publication of papers related to wind farm-incorporated power system has increased significantly, especially between 2018 and 2022. Therefore, we conduct a database search during this period and select important papers. Then we review and describe the technical challenges and solutions of these papers. Furthermore, a bibliographic coupling analysis is presented. The analysis shows that the journals such as Energy, Energies, and Renewable Energy are the leading journals publishing papers on all four key topics. The analysis further demonstrates that the focus of the researchers is on wind power forecasting, followed by energy storage systems, and wind farm layout optimization. The least focus is on optimal power flow.

Sustainable development of renewable energy integrated power sector: Trends, environmental impacts, and recent challenges

The continuous growth in overall energy demand and the related environmental impacts play a significant role in the large sustainable and green global energy transition. Moreover, the electrical power sector is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, renewable energy (RE) integration into the power grid has attracted significant economic, environmental, and technical attention in recent years. However, RE can also harm the environment, even though it is deemed less harmful than fossil fuel-based power. It may also cause technical, operational, and social issues. This, in return, more consideration and appropriate precautions should be taken. Given the recent sharp increase in RE utilization and its progressing impact on the world energy sector, evaluating its effect on the environment and sustainable development is limitedly explored and must be investigated. This study aims to discuss the role of RE integration in sustainable development. It provides an up-to-date review of the most recent global trend of various RE integrations into the power sector. The role and impact of this high integration level on the environment and the adverse effects of each RE source are discussed in detail. The recent challenges, including technical and operational challenges (i.e., voltage stability, frequency stability, and power quality), integration policy and standards challenges, RE environmental concerns, resource selection and location, and social challenges towards a sustainable electricity future and grid decarbonization, are comprehensively reviewed, discussed, and analyzed. A review of the literature was conducted from 2010 to 2021. Around 712 articles were classified during this process, and 177 papers were filtered for critical review. The literature analysis showed that RE integration has increased dramatically and has many benefits; however, more attention should be paid to mitigate its harmful impacts and recent challenges appeared. The new challenges resulting from the increasing generation of RE and linking it to the electric grid were listed to allow for future studies to find the appropriate solutions towards green and sustainable energy. Finally, towards a sustainable power system, the paper concludes with recommendations for future research directions.

An intelligent Hybrid Wind-PV farm as a static compensator for overall stability and control of multimachine power system

The paper demonstrates the potential of a hybrid Wind-PV farm as STATCOM (Static Synchronous Compensator) for damping and control of overall chaotic oscillations in a two-area power system. Kundur's modified system associated with a hybrid Wind-PV farm is simulated in MATLAB to demonstrate the detailed performance assessment of the hybrid farm. A unique controller is deployed to regulate the AC and DC currents of the STATCOM using two PI controllers. A swarm-based hybrid metaheuristic optimizer PSO-BFOA optimally tunes and controls the PI controller parameters. The system is compensated to an optimum level of 85% and exposed to a 3-phase fault. Zero dampings are accompanied by additional disturbances of a 20% change in electric torque and the reference voltage. The disturbances are made to model the worst conditions to examine the rigorous performance of the hybrid Wind-PV​ farm in alleviating the overall chaotic oscillations. The simulation results for the performance assessment in different cases, i.e., without control, with Wind-STATCOM, with PV-STATCOM, and with the hybrid Wind-PV-STATCOM, reveal the potential of the hybrid Wind-PV Farm as STATCOM in alleviating the overall chaotic oscillations.

Application and control of flexible alternating current transmission system devices for voltage stability enhancement of renewable-integrated power grid: A comprehensive review

This paper presents a comprehensive review on the application and control of Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices in order to improve voltage stability of power grid with high share of renewable energy systems. The rise in the development of renewable energy technologies is driven by the attempts to mitigate the effects of global warming. In addition, global energy demand continues to rise as new electricity-driven systems such as electric vehicles are being developed and as remote locations are being connected to the grid. These changes in the power grid formation comes with attendant challenges which must be addressed. One of these challenges is voltage stability issues. This paper therefore explores the applications of FACTS devices for voltage stability improvement and points out the future research direction in the area of voltage stability enhancement by FACTS devices for modern power grids characterized by increasing levels of renewable energy penetration.