Coordinated Integration of Renewable Generation and Small Modular Reactors in Puerto Rico - an Initial Study

Abstract

With a growing interest and awareness to support clean and sustainable sources of energy, several countries have ambitious plans to significantly increase the penetration of renewable energy in the electric grid. However, the sources of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, are highly intermittent and therefore can pose challenges in maintaining reliable system operations; one such challenge being flexibility requirements. This paper addresses the concerns of increasing flexibility needs with high renewable penetration and studies the coordinated integration of small modular nuclear reactor and inverter-based renewable generation sources in a system to achieve high levels of carbon-free and sustainable energy. In this paper, balancing reserve and short-term flexibility requirements were considered for the analysis. Also, a methodology was developed to calculate metrics for short-term flexibility needs arising from slow variability observed in load and renewable generation. Small modular reactors are considered as potential sources of generation flexibility to complement renewables.