Correlations Between Geographically Dispersed Concentrating Solar Power and Demand in the United States

Abstract

Correlations between the electricity generated by concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) plants, as well as cross-correlations between CSP, wind power and electricity demand, have significant impacts on decisions for how much and where to build utility-scale CSP capacity, the optimal amount of thermal storage in the CSP plants, reserve capacity needed to back-up the system, as well as the expected levels of curtailed renewable power. Accurately estimating these correlations is vital to performing detailed analyses of high renewable penetration scenarios. This study quantifies the degree of correlation between geographically dispersed CSP, as well as the correlation between CSP and wind power, and CSP and electricity demand in 356 discrete regions in the contiguous US. Correlations are calculated using hourly data on an annual basis. Maps of the correlations will be presented to illustrate the degree of correlation between solar power and the demand it is serving, as well as the synergies between the negatively-correlated wind power and solar power serving the same region.