Energy systems capacity planning under high renewable penetration considering concentrating solar power

Abstract

With the rapid development of renewable generation and the promotion of “Clean Heating”, the uncertainty of renewables as well as rising energy demand has posed significant problems to the energy system’s economical and flexible operation. As a renewable energy generation technology, concentrating solar power (CSP) with thermal energy storage (TES) offers a promising approach by providing operational flexibility and thermal energy supply to the energy system. We propose a long-term high-resolution planning model considering the operational characteristics of CSP and improved flexibility constraints of energy systems under high renewable penetration to meet the electricity and heat demand simultaneously in this paper. By applying the proposed model to a typical “Clean Heating” area in China, it demonstrates that the optimal deployment by integrating CSP can reduce the peak-valley depth of coal units, minimize the renewable curtailment and carbon emissions by 37.64 % and 19.05 % respectively with more than 5.98 % cost reduction at 85 % renewable penetration compared with the base scenario, which provides an economic and stable zero-carbon pathway for multi-energy systems.