Abstract
With expanding environmental and climate change regulatory frameworks, the fossil-based baseload generation is forced to decline, thus making room for more and more generation based on renewable and other carbon-free energy sources. This paper deals with a number of controversial issues and open questions concerning the growing penetration of renewable energy sources into power generation systems, often without due care of the impacts of variable as compared to conventional generation on the reliability of electricity supply. Particular attention is paid to baseload generation, power market design, system operation under extreme weather conditions, energy storage, back-up, and reserve power, as well as to the role of mechanical inertia and reliability of on-site fuel supply, demonstrated on an example of coal excavation and delivery to a power plant.
Highlights
The world is currently undergoing an unprecedented energy transition, driven by the goal to limit global warming and keep the global temperature raise less than 2 ̊C
Bugarić controllable renewable power generation is limited, non-controllable intermittent generation is projected to expand. Their fast technological development and lowering the costs suggest that more and more Renewable energy sources (RES) can be expected, due to concerns related to global warming and climate change, with a major role played in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by coal-fueled power generation
Even though some advocate that variable RES (VRES) capacity can directly displace conventional baseload power plants ([8]), this assumption is not considered adequate since baseload coal power is normally operated continuously at fairly largeconstant generation rates and for extended periods of time, while VRES power generation is a function of uncontrollable time-of-day and weather conditions and requires strong back-up generation, as well as large longer-term energy storages
Summary
The world is currently undergoing an unprecedented energy transition, driven by the goal to limit global warming and keep the global temperature raise less than 2 ̊C. Whilst some argue that the technical challenges and costs of RES are so great that it is hard to commit to strict deadlines, others point out that the development and implementation of CO2 geo-sequestration and clean coal technologies are not guaranteed and will incur costs which will substantially increase the cost of energy to the consumers [3] These and other issues are addressed in this paper, with particular attention paid to the specific demands of the power system, ability of RES to provide baseload electricity demand, back-up and reserve power generation, as well as the reliability of fuel supply.
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