Renewable energy integration impacts within the context of generator type, penetration level and grid characteristics

Abstract

There has been a worldwide rise in installations of grid-connected variable renewable energy (VRE) systems over the past few years. However, with the increasing share of these systems comes additional complexities that can affect planning and operation of a power system within a specific region. Several studies have been conducted across different regions with the general aim to identify the impacts of integrating high shares of VRE in the respective power grids. However, each region is different in terms of available renewable resources, VRE targets and grid characteristics. Therefore, the results of VRE integration studies are generally context specific and the impacts observed in one region might not be relevant to another. Given that conducting a full range of detailed VRE integration studies for each grid is costly, there is value in effectively identifying likely issues relevant to the specific region under consideration, towards a smaller set of detailed VRE integration studies. This paper presents a literature review based on international experience that aims to provide an understanding on the VRE integration impacts within the context of generator type, penetration level and grid characteristics. This can be used to identify the VRE integration impacts that are relevant to the region under consideration.