Synergy of solar photovoltaics-wind-battery systems in Australia

Abstract

Intermittent weather conditions affect solar and wind generated electricity with storage that require optimisation. Solar Photovoltaics-Wind-Battery Hybrid Systems (PV–W–B) are ideal for optimising the synergy of solar and wind resources with storage for consistent production of renewable energy. This study assesses the synergy of solar and wind power under favorable battery operating conditions using the Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2) data spanning a period of 10 years over Australia. Key metrics describing the variability, reliability and intermittency of extractable solar power (based on Global Horizontal Irradiance - GHI), wind power density (WPD) and favorable battery operating temperature (T2) were computed separately for all available grid-points in Australia. Similarly, synergy and antergy (negative synergy) of solar-wind under favorable lithium-ion battery operating conditions were also computed. Results showed that the variability of GHI, WPD and T2 were lower in the southeastern regions of Australia whilst the intermittency period ranged from a few hours to a number of days. The wind-solar synergy under favorable battery operating conditions also peaked in the eastern regions (32% of the times with episodes of 12–48 h of battery charging). Additionally, for a site in southeastern region, the hybrid PV-W-B system generated extra profits in the wholesale market not only from the wind-solar synergy, but also from the battery optimisation mechanism. Hence, the intermittent solar and wind generation risks can be significantly mitigated by a hybrid PV-W-B system despite the market dynamic being an equally important factor for the profitability.