Variable renewable energy modeling system to study challenges that impact electrical load at different penetration levels: A case study on Kuwait's load profile

Abstract

The transitioning from conventional power systems to variable renewable energy (VRE) could impose significant challenges on transmission, short-term balancing requirements, and more cycling to ramp conventional plants. Kuwait's government has set a target of 15% of electricity generation from renewable resources by 2030 and more in the following years. This ambitious target requires close collaboration between researchers and decision-makers to overcome the upcoming challenges. The current study comes in the context of this objective to support decision-makers technically during planning and deploying VRE plats in various parts of the country. An in-house simulation modeling system for solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power based on high-quality weather data has been developed. The system can model centralized or decentralized VRE scenarios. Several load characteristics have been used to examine the output of the scenario, such as the residual load, impact on the peak, and baseload due to changes in VRE penetration level. Other parameters, including capacity credit, full load hours, ramping power magnitude and rate, and overproduction of resources, are also outputs of the system. The output results of the modeling system have been validated against two years of operational solar PV and wind Shagaya power plants data. The results show combining solar PV with wind could dramatically increase the capacity credit, reduce overproduction, and reduce ramping power. The authors will continue evolve and improve this in-house modeling system to support research in this field and for the upcoming future RE projects instead of relying on commercial software.