Reviews on characteristic of renewables: Evaluating the variability and complementarity

Yan, Jie; Qu, Tonghui; Han, Soonhung; Liu, Yongqian; Lei, Xiaohui; Wang, Hao

doi:10.1002/2050-7038.12281

“…For the temporal complementarity ('understood as a phenomenon when variable renewable energy sources' exhibit periods of availability which are complementary in the time domain' [23]), an index based on the Spearman coefficient of correlation (Equation (2)) was selected, as correlation coefficients are metrics commonly applied in the literature [23,25]. The major benefits of this metric are its straightforward calculation and easy interpretation.…”

Section: Temporal Complementaritymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Four recently published review articles [23][24][25][26] have archived, analyzed and discussed the concept of renewable energy source complementarity. The reviews indicate that, in recent years, significant effort has been dedicated to understanding, quantifying, visualizing and interpreting the meaning of the complementarity concept.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complementarity and ‘Resource Droughts’ of Solar and Wind Energy in Poland: An ERA5-Based Analysis

Jurasz

¹

,

Mikulik

²

,

Dąbek

³

et al. 2021

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In recent years, Poland has experienced a significant increase in the installed capacity of solar and wind power plants. Renewables are gaining increasing interest not only because of Poland’s obligations to European Union policies, but also because they are becoming cheaper. Wind and solar energy are fairly-well investigated technologies in Poland and new reports are quite frequently added to the existing research works documenting their potential and the issues related to their use. In this article, we analyze the spatial and temporal behavior of solar and wind resources based on reanalysis datasets from ERA5. This reanalysis has been selected because it has appropriate spatial and temporal resolution and fits the field measurements well. The presented analysis focuses only on the availability of energy potential/resources, so characteristics intrinsic to energy conversion (like wind turbine power curve) were not considered. The analysis considered the last 40 years (1980–2019) of available data. The Spearman coefficient of correlation was considered as a complementarity metric, and the Mann–Kendal test was used to assess the statistical significance of trends. The results revealed that: The temporal complementarity between solar and wind resources exists mostly on a seasonal scale and is almost negligible for daily and hourly observations. Moreover, solar and wind resources in joint operation exhibit a smoother availability pattern (assessed based on coefficient of variation). Further findings show that the probability of ‘resource droughts’ (periods when cumulative generation was less than arbitrary threshold) lasting one day is 11.5% for solar resources, 21.3% for wind resources and only 6.2% if both resources are considered in a joint resource evaluation. This situation strongly favors the growth of local hybrid systems, as their combined power output would exhibit lower variability and intermittency, thus decreasing storage demand and/or smoothing power system operation.

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“…Additionally, correlation within a resource across space or correlation between wind and solar resources, represents a challenge to robust, continuous generation of electricity because a reduction in one resource would imply a simultaneous reduction in others (Shaner et al, 2018). Thus, the ability to transmit electricity over large geographic areas is advantageous not only because it is most economically efficient to site wind and solar farms at relatively remote locations where it is climatologically windiest and sunniest, but also because pooling resources over large areas reduces the correlation between and within resources, making the total energy supply less variable (Jurasz et al, 2020;Jurasz et al, 2021;Rinaldi et al, 2021;Solomon et al, 2020;Weschenfelder et al, 2020;Yan et al, 2020).…”

Section: Challenges Associated With Wind and Solar Variability Electricity Demanded Bymentioning

confidence: 99%

Meteorology and Climatology of Historical Weekly Wind and Solar Power Resource Droughts over western North America in ERA5

Brown

¹

,

Farnham

²

,

Caldeira

³

2021

Preprint

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Wind and solar electricity generation is projected to expand substantially over the next several decades due both to rapid cost declines as well as regulation designed to achieve climate targets. With increasing reliance on wind and solar generation, future energy systems may be vulnerable to previously underappreciated synoptic-scale variations characterized by low wind and/or surface solar radiation. Here we use western North America as a case study region to investigate the historical meteorology of weekly-scale “droughts” in potential wind power, potential solar power and their compound occurrence. We also investigate the covariability between wind and solar droughts with potential stresses on energy demand due to temperature deviations away human comfort levels. We find that wind power drought weeks tend to occur in late summer and are characterized by a mid-level atmospheric ridge centered over British Columbia and high sea level pressure on the lee side of the Rockies. Solar power drought weeks tend to occur near winter solstice when the seasonal minimum in incoming solar radiation co-occurs with the tendency for mid-level troughs and low pressure systems over the U.S. southwest. Compound wind and solar power drought weeks consist of the aforementioned synoptic pattern associated with wind droughts occurring near winter solstice when the solar resource is at its seasonal minimum. We find that wind drought weeks are associated with high solar power (and vice versa) both seasonally and in terms of synoptic meteorology, which supports the notion that wind and solar power generation can play complementary roles in a diversified energy portfolio at synoptic spatiotemporal scales over Western North America.

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“…Additionally, correlation within a resource across space or correlation between wind and solar resources, represents a challenge to robust, continuous generation of electricity because a reduction in one resource would typically be associated with a simultaneous reduction in the other [12]. Thus, the ability to transmit electricity over large geographic areas is advantageous not only because it is most economically efficient to site wind and solar farms at relatively remote locations where it is climatologically windiest and sunniest, but also because pooling resources over large areas reduces the correlation between and within resources, making the total energy supply less variable [18][19][20][21][22][23].…”

Section: Challenges Associated With Wind and Solar Variabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Meteorology and climatology of historical weekly wind and solar power resource droughts over western North America in ERA5

Brown

¹

,

Farnham

²

,

Caldeira

³

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wind and solar electricity generation is projected to expand substantially over the next several decades due both to rapid cost declines as well as regulation designed to achieve climate targets. With increasing reliance on wind and solar generation, future energy systems may be vulnerable to previously underappreciated synoptic-scale variations characterized by low wind and/or surface solar radiation. Here we use western North America as a case study region to investigate the historical meteorology of weekly-scale “droughts” in potential wind power, potential solar power and their compound occurrence. We also investigate the covariability between wind and solar droughts with potential stresses on energy demand due to temperature deviations away human comfort levels. We find that wind power drought weeks tend to occur in late summer and are characterized by a mid-level atmospheric ridge centered over British Columbia and high sea level pressure on the lee side of the Rockies. Solar power drought weeks tend to occur near winter solstice when the seasonal minimum in incoming solar radiation co-occurs with the tendency for mid-level troughs and low pressure systems over the U.S. southwest. Compound wind and solar power drought weeks consist of the aforementioned synoptic pattern associated with wind droughts occurring near winter solstice when the solar resource is at its seasonal minimum. We find that wind drought weeks are associated with high solar power (and vice versa) both seasonally and in terms of synoptic meteorology, which supports the notion that wind and solar power generation can play complementary roles in a diversified energy portfolio at synoptic spatiotemporal scales over western North America.

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Reviews on characteristic of renewables: Evaluating the variability and complementarity

Cited by 30 publications

References 136 publications

Complementarity and ‘Resource Droughts’ of Solar and Wind Energy in Poland: An ERA5-Based Analysis

Complementarity and ‘Resource Droughts’ of Solar and Wind Energy in Poland: An ERA5-Based Analysis

Meteorology and Climatology of Historical Weekly Wind and Solar Power Resource Droughts over western North America in ERA5

Meteorology and climatology of historical weekly wind and solar power resource droughts over western North America in ERA5

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