The Capacity Factor of Renewable Energy Power Plants During Electric Power Peak Times in Jeju Island

Abstract

Jeju Island is the largest island of South Korea and has an independent electric supply system. The island has a special energy plan that realizes itself a carbon-free region by 2030. Wind and solar energy resources are considered as an important means. The introduction of weather-variable renewable energy generation sources into the electric power system makes it unstable. The main content of this study was to investigate the capacity factor of large scale renewable energy (solar, wind) power plants operated in Jeju Island during the electric power peak time. We can see their utilization rate or contribution rate during the power peak time by the value of their capacity factors. The largest 18 solar power plants (SPP) and 8 wind power plants (WPP) on the island were chosen and the 4, 12, 25, 50 and 100% electric power peak times were set for this study. There are two electric power peak seasons, summer and winter, in Jeju Island when the electric power demand arrives at peak. Generation of renewable energy plants depends on weather and the climates of the 5 regions of Jeju Island are a little different from one another. So, we investigated the difference between the average capacity factors of the 5 region's renewable plants. WPPs showed a high contribution to the power grid only during winter peak time and SPPs did high contribution to the power grid only during summer peak time, while WPPs showed low contribution to the power grid during summer peak time and SPPs did low contribution to power grid during winter peak time. WPPs and SPPs have intercompensation relation in the aspect to contribute to the power grid.