This report is an analysis of dispersed solar pv configuration to manage pv variability at Yulara resort.
Report extract
Renewable power generation systems often encounter a concern about variability in their performance. While the use of energy storage, smart control systems and hybrid approaches can pacify the outdated critique that renewables give ‘no power when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow’, a more pressing concern for power infrastructure and the grid is the ‘ups and downs’ of solar and wind resources on a less predictable basis, which is termed ‘variability’.
Renewable power generation systems often encounter a concern about variability in their performance. While the use of energy storage, smart control systems and hybrid approaches can pacify the outdated critique that renewables give ‘no power when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow’, a more pressing concern for power infrastructure and the grid is the ‘ups and downs’ of solar and wind resources on a less predictable basis, which is termed ‘variability’.
Abrupt changes due to intermittent cloud movements, for example, put the onus on other generators, such as gas/diesel reciprocating engines and turbines, to cover loads while renewable resources fluctuate. Sometimes this occurs at start-up rates that are unfeasible to achieve by the standby generators or supporting systems that facilitate the response, potentially resulting in blackouts (cessation of power supply), brownouts (diminution of power supply) or instability of the broader electricity grid depending on its inherent inertia and ability to cope with the fluctuation. Variability is a genuine concern that has impeded the uptake and extent of renewable energy in many power systems.
A design strategy that requires no special or complex infrastructure and equipment, but conscious attention to the physical system layout, can be explored. This much overlooked concept is geographic dispersion: the wide spacing of sections of a renewable power installation so that climate conditions affect different areas of the system at different times, resulting in a net output that has greater power continuity than that of a centralised system.
This vignette examines one solar PV plant in the Northern Territory that embraced this concept from design to operation, comprising five distributed installations in a 1.8 MWP plant located near Uluru (Ayers Rock). While the following discussion focuses on solar PV, its principles also apply to wind energy and other renewable power systems.