This Expert Group Report provides recommendations on how to perform studies of wind and solar PV integration. It is based on more than 10 years of work within the International Energy Agency Wind Technology Collaboration Programme (IEA Wind TCP) Task 25: Design and Operation of Power Systems with Large Amounts of Wind Power and the IEA Photovoltaic Power System Programme (PVPS) TCP Task 14: High Penetration of PV Systems in Electricity Grids.
The report is issued as an IEA Wind TCP Recommended Practices (RP) document to provide research institutes, consultants, and system operators with the best available information on how to perform an integration study. An integration study seeks to find issues to energy systems, as well as mitigation measures, to absorb certain amounts of generation from wind or solar energy. This is the first update of the recommendations, adding solar photovoltaics (PV) to the previous edition on Recommended Practices for Wind Integration Studies. The update also benefits from comprehensive review of recent integration studies based on real integration experiences and improved integration study methodologies for both wind and photovoltaics.
This Expert Group Report describes the methodologies, study assumptions, and inputs needed to conduct a wind and PV integration study. Findings and results from previous wind integration studies are discussed in the summary reports (Holttinen et al. 2009; Holttinen et al 2013; Holttinen et al 2016) and solar integration studies in (PVPS, 2014 and PVPS, 2017).
In RP 16, the Task 25 Expert Group developed a flow chart that outlines the phases of a complete wind integration study. In this second edition, the flow chart has been updated through close collaboration between Task 25 and Task 14 experts and is also applied to integration studies for photovoltaics (see Figure 2). The flow chart describes a comprehensive yet flexible process which can be adapted to the specific objectives and requirements of the individual study. It covers aspects ranging from transmission system integration down to the distribution level, which is of particular relevance for solar PV.
Conducting a full study is a complicated process, especially taking into account all possible iteration loops. It may not be feasible or necessary for all integration studies to perform each phase included in the flow chart. The flow chart shows these relationships and points out the importance of the study set-up assumptions to results. It also allows reviewers to understand what was completed in any particular study and what was not, providing a context for comparison.
