Balancing challenges at larger amounts of variable energy sources power systems

With larger amounts of variable energy production, such as wind or solar, the planning, investments and operation of the power system will change. There are also other changes which will impact the power system such as increased amounts of electric vehicles, use of hydrogen in the industry, cheaper batteries, increase use of ICT systems for monitoring and control and increased amount of power electronics in production, consumption and transmission. The challenges in the power system includes how to balance the system from second to second as well as how to keep a stable voltage for all consumers and producers.

The challenges are technical, but also economical. The economical issue is that the ones who provides a service must either be forced to do this with regulations, or alternatively be incentivized with prices in order to be paid to provide the requested service. The technology is the need, but there are many options, and the set-up is often to use competition so the cheapest solution is found. The aim of the research is mainly to combine the technical requirements with existing or new market solutions in order to estimate how to get a system which has as low costs as possible in combination with high reliability. Current research includes system services, low inertia systems and flexible electric vehicles.

Design and Operation of Energy Systems with Large Amounts of Variable Generation