Abstract Prince Edward Island, already with the highest wind energy penetration of any province in Canada, aims to increase its renewable energy generation. A challenge is realizing better matching of intermittent wind and solar power with on-island electricity demand. This paper provides an initial perspective by considering the case of a 100% renewable island electricity system. Using time-series power data of wind, solar, and electricity demand for the province, varying capacities of wind and solar power along with battery energy storage and biomass are considered to model 100% renewable electrical energy scenarios. Wind, solar, and storage combinations without curtailment show how complementary supply combinations can reduce seasonal variations. Scenarios including curtailment demonstrate significantly reduced storage requirements. Scenarios that include biomass suggest little benefit in combining biomass and storage. Least-cost solar, wind, and storage capacities are estimated. Potential storage cost reductions appear to be transformative in enabling greater renewable energy integration.
[1]
Danièle Revel,et al.
Renewable energy technologies: cost analysis series
,
2012
.
[2]
P. Gilman,et al.
MICROPOWER SYSTEM MODELING WITH HOMER
,
2005
.
[3]
Felix A. Farret,et al.
Micropower System Modeling with Homer
,
2006
.
[4]
M. Hand,et al.
2013 Cost of Wind Energy Review
,
2015
.
[5]
Matthew Hall,et al.
A Cumulative Multi-Niching Genetic Algorithm for Multimodal Function Optimization
,
2013,
ArXiv.
[6]
K. Hollands,et al.
A method to generate synthetic hourly solar radiation globally
,
1990
.
[7]
Dan Wang,et al.
Integrating renewable energy using a smart distribution system: Potential of self-regulating demand response
,
2013
.
[8]
R. Margolis,et al.
U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System Cost Benchmark: Q1 2018
,
2016
.
[9]
C. Field,et al.
Biomass energy: the scale of the potential resource.
,
2008,
Trends in ecology & evolution.
[10]
F. MacKinnon.
The Government of Prince Edward Island
,
1951
.