Low carbon technologies as providers of operational flexibility in future power systems

The paper presents a unit commitment model, based on mixed integer linear programming, capable of assessing the impact of electric vehicles (EV) on provision of ancillary services in power systems with high share of renewable energy sources (RES). The analyses show how role of different conventional units changes with integration of variable and uncertain RES and how introducing a flexible sources on the demand side, in this case EV, impact the traditional provision of spinning/contingency reserve services. In addition, technical constraints of conventional units, such as nuclear, gas or coal, limit the inherit flexibility of the system which results in curtailing clean renewable sources and inefficient operation. Following on that, sensitivity analyses of operational cost and wind curtailment shows which techno-economic constraints impact the flexibility of the high RES systems the most and how integration of more flexible units or decommission of conventional nuclear, coal and gas driven power plants would impact the system’s operation. Finally, two different wind generation polices (wind penalization and wind turbines as reserve providers) have been analysed in terms of operational flexibility through different stages of conventional unit’s decommission and compared with the same analyses when EV were used as reserve providers.