Assessing Power System Flexibility for Variable Renewable Integration: A Flexibility Metric for Long-Term System Planning

Many countries around the world have instituted policies with the aim of increasing the amount of installed variable generation (VG), such as wind and solar. A consequence of increased penetrations of VG is that changes in their output must be met by the remainder of a system's resources so that the demand-generation balance is maintained. This paper proposes a high-level methodology to assess power system flexibility. In this context, flexibility is the ability of a power system to deploy its resources to meet changes in the system demand and that of variable generation. The inclusion of such analysis at the long-term system planning stage will help to ensure that systems are optimally planned and operated with high levels of VG. Two case studies are presented which illustrate the flexibility assessment methodology and highlight some key issues relating to flexibility in the context of long-term planning.

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