Impact of the Intermittency of Photovoltaic Power Plants on the Frequency Management: Case of the Senegalese Electricity Grid

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of the intermittency of the photovoltaic (PV) power plants on the electric grid frequency management and the consequences that can occur. To meet these purposes, three years data of the Senegalese grid frequency are used, combined with three PV power plants data since their starting-up. Using these data, we analyzed two days of heavily disturbed operation of the Senegalese grid in order to emphasize the real impact of the presence of PV power plants on the electrical grid. Our study has highlighted that how the intermittency of photovoltaic power plants affects frequency management. It obviously appears that the PV production curves follow the irradiation variations. Instantaneous variations of PV production make it difficult to manage the grid frequency leading to more frequent load shedding as we have shown with the data after the commissioning of the PV power plants. We also estimate the power then energy losses during the load shedding induced by the PV integration on the power grid by comparing a period corresponding to one month before (February 2017) and one month after (February 2018) the integration of variable PV production.