Reliability of a Power System with High Penetration of Renewables: A Scenario-Based Study

Abstract

Reliability is a crucial consideration in the expansion of generation or transmission in a bulk power system, especially in a power grid with a high penetration of renewables. Reliability indices, such as loss of load probability (LOLP), are generally evaluated to determine the adequacy of a bulk power system in the future. When a Monte-Carlo simulation is conducted to evaluate the LOLP, the computational time is long because chronological time-series data are involved. This work proposes a novel scenario-based method for studying the LOLP in a bulk power system with a high penetration of renewables. Scenarios are generated by aggregating Markov states of hourly loads, photovoltaic power generations and wind power generations. The power flow result in each scenario is examined to ensure power balance among demand, supply and losses, so the LOLP can be obtained. This novel scenario-based method is more efficient than the traditional chronological time-series approach because the number of considered scenarios is much smaller than the number of considered time-series cases. A set of realistic data regarding Taiwan power system, consisting of 2078 buses associated with a peak load of 39.178 GW, wind power of 6.938GW and photovoltaic power of 20 GW in 2025 is used to validate the proposed method.