Power Systems Operations under High Levels of Renewable Generation using Pumped Storage Plants

Abstract

With the increasing penetration of renewable energy in the power generation mix, variability and uncertainty in the scheduling and operation of power systems has increased, making it more difficult to operate power systems reliably. Energy storage technologies are expected to play a critical role in reliable power system operations under increased levels of variability and uncertainty. Unit commitment and economic dispatch are important tools that operators use to ensure reliable power system operations. These must include models of energy storage technologies. For this, a good India-centric model with energy storage should be assessed with increasing penetration level of solar PV. To this end, this stage II dissertation report presents Pump Storage Hydropower (PSH) modeling and identifies the characteristics of PSH plants that are included in the available models and those that are missing but should be included. It also presents an open source tool, Flexible Energy Scheduling Tool for Integrating Variable Generation or FESTIV, where improved PSH model can be added and various aspects such as emissions, production cost, PV curtailment, and reliability of power systems under high levels of renewable energy can be assessed. Using FESTIV and its PSH model, several simulations were performed with solar PV levels up to 45% of peak demand using the IEEE 118 bus system appropriately modified to resemble Indian power system. Simulation results show that PSH can help in reducing solar PV curtailment although the extent of curtailment reduction depends on the flexibility of other generation resources.