Publicações da UE

Generation and system adequacy analysis

Study S04 - Estudo

Metadados da publicação

The primary goal that is sought when designing a power system is to ensure it is able to meet the demand in all but very exceptional situations. Historically, the system adequacy assessment was performed at the national level by comparing the available generation and peak demand for a small number of typical situations. However, modern power systems are characterized by a growing share of variable renewable power generation, which translates into uncertain power output and hence into the ineffectiveness of the way we used to assess system adequacy. New numerical techniques have been developed,... in particular by TSOs, to precisely simulate the operations of the power system for a number of weather scenarios and are the basis of this report. The growing share of variable power generation not only requires new techniques to assess system adequacy, but also questions the geographical scale that should be considered when making this assessment. If the assessment keeps being performed at the national scale, there will be redundant investment in back-up capacities. Indeed these capacities would only be running when renewables cannot deliver enough power. Instead, if the assessment is performed at a regional level, the investment in back-up capacities would be lower since the back-up capacities would be running a greater number of hours due to the fact that renewable power generation and peak demand do not happen at the same time in different countries. This report exhibits the benefits of a regional or European approach to system adequacy.